SCOTLAND COUNTY 1858 PLAT MAP
Plat maps show all the land of the county, as well as the owner of the land. It is assumed that this map was prepared about 1858 from the legal ownership of land as shown in the official real estate records for Scotland County, Missouri. Please note that these maps show who owned the land, not who lived there, if anyone. In many cases, the owner may have lived elsewhere and simply rented the land to someone else.
In your search for your ancestors, you may also want to check out the government site for Land Patents. Here is the link to that site. When land was first purchased from the United States government at a land office (in the case of Scotland County land, the land office was in Palmyra, Missouri), a Deed of Entry was issued. Then when the purchaser took possession of the land, a Land Patent was issued. The Patent is the official document that transferred title to the first owner. On the Land Patent site, you can see a copy of the original Patent. Title examiners, who knew what they were doing, would required the Patent to be recorded and shown of record in order to pass on the good title to the property when the first owner later sold it. (In some cases, the title examiner would make a requirement that the Patent be obtained and recorded years after the original purchase. Back when I was giving title opinions a few years ago, I was still running into cases where the Land Patent had not been filed) That's not to say that there aren't exceptions