If you're following this blog, then you likely have a historic house.However, someone else owned it before you.You might be interested in searching for the past of your home because of a variety reasons.Perhaps you're restoring or remodeling an old home.Maybe you are seeking the designation of historic significance for the property.Or perhaps, like me and others, you'd like to receive a Century Home plaque from your local historical society inNorth Town Residency Phase 2.
Whatever your motive, learning about your home's past can be fascinating and rewarding.It's also frustrating.A lot of people do not know where to go to find information useful to their research.In most cases, there is no single location that contains all the data you need to conduct your search.The steps below can help you begin your search.
The first thing that you must have is a legal description of the property which is available from the deed you obtained when you bought the property.This legal description will identify the property that you are looking at to ensure that when studying the documents you can assure yourself that you're working with the correct property.Starting with yourself as a buyer, you can work backwards through deed indexes to find prior buyers or sellers.
Interview the previous owners and existing neighbors to find all information they can on the house and property.
Contact the local historical society for information on the kind of records they keep.You will generally get neighborhood histories and biographical sketches, scrapbooks and photos.
o Check with the local municipality to obtain building permits and tax records.
Records of County might include deed indexes, tax assessments and building permits, plats, maps and photographs.
oVisitthe local and/or county library for information on local history newspapers, city directories, newspaper articles Vital statistics, as well as family histories.
There is a chance that you'll exhaust all possible avenues and still not be able to answer your questions.However, regardless of your final result is you'll still discover fascinating information about your house and the community that it was built in.
The process of recording your home's history goes beyond dates and names.It's about finding out the stories of the people who lived there before you.It's not just an interesting read for the future homeowners, but they will be grateful for your discoveries, and they will be able add to their own.
