Building Permits
Learn where building permits are kept on file for your building's
neighborhood - these may be held by local building departments, city planning
departments, or even county or parish offices. Building permits for older
buildings and residences may be preserved at libraries, historical societies or
archives. Usually filed by street address, building permits can be especially
useful when tracing a house history, often listing the original owner,
architect, builder, construction cost, dimensions, materials, and date of
construction. Alteration permits provide clues to the building's physical
evolution over time. On rare occasions, a building permit may also lead you to a
copy of the original blueprints for your building.
Utility Records
If other means fail and the building isn't too old or
rural, the date when utilities were first connected may provide a good
indication of when a building was first occupied (i.e. a general construction
date). The water company is often the best place to start as these records
generally pre-date electrical, gas and sewer systems. Just remember that your
home could have been built before these systems existed and, in such cases, the
date of connection will not indicate the construction date.
Insurance Records
Historical insurance records, most notably fire insurance claim forms,
contain information about the nature of an insured building, its contents, value
and, possibly, even floor plans. For an exhaustive search, contact all insurance
companies who have been active in your area for a long length of time and ask
them to check their records for any policies sold for that address.
Tax & Appraisal Records
Many taxes through the years were based on
real property, making tax
records a useful resource when tracing the history of a building. Records
relating to the appraisal of property for tax purposes are a good place to start
if you are trying to locate the date on which your house was built. Years of
major remodeling projects may also be included. Appraisal records usually
include the name of the owners at the time of the appraisal, as well as a legal
description of the building and property. You can also use surviving tax returns
to find mortgage information and trace changes of building ownership though the
tax liability of its occupants. This information can be especially useful in
filling in the gaps between previous home owners. Look for tax records, usually
indexed by both the tax payer and the property's legal address, in the local Tax
Collector's office, Assessor's office, Office of the Ordinary, area Revenue
Department, or Office of Probate Judge. Older tax rolls can usually be found
on microfilm at archives and genealogy libraries. Keep in mind that the building
that stands on the property today may not be the same building that was
constructed when the taxes were first levied.
Maps
Your local librarian or archives can guide you to city, county, town or
parish maps that may show your building with the owner's name listed alongside.
Such historical maps were prevalent in the 1700-1800s, when the world wasn't
quite so crowded, and often show the location of major homesteads, old roads and
other landmarks.
Fire insurance maps, another geographic resource, can also provide interesting information
about homes and buildings. Used by insurance companies to accurately calculate
fire insurance premiums, fire insurance maps are color-coded to
indicate the building's size and shape; construction material; location of
doors, windows, fire escapes, and sprinkler systems. The U.S. Sanborn Insurance
maps are the largest group of such maps, but not the only one. They exist
primarily for urban areas where the map-making company thought there was a high
likelihood of sales, but may cover a percentage of small towns as well. They
were updated on irregular schedules and represent "snapshots" of a community
rather than a year-by-year construction record. Other useful maps for building
history research include plat maps, which may show an outline of your ancestor's
house and its placement on your ancestor's property.
Photographs
Photographs will help to tell the story of your house or building. Check with
family members, neighbors, and local genealogical or historical societies to see
if they have any photos in their possession. Large image collections in archives
or genealogical libraries may also have a photo of your house (not as surprising
as it may sound) or at least a photo of the community. If a photo can't be
found, don't despair. Look to old postcards as another source for pictures of
houses, landmark buildings and neighborhoods.
Next page > Search by Owner
