Survey monuments are examples of evidence that supports or contradicts your opinion of a boundary.
The hierarchy of evidence is natural boundaries, original monuments in their original position, longstanding occupation relating back in time to when the boundaries were known and lastly dimensions, including distances, directions, and areas.
Early in the settlement of Ontario, examples of original monuments might include cut stone monuments, wood stakes, iron pipes, axles and perhaps a tree or almost just about any other thing that someone can point to and unequivocally say “that thing was set in that location when our boundary was established to serve as a marker of mine and my neighbour’s corner.
More recently, changes in legislation require that parcels established by some action of the Planning Act, require a reference plan (e. g. a land severance) or a plan of subdivision. In turn, reference plans and plans of subdivision have codified requirements for monumentation and monument type as set out in O. Reg. 525/91, s. 2 (10). When one of the monuments referred to in the regulation, with the exception of a cut cross is set, the monument must be stamped with the surveyor or firm’s identification or marked on a tag or cap permanently attached to the monument.
The performance standards for the practice of professional land surveying, O. Reg 216/10 at section 8 subsection (b) requires that a surveyor carry out a thorough field investigation for the best available evidence of all lines, boundaries, and corners of the land under survey; and further in subsection (c) give priority to the evidence in accordance with common law and statute law. In order to weigh evidence and give priority to one evidence over another evidence, it would require one to know the ‘provenance’ of the evidence under assessment.
A quick Google search defines provenance as follows: “Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object”. It goes on to say... “Provenance is conceptually comparable to the legal term, chain of custody.”
During the reconnaissance portion of a retracement survey, it is not unusual to find what appears to be a survey monument in a location that is unsupported by any documentary evidence obtained during a thorough search at the Land Registry office, the Provincial Survey Records Index, your own notes and records as well as those of surveyors who usually practice in the area of your survey. If a careful examination of the purported survey monument as well as discussions with the adjoining land owners provides no further information as to its origin or provenance, in my mind, such a monument would fall under the category of “Origin unknown” or OU. In these instances, I would be somewhat skeptical before accepting that what was found was indeed a survey monument and evidence of the boundary under survey without any further corroboration.
On the other hand, if the found monument is referred to in a deed or appears in old notes and records and after a careful examination of the survey monument there was no identification discernable, to me such a monument would be identified as such – that is NI.
Upon reflection, one can see why it is necessary to take the time to positively identify the source and/or provenance of a found survey monument in the field at the time of the survey and identify it as such on the field notes.
