McKownville Improvement Association
- property deeds and transactions of the McKown family in McKownville 1796-1928


scan image
        of beginning of will of William McKown
William McKown (1763-1843) began purchasing property in the area of McKownville and vicinity in 1797, and by the end of his life had accumulated perhaps as much as 1400 acres locally, and had also purchased around 700 acres more land, located in Berne, and in Schoharie and Montgomery Counties.
It can be quite difficult to determine which of his descendants obtained particular portions of this property, and when and to whom it was sold or inherited. This is also complicated by confusion of similarly named individuals living during the mid-19th century, for instance William J McKown and William McKown, or James French McKown and James Francis McKown, easy to confuse if the middle name is not given in full, or omitted entirely. If you wish to see the family relationships, there's a McKown family tree and ged file linked on that page that we have compiled to help you!
So having done the historical digging in the deed books and microfilms at the Albany County Hall of Records, and also unearthing wills obtained online, we constructed compilation lists of these numerous documents with links to files of the scanned or photographed images, and to text transcriptions in the instances we have made such from the images.
There are also other individuals listed for the properties of an area central to McKownville, parcel 1 of the Gore, first partitioned by Commissioners in 1807; William McKown obtained a generous share of this area, but others obtained pieces of it. The numerous later transactions of sale and inheritance can make tracing the older ownership of properties adjacent to Western Avenue quite challenging.

For the McKown family:
William McKown property dealings 1795-1835    
John McKown property dealings 1810-1870   
James French McKown and son William McKown property transactions 1870-1930  

and for the Gore
McKown property transactions related to the Gore lots 1789-1870  
property transactions of lots 1-11 (parcel 1) of the Gore 1807-1921 (in preparation 11/23)

for the Great Western Turnpike  
property records in Albany County for the First Great Western Turnpike Company  

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