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Fayette County records at the Courthouse are very good.
The type of land record you ask about is often called a 'Tract Index'. As far as I know Fayette Co. does not have such a thing. The old Northwest Territory lands were largely surveyed before people bought up the acreages by Township, Range, Section, Quarter-section, etc. The original states' lands were not pre-organized this way at all. The folks in PA did not buy and sell by neat section and quarter-section at all, but usually in jagged pieces of jagged original whole tracts. Over the years parcels could be combined and then subdivided again, so the original lines of a given tract may lose all meaning; there was no overall organizational scheme for the lands.
But see below.
Wills and estates records since 1783 when the County was formed.
Land records since County formation.
For tax assessment rolls you are better off to go to the Library in Uniontown which has them on microfilm. They are arranged by Township so you need a very clear idea of Township changes over the years, and who you are looking for and when. While the original assessment rolls are in the Courthouse, they are hard to find and hard to use because they are in a totally disorganized mess. You do *not* want the book published with abstracts, you want to look at the actual rolls.
Original State grants to County lands are on the internet at
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=1593&&level=1&menuLevel=Level_1&parentCommID=0&mode=2&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true
click on 'Digital Documents' link on the left and look at the Warrants records as well as the Patents records. Note that the listings are subdivided by time periods and include all Counties within each alphabetical group. But they are quite readable.
The PA Historical and Museum Commission some decades ago drew up Warrantee Survey Maps by Township, for most PA Counties. You can purchase a blueprint copy of each present Township's Warrantee map for several dollars (I don't know what the current price is but it is posted on the above site).
A counterpart to these Warrantee maps is in the Fayette Co. Courthouse Survey Books, arranged pretty much by neighborhood, but the books are not especially arranged by Township. There are indexes to them. But since what is incuded in each book ranges from a multi-tract snapshot of a given area to individual surveys, you can't really write for them--they are best seen in person. But if your ancestors go back that far in Fayette Co. you will find the Warrantee Maps from the Archives helpful since they show who the original neighbors were.
The lists of Warrants and Surveys give the book and page numbers for each tract, which are the book:page number by which to write to the Archives in Harrisburg for the original Warrant, the Survey and the Patent. These were not recorded as such in the County Deeds, but there are Land Entry Books that give related information in the Register of Deeds' office.
Again depending on the time frame of interest, in the 1780s VA also granted some lands supposedly in Monongalia Co. that turned out to be actually in PA. You can find these grants indexed on the Library of Virginia web site, under land grants in their main menu. For these lands there are also Land Entry books in the Courthouse in Morgantown, together with copies of the original surveys. Some of these lands were first sold by deeds recorded in Morgantown as well, although when the land records begin (1796, after the County Deeds burned in the Clerk's shed) it was clear to nearly everyone that the lands were actually on the PA side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Hope this helps.
Jade
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