House Hunt – Digging into Your Home’s Past
Digging into your home’s past can unearth intriguing details
Have you ever wondered about the people who previously lived in your house? Are you curious about who designed it? Whether you live in an antique colonial or a midcentury ranch, your house has a history. With a little research, you can get a glimpse of its backstory.
Finding information about your home’s history is becoming easier as local government offices post property details online. But researching also requires some legwork.
The best way to start is by walking around your neighborhood, says Chantay Bridges, senior real estate specialist with eXp Realty in Beverly Hills, Calif. “Talk to some of your elderly neighbors who have lived in the area for a long time. You might be surprised at what you can find out from the person who lives right next door.”
Always verify this information since memories can be flawed, says Bridges, who enjoys researching the houses she lists.
Don’t forget to ask your real estate agent about your home’s title report since it might contain useful information such as old pictures or details about remodeling, Bridges says.
She also suggests this basic tip: Google your address. “Some old newspaper articles may arise, even historical photos,” Bridges says.
When closing on your house, ask the previous owner about its history. That’s how I found out that my first home, a tiny ranch in Connecticut, had been built in 1958 for Elsie Stevens, widow of the well-known Hartford poet Wallace Stevens. Elsie Stevens was the model for the Mercury Dime, introduced in 1916. I was told that the mold for the dime — with Elsie’s likeness — sat on the fireplace mantle of the ranch for many years until she gave it away to a passerby.
Ask a librarian
After you’ve done some preliminary work, it’s time to visit your local library or historical society.
“The best tip is to ask for help,” says Chelsea Mitchell, director of the Woolworth Library of the Stonington Historical Society in Stonington, Conn. “If you’re not a researcher, it can get very confusing.”
Bridget Shirvell, a freelance journalist, recently started researching the history of the shingle-style farmhouse she purchased in Stonington almost six years ago. With Mitchell’s help, she has traced her house back to the early 1900s, when it was built on land purchased in 1889. She found out that her house had been owned in the early years by a series of women — something unusual for that time.
“It is comforting to know that the people who lived here before me lived through a pandemic (flu pandemic of 1918), hurricanes and everything else,” says Shirvell.
“This house was witness to laughter and tears and the mundane day to day.”
To find the names of your house’s past owners, your librarian may direct you to follow the paper trail that begins at your local government offices. You may be able to find some information using the Public Records Online Directory, a one-stop portal that links users to local offices that offer digital retrieval of records. By looking through the deeds, mortgage information and assessment data associ-ated with your house, you can find out who bought and sold it over the years and what they paid for it.
If your house was built in the 1970s or after, it will be more difficult to find detailed information online. Many libraries haven’t digitized later years yet, so you’ll have to visit your local town clerk or assessor’s offices where records are kept.
Websites such as Ancestry.com can be a good place to find census records, historical maps and city directories.
If research becomes overwhelming or your house is very old, ask your librarian for the name of a local historian who may know particulars about the house and people who lived there. Some libraries will trace the history of your home for a fee.
“To us our house ... had a heart and a soul, and eyes to see us with…”
– Mark Twain
Time Investment
Researching the history of your house can be tedious, especially with older structures. “It’s taken me more time than I thought it would,’’ says Shirvell, who found that the earliest deeds for her house were handwritten in old cursive style and very difficult to read. “I would take a photo on my phone and zoom in on different letters,” she says. Still, Shirvell has found the work so interesting that she volunteered to help Mitchell do local house research.
If your house was built between the mid-1800s and 1930s or so, city directory books — a precursor to phone books — and census data can reveal details such as what previous owners did for a living, how many children lived in the house and if the family owned a radio. Another treasure trove of information is probate records, court documents that list every possession a homeowner left to heirs. When you have the names of people who lived in your house, check the archives of local newspapers to see if any articles were written about them. Obituaries might also provide some clues.
Deeper Dive
If your house is historic, early deeds might be found in your state library. The Connecticut State Library in Hartford, for instance, has a catalog of historical houses surveyed by architects working for the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s and 1940s.
Some of the records include pictures of houses. Be aware that finding your house may not be as easy as looking up an address. Many houses pho-tographed in the 1930s didn’t have addresses. They were identified by location, such as “faces north on south side of Farmington Avenue.”
No matter the age of your house, it has a story to tell. There’s a chance that someone else loved it, as summed up by Mark Twain, who wrote to a friend of the house he had built in Hartford in 1874:
“To us our house … had a heart and a soul, and eyes to see us with … it was of us, and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome — and we could not enter it unmoved.”
