Robert, I think I should write a little more.  I had a call from a new to New Mexico land owner.  Asked me what a survey would cost and after I told him I got a ear full of how much cheaper they were in Ohio.  What he didn't understand is that Ohio has been surveyd to death.  Many areas of New Mexico have not seen a surveyor for over 100 years.  Currently I am working on a job that the last time it was surveyed was in 1859.  That being said, a lot can happen to the title of land in 147 years.  Lots of easements, quit claim deeds and other agreements that relate to title.  I would be nuts to just look at the title for five years, as may title companies do. 
Along the same lines, many territorial county comissions passed rullings regarding "section line easement" that may or may not be valid since the county boundaries have changed several times over the last 104 years.  Even title records are mixed up since not everything got transfered when the boundaries changed.  Let along our infamous county court house raids where citizens of one town would raid another town and remove all the court house recoreds so they could declair they were now the county seat. 
Case in point on the research end.  I had a contract to survey some rural property that over the years had been in three different counties.  The un-named title companys abstractor provided me with a letter lising all the documents they had recovered.  By the end of the day I generated four legal size pages listing all the relavant title documents.  When your abstractors office is 2000 miles from the property, obtaining all the relevant doucments is close to impossible.