The 16th Section of each township was originally set aside for the funding of public education, but a later Act authorized the State Of Alabama to sell these lands. The patents for these lands can be searched.
These records are arranged by Book and page number in eight volumes. To determine the volume and page number the land patent has been recorded in, search the Tractbooks for 16th Section entries.
If you select just the volume number, all available pages will be returned in the results.
Clicking on the page number in the results takes you to the disclaimer page – these images are for personal use and cannot be used as evidence in a court of law.
If you accept and check the box, you can select “view image” but there is still another page between you and the land patent.
This page tells you how many pages your record is, how large the document is and an estimate of the download time.
You click continue and your record will pop up in a new window.
Go to 16th Section Land Patents
The patent records here are available in PDF format, so make sure you have the free Acrobat Reader installed before you start.