The Marengo County Revenue Commissioner’s office is working to make it easier to view old deed references for county properties.

Sharon Barkley’s office began a two-year process in November of scanning its historic Property Record Cards into their system to be uploaded to the county’s GIS website. There are more than 21,000 parcels for the county.

“Right now, we only have current deed references online, dating back to 2008,” Barkley said. “A lot of people need access to older information, and by putting all of this online, it will help make that an easier process.”

The PRC’s have previous ownership information, building values at different times and many other things that are useful to bankers, realtors, appraisers, attorneys and even individuals who are interested in family history.

“Each parcel has multiple pages attached to it with different information,” Barkley added. “Some properties have three to four pages and some have 20 or more. We only have one scanner and one lady doing the scanning, so it will be about a two-year process.”

Barkley said the county appraiser is also working on taking pictures of each building on the parcels so that can be linked to the parcels online as well.

“With the new software we started using last year, it gives us the ability to add pictures to the parcels online,” Barkley said.

She added that parcels would be added to the GIS website in increments.

“Once they’re scanned, we’ll upload the PRC’s in increments,” she said. “For every 1,000 we scan, we’ll probably upload them. We’re working through them in order and will complete them as we get to them.”

Barkley said there are some other counties in Alabama that have this system in place, but she felt that it’s only a handful.

“Some counties have done away with the hard copy of the card, but we aren’t going to do that,” Barkley said. “I want to keep the hard copies, but I want to have them backed up and accessible for the public.”

The county GIS website can be accessed through the county site, www.marengocountyal.com or directly at www.alabamagis.com/marengo.