Mention these names to the neighbors. Finding people who have lived in the same neighborhood for a long times can be difficult. Historically, people moved within a smaller radius.
People stayed geographically closer, even with generations within the same town. But that is usually not the case nowadays. For example, I grew up in the same town as my parents, my grandparents, and where my great-grandparents settled after they emigrated from Europe in the early s. But now with people moving more often I no longer live in that town , this type of local institutional is unfortunately lost.
Most of my neighbors are fairly new to the neighborhood i. There is one exception — an older couple who had lived there for about 40 years. I found out the following:. Past owners are a treasure trough of information on the house — the Holy Grail, in my opinion.
You should already have the list of previous owners obtained from creating a chain-of-title. Next is trying to find their current contact info. Technology: In this day and age of social media and on-line databases, you should be able to find someone fairly easily. There are a variety of ways paid and free to find people on the internet. Some free options:. Ask your neighbors, ask friends in the community that have roots in your community. Do they know past owners?
Are they still in direct communication with them? You never know who-knows-who. This method will probably get your more favorable results versus technology that is more of a cold call versus an introduction from someone they know. However the best way in most scenarios to get something you want or need from someone is to give them something they want or need. What does that mean? Send them a current picture of the house.
This will give you credibility as well as pique their interest. Have a bit of a dialogue. Maybe further your conversations via phone.
People are curious. But note, a downside of inviting past owners over is opening yourself up to criticism.
Prepare yourself for some negative comments. Once you have their attention, what do you want to ask? What do you want to know? Quite frankly, this depends on your wants and needs. Are you looking for physical history i.
Do you have a specific question — i. Or maybe you just want a general conversation on the house. Also, do they have any pictures of the house during their ownership they are willing to share? But I bumped into one or rather a group of sisters who grew up in the house. A few months ago, my husband uncovered this Snoopy notebook while replacing a stair tread to our attic.
It had fallen in the cracks and was under the tread. In less than 5 minutes I had a comment from her sister asking if we bought their house on Elm Street which we had. She then tagged Shannon and another sister. We chatted via messenger for a few days. Turns out, they lived in our house for 25 years.
This was the family with 4 children my neighbors mentioned that somehow squeezed into this tiny house. Shannon dated this notebook from the early s. I asked if they were responsible for the writing in the back of the bedroom closets. We had found and since painted over declarations of love for Michael Jackson written with a bubble-gum pink ink pen. Turns out the third sister had quite a crush. In addition to the paper trail i. This part can be very subjective and easy to miss something.
However, it supported the other trails and helped put the puzzle pieces together. Ask yourself the question — where does your house fit in relation to the rest of the neighborhood? Compare your property to the properties around you for visual clues. Every house as an exterior discernible style or maybe two…. Different styles were popular during particular eras.
Styles evolved as a result of new technologies and fashions. Estimate the age of your home by identifying a handful of visual clues. First ignore the details and focus to the basics.
Grab an architectural guide on American domestic architecture. My recommendations? Recognize that if your older house has undergone several renovations, there may be jumble of many periods reflecting the cumulative changes of past owners.
Try to find the oldest style using these guides. The rest of the property or yard can also provide clues. Keep an eye out for various artifacts while landscaping — dishes, soda bottles, coins, etc. If feeling adventurous, you could rent a metal detector.
Personally, that reminds me of the old man with the socks and sandals scanning a metal detector at beach. If feeling even more adventurous and your house pre-dated interior plumbing you could examine old privy holes on second thought…..
The below steps are taken directly from the various resources listed at the end of this guide. I recommend you look through these resources to get deeper. Since renovations are more common to the interior than the exterior, the visual clues on the inside of your house will provide a more detailed timeline of renovations. We were lucky in a sense that our house did not appear to have undergone any major renovations. The puzzle pieces are compiled, collected through the paper trail, people trail and visual inspection.
There will be puzzle pieces missing, there will be some pieces that you will struggle to find a place, but a picture even if fuzzy will form! There are a variety of ways to analyze and make sense of it all. In my opinion, what helped me the best was putting everything in chronological order. Using traditional genealogy Microsoft Excel spreadsheets see the original worksheets on my Pinterest board , I first created a simple template with only 3 columns.
After entering all the information found through research, I sorted the columns by year. Now the analysis. Reading through the data in chronological order I added a 4th column.
