You can do it yourself, but you're probably going to spend a lot of time in the county clerk's office searching property records. If the folks in the clerk's office are helpful, they can explain how the records are maintained and how you follow the trail of ownership back to original platting. In the early 1970s, I bought a house and the seller gave a title abstract that had been done in the 1960s. When I sold the house a few years later, I gave the buyer that same abstract.