Researching House History - How to Trace the Genealogy of Your House
If you are reading this article, you probably own an historic home. But person owned it before you. You may be concerned in searching for the history of your house for many reasons. It may be that you are restoring or rehabilitating an old house. Maybe you are seeking historic designation for the property. Or perhaps, like me, you want to regain a Century Home plaque from your local historical society.
Researching House History - How to Trace the Genealogy of Your House
Whatever your motivation, learning about your house and its history can be thoughprovoking and rewarding. It can also be frustrating. Often citizen do not know where to go to regain facts helpful to their research. Typically there is no one location that contains all the records important to faultless your search. The following steps will help you begin your search.
o The very first thing that you need to have is a legal article of the property, which can be obtained by looking at the deed you received when you purchased the property. This legal article will recognize the asset you are researching so that when you are looking straight through records you can make inevitable you are dealing with the precise property. Then, beginning with yourself as the buyer, you can work your way backwards straight through the deed indexes to find prior sellers/buyers.
o Interview the past owners and existing neighbors to regain all the facts they have on the house and property.
o Call the local historical society to find out what records they hold. Generally, you will find neighborhood histories, biographical sketches, scrapbooks and photographs.
o Check with the local municipality for building permits and tax records.
o County records may contain deed indexes, tax assessments, building permits, plats, maps and photographs.
o Visit the local and/or county library for local history, newspapers, city directories, vital statistics and family histories.
You may exhaust all the possible avenues and still not find answers to your questions. But no matter what the end result, you will still search some thoughprovoking facts about your house and the society it was built in.
Documenting your house history is more than just names and dates. It's learning the stories of the citizen who lived there before you. Not only will this be of interest to you, but time to come homeowners will treasure your findings, and be able to add to them as well.
So, have fun and good luck!
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