This column served as a place to add my thoughts or assumptions connecting the timeline and as I went through all the documents. Nothing fancy, but worked well to bring together all the puzzle pieces and form the puzzle. Expect to find gaps in years. And uncertainties. Suell Winn? John Hay? Emerson family? And also expect conflicting information. Work with what you have. Just remember — you are capturing a story. And every good story has twists and turns. The more interesting, the better, right?
If you get stuck, remember that you can reach out to the experts. You have done the legwork. An expert will review your documents and help you connect the dots of the story. Now what? What format do you want to use to show off your work? Some people will put the puzzle back in the box, others will have it framed and hung on the wall.
How do you want to present and preserve the information? Something basic such as placing the info in a vanilla folder and keep with your other house files, bills, etc?
Or maybe going paperless and having an electronic product? Perhaps a more formal scrapbook — either paper of digital? I love this idea from Scrapgirls. Or maybe you are lucky enough to have come across an old photo to frame and hang in your home?
Obviously through this blog, but I decided to take it one step further. Homes over years old can apply. And there is a small fee to cover the cost of the making the plague.
I decided to go for it. To me the plague is a sign of pride in your community and home. These are the experts. Wow — that was a long post! I hope that this post inspired you. Have you researched your house? If so, found anything surprising?
Stuck and need some help? Please share in the comments below! Want to be the first to know about new posts? Be sure to follow me on Pinterest , Facebook , Instagram or Twitter. Or better yet… Sign up to read my monthly newsletter.
Wow, Wow, Wow, this is amazing. Search by address on the census to find out who was living there. Where an address search is not available, browse the census street indexes on Your Archives now only available in our web archive to find the relevant document reference and search the relevant census website with that reference. You will need to use the maps to get to the field books. Consult our guide to records of the Valuation Office survey for advice on how to do this. Working copies of the Valuation Office survey are often kept in local archives.
Tithe maps and apportionments establish whether a property existed at the time and provide clues about property ownership and occupancy but do not contain details about the property itself. Use the search box below to search our catalogue by place name for document references to tithe maps IR30 and apportionments IR See our Tithes guide for more detailed advice.
Discovery is a catalogue of archival records across the UK and beyond, from which you can search 32 million records. This website uses cookies We place some essential cookies on your device to make this website work. Set cookie preferences. Skip to Main Content. Search our website Search Discovery, our catalogue. How to look for records of Houses To piece together the complete history of a house you will almost certainly need to contact and probably visit a variety of archives.
Where to start The best place to try searching for the history of the ownership and construction of a house is the local archive for the area in which the house is located. Also at the city or county level, you may review building permits and blueprints. Records may typically be searched by address, permit number, or the parcel number assigned by the County Tax Assessment Office. City and telephone directories allow you to look for individuals, families, or businesses to view such details as: addresses, occupations, and household residents.
Observed broadly, they will also provide a community perspective. The following Digital Collections and Research Guides provide an inventory of the city and telephone directories available at the Library of Congress. Images Online.
United States Telephone Directory Collection. Lists of Available Directories in Print and Microform. City Directories. Telephone Directories. Reverse Directories By Address or Phone. Learn about the community that your house is a part of and about the specific people who have lived there. The Library of Congress Local History and Genealogy Section has over , local histories and over 50, genealogies. Search the Library of Congress catalog for the town, county, or family of interest.
This research angle will provide historic context. You may learn what history your house has witnessed; when your community installed modern conveniences such as public water or bricked roads; or if it survived a disaster like flood or fire.
Find out what you have in common with past residents and what their lives were like. Did you attend the same neighborhood school? Did a soldier march out of your door and off to war? The basic principles of genealogical research will apply as you learn about the people who have called your house "home.
Find out more about how to research the history of your house by browsing these Library of Congress Subject Heading s :. Historic buildings--United States--Research--Handbooks, manuals, etc. Dwellings--United States--Research--Handbooks, manuals, etc.
United States--Genealogy--Handbooks, manuals, etc. Find the property on historic maps, many of which you can explore online through the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. Search their digital collections for town and county maps that show the land over the years. These maps may reveal many details depending on their purpose such as: farm line and land ownership maps that identify boundaries and property owners; railroad maps that exhibit transportation development; or panoramas that show the expansion of a city.
If your house is in a town, whether big or small, be sure to view the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps , which show building footprints, building material, height or number of stories, building use, lot lines, road widths and water facilities. The maps also show street names and property boundaries of the time.
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