Deed/Tract History

It's going to depend on the county. I can get a lot done online as far as current property records and boundaries. I can also see the historic property lines, so I know where homes used to exist (and how many) even though I can't see any evidence from the street. But, getting the previous owner names prior to the 1980s-1990s requires going to the courthouse or other means (see below). Those files aren't electronic.

Newspapers can help. We think about privacy a lot today, and how we're losing it, but they regularly published the addresses of people even when they were just briefly mentioned in a story. You'd never see that done today. Add onto that the weekly publication of deed transfers (names and addresses), and other legal announcements. There also used to be detailed social pages in some newspapers. "Mrs. Smith, at 123 Main St., had family from Utah visiting over the weekend. She said her Edna Jones brought a delicious jam cake, which they ate at a picnic at Cherry St park." Announcements of garden parties, etc...

Also, access to Census records can put names and addresses together for late 1880s and early 1900s. For some of my permissions I've put together a report with names, occupations, and photos of the original residents.

Also you might try any local historical societies.

GLASSHOPPER1955 said:

Also you might try any local historical societies.

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Yes. I have used my local town historian and county historian with great results......

I appreciate the feedback!

A lot of good info there, ToySoldier. Thank you.

As for the historical socities, that's a good idea. I know of an active one in my county.


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Look up old county atlases.
Thats what I use.

I've been going to the specific county's register of deeds page. Often times you can do free/cheap online searches of mortgage documents, quitclaims, and other documents. For example, the county where I live has digitized records going back to the 1850s and I live in a podunk area of Michigan. If you know the tax id of the parcel or can figure out the platted or unplatted description you can then look up that particular parcel's history. Granted these abilities may not be allowed by every county or without cost. I then use the info gleaned from these sites and correlate it to google maps and whitepages.com address/phone searches. You may also want to google "[INSERT COUNTY NAME HERE] old maps" or some other variation of this.

Expanding on ToySoldier's newspaper idea, you may also be able to log in to your local library's old newspaper database from home. I know my library has this and is set up so that you can do text searches of the old papers.

I've gotten lucky and found old homesites on old maps from the library of congress and then overlayed on google earth. I've found a couple local to me that the foundation lines were clear on a homes on maps from the 1890s, but gone on maps from the mid 1900s. Then use county records to find current owners.