GENERAL GUIDE TO SOURCES

* Owner

* Office of attorney who did title search

* Title company files

Potential Information Yielded

* Summary of relevant deeds, mortgages, wills, litigation, tax sales

* Names of owners

* Dates when property changed hands

* Descriptions of legal boundaries

Possible Application to National Register Nomination

* Possible establishment of "association" with significant individuals

* Establishment of built dates and alterations

* Boundary descriptions

* Historic names of properties

* The earliest Federal census available is 1790.

* Most Federal census records prior to 1880 do not contain house addresses.

* The regular 1890 census was destroyed by fire. However, some special census schedules are available, including information on surviving Union veterans of the Civil War for certain states.

* Check the availability of State censuses. More recent and detailed data are available for some states.

2. One caution about deed information: when the deed goes back to the 1700s or early 1800s, you cannot automatically assume that the structure you are investigating is the same one referred to in the earliest deed. The original structure may have been destroyed, and you may be investigating a replacement built at a later date.

3. City Directories: During the later 1800s and the early 1900s, many cities had directories that listed people at their home addresses, and often included occupational information. These directories--if compiled for your community--should be available in your public library or historical society. Having obtained a list of owners from the deed records, you can try find the people in these city directories. In cases where occupations and titles are given, you can see the rise (or fall) in the fortunes of the past owners by noting the changes in their occupational descriptions from year to year.

4. Old maps are important sources of information about the location of a structure and its immediate surroundings at a given date. They are useful for dating buildings and additions. Some city atlases (e.g. Sanborn or Baist) are at a scale to indicate approximate dimensions. They often show the position of utilities, grade levels, types of construction, and the height of buildings. The accuracy of maps varies, and sometimes they depict proposed improvements that were never built, or that were built in a different manner. Even recent maps may contain significant facts about historic properties.