How do I find out who’s lived in my house before me? Our place is 95 years old and I’d like to know something about it’s previous lives.
Thanks.
If you’re in the U.S., the county courthouse should have records of who has owned the property. This isn’t necessarily the same as who has lived there - it might have been a rental property at some point - but it’s a start.
-Graham
Your local historical society, or geneological society should be able to steer you in the right direction as well. Often, they have the census records, as well as different documents relating to construction, lots, grants, taxes, etc. A friend of mine was amazed when I told her to check our society. Not only did she find family information about the owners of her house, but by some quirk of fate, they even had the original blueprints.
Some cities had a city directory that was put out at regular intervals. I did a history of a house I used to live in (1889, Denver) and got info from the city directory, a Cole’s directory (reverse directory), and the county assessor’s office (that shows who owned it). The utility depts will sometimes let you search old records. At the time I lived there I worked for the phone co. and that was extremely helpful but, uh, not entirely legal (although not forbidden) (at the time, anyway). The city directory was good because it listed not only names but occupations. In 1910 the house was owned by a woman named Mary Smith, An Unmarried Woman (can you believe they used to put that on the DEED?) and the city directory informed me she was a buyer for the Denver Dry Goods.
I’d guess The Master.
You just took care of the place while he was away.
If you want to pay a bit, you could commission a “title search”. Look up “title office” in your local phone book.
The above sound good. In Edmonton, the historical society is/was located next to our museum. Perhaps someone there could help.
Or you could try a ouijie board. 
Cicada said, "In 1910 the house was owned by a woman named Mary Smith, An Unmarried Woman (can you believe they used to put that on the DEED?) "
Actually, yes…we just closed on our mortgage yesterday, and my husband and I were referred to as “a married man” and “a married woman” on the deed. They didn’t bother to say we were married to EACH OTHER, but I guess they still have to declare your marital status. Bizarre, but true.
It would be common for a deed at that time to denote that a woman who bought property was unmarried. Under the law most likely in effect then, based on the English common law, a husband and a wife then would have an interest any real estate their spouse owned during a marriage. The wife’s interest was known as Dower (typically a one-third interest in the husband’s property for her lifetime), and the husband’s was Curtesy (typically a full interest in the property for his lifetime if the wife left heirs). The marital status of a purchaser of land would have a significant legal impact on how he or she held it, and whether a potential spouse had rights in it.
As to your main question, it probably isn’t too hard to trace the chain of title to a piece of real estate if you can start from your deed and have some hours to spend in the county courthouse (or wherever title records are kept for your jurisdiction). On your deed, there will probably be a clause that says something like:
The Liber and page number (or book and page, or roll and frame if they microfilm deeds, or some other number system for how they record the deeds) is where you can find the recorded copy of the deed where John and Jane Doe sold the property to the person that sold it to you. At the courthouse, you can look up that deed in the record books and probably make a photocopy of it (bring lots of change for copying).
That deed should have similar clause that says who sold the property to Mr. & Mrs. Doe with the liber and page number (or whatever) of that deed. You should be able to follow this chain back to before the house was built. Good luck.
Back to the OP, my house is 102 years old. A woman in the area has declared herself the town historian and told me the house was originally owned by the county thistle inspector. I guess his job was to make sure your thistle didn’t overgrow into other farmers’ property or something. Nice job, huh?
If you purchased your house, you probably signed an agreement to have the title to the house stored with a title company. That title holds the records of every sale, and (at least in my case) most major structural changes ever done to the house.
I don’t know how hard it would be to get your hands on a copy of the title, but I read mine when we bought the house. It made for interesting reading for my 85 year old house.
Also, talk to your local paper/library. Some communities are getting pretty sophisticated about getting archived newspapers into a searchable format. I’ve learned a lot about my local businesses and a little about my house that way.
Hope this helps!!
Eli
At our local city hall any street address has a folder of what was done, like permits, sales & stuff, you can easily ask to see it.
If you are married to each other, the title said you bought it as Tenants by the Entirety, which implies the marriage [i[to each other*.
Go to your county’s circuit courthouse and ask somebody in the land records room for help looking up your property. It will help if you have your tax ID number (on your property tax bill). It’ll be free if you ask a county employee to help - the records room is like a library. If you’re from a highly-populated county make sure you know which circuit courthouse you can research land records at.
I actually have the abstract of title to our house. After the title company updated it, they mailed it to us, saying that it was up to us to store it. I’m not sure what the heck I’m supposed to do with it, actually.
This inch-and-a-half thick document not only tells you the history of the house (which isn’t much–it was built in 1978 and owned solely by the people who sold it to us) but of the property itself–from farmland in the 1850’s (the wife signed with a “mark”) to ever-incroaching suburbia and subdivision. In the 1940’s, there was a covenant on this land (removed in January, 1970) forbidding alcoholic production and sale and “persons not of the Caucasian race” :eek: from living here! Most of the document is concerned with the dealings in the mid 1970’s–a corporation owned the land, and apparently didn’t pay the property taxes, so there was a sherrif’s sale. The corporation apparently tried to protest the sale by claiming military service–there are several statements from various military personnel stating that “XXX Corporation” could not have been in the military because it is a corporation. It was a real mess. Eventually, though, the land was sold to a building company, resubdivided, and they built this house (actually, that’s not really mentioned, but I’m assuming) and sold it to the people who sold it to us.
In the US for about 100 years, Sanborn Fire Maps were produced. They don’t usually show the owner, but they show the dimensions of structures at a particular time, which may be of interest. There were more than a half million maps produced covering 12,000+ towns and you can often find the maps on fiche in your local library covering your particular city.
My grandfather’s abstract of title actually goes back to the claim made upon Indiana by France.