My Brother and I are new to real estate investing.  while driving for dollars, using a list we got from auctions.com, we came upon a house.

we were looking around, it had several notices on the door, yard unkempt, interior (from the windows) looked like they had just picked up and left.

we found a fed-ex (very weathered) package by the door.  got a name off of it.

talked to the neighbors, found out the gentlemen had died 2 years ago.  (august 2014) nobody there since then

so i looked up the obit,  found it.  found next of kin ( a daughter and his mother).

i found the daughter on face book.

they both still live in the area, as far as i can tell.

there is a sheriff sale auction set for January 19, 2017.

i looked up the deed and as far as i can tell there is just one.  from 2001.

on the auction.com report there are things called 

mortgage assignment 5/22/2015   251,300$

mortgage assignment 11/19/2014  251,300$

Mortgage release 7/5/2011 282,000$

mortgage record 6/15/2011 251,300$

mortgage record 10/2/2006 30,000$

mortgage record 4/3/2006 20000$

....  several more, what look like hel's

and the orginal  from 10/9/2001 193000$   - which is the one i found in the county records.

2 questions...   what are the mortage assignments and releases?

and also

   should I/ Can I contact them 

TIA

A release is when a mtg is paid off.

An assignment is when one bank sells the note to another.

From what you posted, it looks like there is  the mtg from 06/15/11 that was originally for $251,300.  The reason there is a release shortly after that mtg is because a mtg is recorded immediately, but the release from prior mtg.s (which were paid off with the new mtg) don't get recorded for a couple of weeks since the mtg holder has to receive the pay off, execute a release, then mail it in to be recorded.

The balance now remaining on that $251,000 mtg that is being foreclosed on depends on how long since they quit paying on it.

Are you looking up the abstract of title which is the history of items recorded against the property?

The list from Auction.com looks like it.  You may be looking at some tax roll summary that only has the first instrument recorded when title changed hands to its current owner.

My guess is that there is a single mortgage on the property from 2011 for $251,300 that was sold twice in the secondary market.

Without seeing the full abstract, you can't know for sure.