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The Chicago Title and Trust Books in the Calumet Regional Archives
(Formerly known as Lake County Title & Guaranty Company)

The Calumet Regional Archives holds over 2000 volumes from the Chicago Title and Trust Company’s Crown Point, Indiana, office. These books contain “carbon copies” of the various titles, deeds, guardianships, wills and estates of many properties in Lake County, Indiana.

An abstract of a legal title is a document that confirms that a person or business actually owns a property, and a company that searches and records such title deeds is known as a title company. In Northwest Indiana, we have examples such as Ticor Title and Chicago Title and Trust (the latter being national in scope). Besides finding deeds, title companies also find information on pending litigations, back taxes, first and second mortgages, debt, mechanical liens, and, in some cases, personal property information.

In the case of the Archive's holdings, a record in these volumes may contain one bit of information or many pieces of data from transactions and in rare cases a plat map may be included. Although the abstracts were recorded around the turn of the 20th Century, the information may go back to formation of Lake County in the 1830’s.

The data contained in these volumes can be of great interest to genealogists and historians. Thanks to the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society, and Archives volunteers, the Archives has been able to preserve these books and information such as property holders’ last names, first names, title (if applicable), companies and officer’s names and titles, if given. A plat map may be included in the title.

Volunteers have begun a project to photograph each page of a book and store the digital images for posterity. In addition, NWIGS volunteers have started to index the digitized volumes for retrieval by researchers.

Following is a table of abbreviations used in this index:

ABS – Abstractor
ANM – Administrator
AFF – Affidavit
APP – Appraiser
ARC – Architect
Atty – Attorney
AUD – Auditor
CLK – Clerk
COM – Commissioner
DEP – Deputy
ENG – Engineer
JP – Justice of the Peace
JUD – Judge
PW – Board of Public Works
REC – Recorder
SHE – Sheriff
SUR – Surveyor
TRE – Treasurer
TRU – Trustee
WIT - Witness

If you are interested in obtaining additional information, then please complete the request form to receive a quote for the abstract. Some pages that might be illegible would not be charged for in the quote.

The Notary Publics and Businesses with officers, when given, are listed alphabetically one time and are in separate tables.