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Ever wonder who owned your property back in 1788? Or maybe who was the largest county landowner in 1876, complete with every stitch of his property including the names of his farm animals?

A history of Allegheny County's earliest landowners from the time of William Penn now is available on the Internet as part of efforts by county Recorder of Deeds Valerie McDonald to preserve the county's most historic documents.

The county warrantee atlas, a 1914 book crumbling from years of indiscriminate storage and handling at the deeds office Downtown, is online as part of the Pittsburgh Digital Warehouse of the University of Pittsburgh.

By going to

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps, history buffs can see maps showing the county's first landowners, who got the land from the state Legislature after the Revolutionary War and after it had been deeded to the Commonwealth by William Penn and his descendents.

"This complements some of the (newer) maps that we are providing access to on our site," said Edward Galloway, digital library coordinator. "Now the citizens of Allegheny County and the world have access to this data."

"We are very pleased that Pitt has done this for us," McDonald said. "This is good information for genealogists and people who are curious about the history of our area."

McDonald's office also has versions of the atlas on CD-ROM, so people who come into her office can view it using a computer without having to touch the book.

McDonald said her office will replace its 1986-era public computer terminals with new PCs in January. "What we want to do is take the old material and preserve it in a new format," she said.

In the hopes of preserving some of her department's most fragile historical records, McDonald, who came into office in January, also convinced the Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center to accept other historical county records at risk of deterioration, including:

= Petitions from women from 1875 to 1956 who wanted court-recognized status as "femme sole traders," meaning they could hold earnings separate from their husbands. The first entry in the book is from a woman who wanted the status because of the "losses and misfortunes" of her husband.

= Land deeds from the founding of the county in 1788 through 1894 that show the earliest land transactions and include the first deed issued in the county, on Nov. 13, 1788, for 250 acres to Sgt. John Nicholson, a Revolutionary War soldier.

= Mortgage records from 1876 to 1960 that include a number of Farm Credit Bureau requests made during the Great Depression and property descriptions down to the names of horses and cows.

The history center also provided its copy of the county warrantee atlas, which was in much better shape than the county's, to be digitized and placed on the Pittsburgh Digital Warehouse Web site.

"We are very pleased to receive some of these extraordinary and unique records from the county, particularly from the women's history angle," said history center Chief Executive and President Andy Masich. "Women were in many ways invisible in the historical record during the 18th and 19th centuries. These documents are a window on the world of female entrepreneurs."

McDonald said she is "very pleased to have found a home for these documents that has the capability to adequately care for them. We are not climate-controlled here."

History Center archivist Steve Doell said the county records will be kept in storage as part of the center's permanent collection, which is kept at a constant 65 degrees in 45 percent humidity.

Under an agreement with McDonald's office, the county records are available for public research during regular library hours Tuesdays through Saturdays. The library is part of the center, which is on Smallman Street between 12th and 13th streets in the Strip District.

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