Reference thread for researching house's age

[melissakd]

and whatever other tidbits of history you find along the way. I was just about to launch into the lecture for the umpteenth time when it hit me: Why not make a comprehensive guide? Maybe it could become a thread in the Reference Forum. I didn't want to just write it myself, as if I knew everything knowable on the subject, so I'm asking everyone else to chip in. I'll gather up what I've written on the subject, and you-all can chime in on stuff I forgot, as well as info on areas I'm a stranger to, such as records dating back to British colonial times.

Who's with me?

MelissaKD

[melissakd]

In my town all building permits from 1800 and up are neatly kept in the city hall in the building department. Same place you go to pull a permit when you need to do work on your house. I went in there in disbelief and asked for my house's original building permit. To my astonishment they opened up a file and just handed it to me. I was shocked. That easy. The permit states the name of the original owner, the builder, the architect and of course the date. Also how much money it cost to build it!

by Vaso7, from a previous thread

[downtowndahlgren]

Oh, I never thought of checking the building permit office. Although I know who built the house (original owner) and when, it would be cool to have a copy of the permit. I'm going to check that out first thing Tuesday morning - thanks!

[KristenS]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Melissa, you are a genius. Here's my helpful addition to your info...

My town does NOT keep original permits on file. And the records they do keep do not offer any information other than the name of the homeowner, what permit they paid for, and the date.

Luckily, our county keeps property deeds going back at least 200 years in a very large and wonderfully musty public records room. (Records before that are spotty, and poorly organized.) All I had to do was take a trip to Newark, and ask the very helpful woman at the desk how to get started.

In our case, they look up the current owner (me!) on their computer. Then they tell you in which book and page your deed can be found. You then venture into the huge room of books, and find it. (Our books are letter and number organized...and took a little getting used to.) One's deed should reference the prior deed, and give the book and page number where that deed can be found. So it is simply a process of reading through each deed to find the location of the previous deed. And carrying around a lot of heavy books!

In our case, we hit a few walls. They were cases where the prior deed was not referenced in full for some reason. So we had to look through a separate series of books called Grantor and Grantee records. In those, it is possible to look up the name of the person who either sold or bought the property, by year. Then it, again, tells you the book and page to find the deed.

At the very least, one should be able to track their deeds back to form a list of the previous home and land owners. That can be a good jumping off point for Google searches of newspapers and books. In lucky cases, one can see when the house was built based on which deed references just land, and which references a house. In very lucky cases, the deed from when the house was built might include information about a developer or architect.

One note: My experience might be particular to an area that was purposely developed as a NYC suburb around the turn of the century. So many, many houses were built by just a few developers. It made it very easy to trace certain things. If one lives in an old farmhouse, the original builder may just have been Old Joe Whathisname. And the county records and Google might not offer too much useful info on him!

[jski88]

I've had some luck at the local library...spent many hours going through old city directories one year at a time...of course alot of times the house numbers change throughout the years- so if you have a name of the previous owner(s) you have to lookback to the name not the house number. (I hope that makes sense)

[melissakd]

Your local public library
University library or state library
Town or county government offices, including but not limited to:
--Assessor
--Recorder
--Building Department
--Local authority over historic neighborhoods
Historic preservation nonprofits
Local history museums
Oldest neighbor on the block
Local newspaper office
Library of Congress

[melissakd]

Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps
County histories, a fad around the time of the American centennial and bicentennial
Property tax assessments
Building permit records
Title to your property
County recorder's files including sales, liens and mortgages
"Real estate atlas" for my town
Historic American Building Survey
Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory
Genealogical records for previous owners
U.S. Census
City directories
Bird's-eye views of your town
City annual report
Local newspaper archives: stories about new addition or development; ads for original and subsequent sales; legal notices; listings of recent building permits and other small-print info that hard-core busybodies love; news and life events of POs

[melissakd]

Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps

These large, detailed maps were made for every burg in America between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s. They were printed in large (maybe 2 by 3 feet) books, and may be available on microfilm or online.

Intended for the calculation of fire risk, these maps show the exact placement of every structure on every lot, including houses, factories, sheds, outhouses, garages, stables, stores, mills, etc. They include information on the town's population, water supply, street lighting, and fire department. The materials used in each building are indicated, which can help you sort out the various renovations or establish the house's former appearance. Fire hydrants and water mains are sketched in. Width of streets and alleys is indicated. More facts are given for commercial buildings, including the type of business conducted there, the type of lighting and heating used, the number and placement of windows, the fire hoses and buckets provided, and even whether there is a night watchman.

The precise years when the maps were updated for a given city are totally random, and they tend not to show sparsely settled areas of town, so although my house was present when my town's first Sanborn map was drawn, our block wasn't shown.

Sanborn maps can help you:
Narrow the time frame when the house was built
Retrace the various renovations (my house's owners added a wrap-around porch between the 1890 map and the 1902 edition)
Establish the age of current garages and other secondary structures
Reconstruct the past appearance of the whole property. I saw an octagonal gazebo in our neighbor's yard, and my husband found two old privies.

Then there's always dumb luck: A nearby house was noted as being under construction at the time the map was drawn, establishing the EXACT build date.

Where to look for Sanborn maps:
Public library
University and state libraries
Historic preservation nonprofits
Local historical society/museum
Library of Congress
Online

[triguy128]

The Sanborn maps were pretty handy. I had to get a State of Iowa Library card to access the online maps. I suspect many states have online access to them as well.


I may spend some time digging around at my library soon. It could be a long time before we'll get our abstract. Some libraries have old telephone registers.

[melissakd]

County histories

Compiled by assorted amateurs and semi-pros, these typically included profiles of prominent citizens, a rundown of civic organizations, lists of statistics such as population, elevation, and principal industries, an account of the county's founding, and other historical sketches. A few illustrations may be included, such as drawings of the prosperous farms in a rural area. A twentieth-century county history may contain repros of old photos. Printing costs were covered by prepaid sales, advertising, and/or handsome gifts by the civic-minded, which might get you a mention in the book.

County histories can help you:
Get a feel for old times in your town/neighborhood
Possibly luck into a photo or sketch of your house, or other tidbit about the previous owners. My original owner's family turned out to have been prominent in the early days of my county and the next county over. I didn't find out anything about him, but I found out that his uncle taught the first school in their township (or something along those lines).

Where to look for county history books:
Public library
University and state libraries
Local historical society/museum