About Parcel Chronicle
You know your land. You know where the fence leans, which corner stays wet, and where the blackberries are winning.
But do you know its backstory?
Land doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. It does come with a history, and Parcel Chronicle helps you explore it. Mark where your land is, then dig in: surveys, land patents, maps, soils, and the stories that belong with a place. It’s history you can stand on.
Who built this
Dr. Dave Sullivan and Dr. Bob Zybach both love history, and they wanted a way for property owners to understand the history of their own land. So they set out to build one.
Dave Sullivan, Ph.D.
Dave is a retired Professor of Business at Oregon State University. He taught information systems at OSU’s College of Business for twenty-five years and holds an emeritus appointment there. Earlier, he was a finance manager at Tektronix.
He founded America’s School Trust Library in 2026 and is president of Oregon Advocates for School Trust Lands, a separate advocacy organization. He lives with his wife Barb on their tree farm in Kings Valley, Oregon, which makes him a landowner, too.
Bob Zybach, Ph.D.
Bob is a forest and wildfire historian. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Oregon State University and has spent decades researching Pacific Northwest forest history, wildfire history, and Indigenous burning practices.
He cofounded the Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project (ORWW), which helps Oregon students, teachers, residents, and resource managers document and understand the region’s forest landscape. He is also a cofounder of Phoenix Reforestation.
The research method this desk follows is Bob’s. Read how we research.
How the desk works
You pin a place or draw its outline. Software looks up the survey grid for that spot (the township, range and section from the Bureau of Land Management’s public survey map) and builds a free Surveyor’s Walk card for the section. The card is public and shows the section, never your pin.
Then you ask your own question. The same software assembles a one-page brief from the sources it can reach: the survey grid, the school-land laws, old maps, place names, the federal land-cession record, and anything you add to your folder. Each finding names its source. The brief also lists what the record can’t say and what to look up next.
Everything you add stays in your private land folder unless you choose to publish it or give a copy to the Library.
What the AI does, and what it doesn’t
The Reference Desk is an AI assistant. It follows Dr. Bob Zybach’s published research method. It is not Bob, and he has not checked its answers.
- It answers only from the records and notes it is given, and lists its sources with every answer.
- When the record is silent, it says “The record doesn’t show this.” and suggests where to look next.
- It does not invent names, dates, acreages, citations or links, and it gives no title or legal advice.
Every finding, and every passage written by AI, says who made it: “Assembled by software”, “Written by AI”, or “Added by the owner”. A “Checked by” stamp appears only where a person has actually checked the page.
Historical research, not title research
Parcel Chronicle tells the story of a piece of ground: how the surveyors described it, who claimed it first, what grew there and how it was used. It does not tell you who owns land today, where a legal boundary runs, or whether a title is clear. Those are questions for a title company, a licensed land surveyor or an attorney. We point you to the records and help you read them.
Where this is going
The site you are using is a prototype. It is expected to be folded into America’s School Trust Library as its Land History Room, curated by Dr. Bob Zybach as the reference librarian.
In the meantime, go mark your land and see what its history has to say. The blackberries can wait.