Available Records of the Weber County Surveyor's Office

FILED SURVEY'S

These are records which private surveyors have placed on public record as required by law (Utah Code 17-23-17). It was not until April 1987 that the legislature made it mandatory that surveyors file their work with the County Surveyor's Office. Prior to the requirement surveyor's maintained their own files and records of surveys which they have performed. If your property has been surveyed the County Surveyor's records are a good place to begin looking for a record of that work. If there is not a filed record of the survey and you can find out who the surveyor was that did your survey you could check with him/her to see if you can obtain a copy for your needs and encourage them to file it as well. In any event, it would be wise to discuss the details of the survey with the particular firm that did the work. They can give you details about the survey that you can not get anywhere else.

TIE SHEET DATA

This data is more useful to an experienced surveyor than the general public. The sheet contains data that can be utilized by the surveyor to find a survey monument that they may need in their work. The data sheets contain information on the location of a particular survey monument. Historical locations of the same monument as a pedigree to help the surveyor in evaluating the relevance of that particular monument to the property they are surveying. The status of the monument at the last visit of the County Surveyor's staff for up date purposes would generally be identified on the sheet. The type of construction and markings on the monument. The Utah State Plane Coordinate values as maintained by the Weber County Surveyor's Office, along with the survey datum which the coordinates are associated with. Bearings to sighting towers if any are visible from that monument and data on reference monuments and witness monuments if there are any for that location would also be recorded on the data sheet.

RECORDS OF GOVERNMENT SURVEYS

The County Surveyor's Office is required by law (Utah Code 17-23) to maintain a record of all surveys that are preformed by the office. We have records which date back to the 1850's of certain areas of Weber County. These are in the form of field note books, linens, paper maps and bound plat books. Some of these records are readily available and copies can be made, some are more difficult to copy than others are, at this time, the bound plat books are nearly impossible to copy. Indexing of these records are being computerized and when completed the information will be available at the push of a button on our web site but like all things this takes time and money.

This office also has data available from the Department of the Interior, Buerau of Land Management (BLM) which they have filed in this office of their survey activities in Weber County. This information is contained on micro-fich cards and some hard copy plats.  We have also made scanned images of the information and are in the process of preparing the digital data for display over this web site.

GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES

Geographic coordinates are the X, Y and Z values of a particular survey monument. In this world a geographic coordinate can be established for almost anything that can be imagined. For instance: 
U.S. Coast & Geodetic triangulation survey control monuments, 
State & County survey triangulation control monuments, 
Private Surveyor control point monuments, 
Section Corner Monuments, 
Witness Corner Monuments, 
Reference Monuments, 
Meander Corner Monuments, 
Closing Corner Monuments, 
Private Property Corner Monuments, 
Street Monuments, 
State Highway Right of way Monuments, 
Public Transportation & Utility Corridor Monuments, etc., 
fence lines, curb & gutter, ditches, edge of asphalt, sidewalks, bike paths, hiking trails, highway paint markings (for traffic safety evaluation), manholes, utility valves, utility piping, utility poles, traffic signals, signs, park benches, bus stations, buildings, windows, doors, and the list just goes on and on. 
Basically anything that can be measured by a surveyor can be assigned a coordinate value. Those items in purple above are ones that the County Surveyor either maintains or has the ability to obtain information on for land surveyors. The other items are information which the County may have in specific areas that the data has been collected in connection with a county survey project which the office has been working on.

This information can be in the form of Weber County NAD27 State Plane Grid Coordinates on older monuments and corners. The NAD27 survey system is a U.S. Survey Foot based system. The surveyor's office is in the process of updating all of the control and section monumentation to the NAD83 coordinate base which is a metric based system of measurement.  This system is used by Global Positioning Systems (GPS satillite surveying technologies). This satellite data comes in the form of World Geographic Reference System of 1980 (WGRS80) and can be converted into the NAD83 State Plane Grid coordinates system. The WGRS80 is based on Latitude and Longitude measurements of points on the earth surface and are called geographic coordinates. These geographic coordinates can then be converted to an X, Y and Z system which the private surveyor can utilize in their every day work.

It is becoming increasingly popular for the general public to utilize these coordinate systems.  Sportsmen to locate hunting and fishing spots.  Travelers use either a hand held GPS system or the Automobile Manufacturer has built on into their vehicle to navigate their way around the country.  Airplanes are utilizing the technology for navigation, as well as ships and submarines.  The Federal Government utilizes coordinate systems in times of war to direct battle field operations and in times of peace for training of our troups and development of defensive systems.  Police, Fire, Ambulance and other emergency service agencies are utilizing this technology to improve their ability to do their job.  Public agencies are using it to maintain inventories of public infrastructure.

In some way GPS and the Coordinate System touches each of us.

ELEVATION BENCH MARKS

The Weber County Surveyor's Office maintains a network of elevation monuments that are tied to the NGVD29 elevation datum (the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929). The data contains a short 'to reach' narrative for locating the monument, the stamping of the monument with it's county designation, and the elevation of the point. There are maps showing the approximate locations of these monuments for both the Lower Valley (Ogden City and points west) and the Ogden Valley (Huntsville vicinity).

These elevations were derived by differential leveling methods. Closed circuits were ran and any slight closing errors were adjusted through the traverse. The field procedures also were performed using a micrometer on the elevation rod and a Wild NA2 level.  The micrometer made it possible to read the values directly to the thousandth of a foot.

These monuments are also being surveyed using G.P.S. satellite technology which will not only help in the elevation modeling of the county but will also place valid X and Y coordinates on the monuments which will be of value to the surveying profession, which they do not as yet have. This process will take time to complete, with the current resources which this office has at it's disposal this data is being collected in conjunction with other projects which, over time, will make this data available to the surveying profession. As it becomes available Bench Mark Tie Sheets will be made and the data will be posted on this web site as well as being available in the office.

This bench mark system will also be re-surveyed using the latest elevational equipment and technology for differential leveling operations.  This office has acquired electronic digital leveling instrumentation which will be utilized with an invar elevation measuring rod.  This is being worked on and as the results are available the bench mark tie sheets will be updated and posted on this site.