We have a 1700 pre civil war farm house.soon as we bought it a former owner passed away.The person in charge of estate gave me all deeds, quite a few from 1800 on.Also there was alot of land drawings.I looked on them starting with the earliest and looked in local phone book I called ,wrote letters.I found quite a few.They all visited or called told me everything they knew.I kept a journal so I could remember everything everybody told me.when I thought I got all info I was gonna get I went to court house and started reserch there.After I heard who lived here I started to readbooks from the historical society.I traced the farm back to 1790.I have a deed with a col,George Himes from the gettysburg civil war battle owned this is 1822.I have deed with his signature on.It was lots of fun.......

My house isn't quite as old as Bull's but close. It was here by 1830, and the land on which it was built was occupied as early as 1805, and the house may have gone up then.

I know the spring on my property used to be a spot where the Indians would come for water, and then when the first settlers came, they stayed here as the first tavern and inn in the township. This farm was also the location of the first coal mine in the township and the first store. So, it has a lot of local history.

I do know the owner of the Store, and he moved his family here from Virginia. I found a descendent of this family and she said that his wife and several of his children died of typhoid fever and the family moved back. Well, if that was true, not all of them did. The store owner's son went on to be the mayor of a nearby city, and a daughter was locally famous for her musical abilities and art collections.

I run a business from my residence and many of the elderly customers would share with me their recollections of this old house. One man said children would walk the half mile or so from the nearby one-room school house each morning with buckets and draw up water from our springhead and carry it back to the school. The spring is still pure and wonderful and is gravity fed by underground pipes from the head to our house for our personal use. Other customers told us of the old roof before the slate went on. It was wooden shakes. Others remember the coal tipple, and still others the store. That was moved a few decades ago up the road to a junction but is since torn down.

One day, I looked out my front window and saw an older lady in my front gardens taking photographs. I introduced myself, but she wouldn't come inside, talk much or give me her name. She said she had once lived here. So have many of the other people up and down our road at one time or another. They've shared photos dating from the civil war.

I have dug around in local history books and courthouse records and also copied old, old newspaper articles on the people who have lived in this house and all of it has gone into a folder. When this house moves on to the next occupants, they'll already know what it took us years to discover. So many of the old folks who used to visit and talk about this house have now passed on, taking their memories of this house with them.

It's not fancy, but it's friendly and comfortable and I love this place. When my husband bought it, it was going under for the third time. We are still working on it come twenty five years now.

My farm was first settled in 1784 (though all my buildings date from later in the early 19th c. - the earliest buildings in this then-wilderness were transitory structures.).

I've spent a lot of time researching the people who have lived here, both in public records, and in genealogical research. Luckily for me the first settlers of the farm were all buried here over a span of nearly 50 years, so I had their gravestones as starting points.

One of my keenest pleasures about owning this property is that I feel a sense of kinship with my predecessors. I try hard to keep my senses open for any physical phenomenon that could have lasted all this time. For instance, at one particular point on the west side of the farm there is a pronounced echo. I discovered it calling for a cat that was late for dinner. The echo is caused by terrain, so it is something I know anyone who lived here would have known about. I like it that I can share a little piece of their "home" experience.

I am active on the surname-genealogical boards that go along with the families that have owned this farm. I have "met" several direct descendants of the original settlers which tickled me, and pleased them as I can send along current pictures of their long-ago homeplace, and of course, the gravestones in the private cemetery.

The very first place to start is with a simple title chain or deed search. It is something that takes a bit of time to learn, but offers great rewards. You can also pay to have a proffesional do your searching but to me that's like paying someone to eat your food for you!

I don't have an answer about the spam. My THS email has always been a throwaway and no longer listed (since before the Spike/iVillage sale). I think spam comes in waves and the wretches harvest addies all over. I just ignore it, and never open it. I keep the throwaway email for all those times you need one for formality, but frankly I never go to look at it more often than once a year. So the spammers can spam me all they like - it's like the sound of one hand clapping.

Molly~

Our house was built in 1892 or so. We are lucky enough to be the second owners. The grandson of the builders lives up the road so I have been able to get photos of the house.

The earliest photo is from the 1920's.......... I keep hoping that one will turn up earlier.

Its funny, though. When I asked to see early photos of the house, the son of the original builder couldn't understand why I would want to see old pictures. He was in his 80's then and to him, this was just an old house that should have been torn down.

I operate a flower farm from my home and try to teach women's role in agriculture at the turn of the century. I recently planted a historic garden (1900) and named it after the original owner. The grandson was pleased.

Cathy

My house has had two owners before us: Original owners, 1916-1960, and the second family, 1960-2007.

We have the original deeds and some info from the current owners, but my real find was stumbling into the county historical museum on the day that Ms. Averil was volunteering. She and her husband operated a hardware store with the original owners, eventually purchasing it from them, and knew tons about the couple and their role in the community. The couple never had children, and this woman and her husband were the closest thing they had to descendants.

I don't really believe in coincidences, but I was still tremendously shocked at the chance joy of meeting her, still alive and willing to talk about the days when people tied horses up outside the hardware store and little kids came in hoping to find Mr. Wilson because he would buy them ice cream at the drug store two doors down.

It was amazing.

Our 1910 house had 5 previous owners. We researched the entire history at both the tax records archives and the downtown library, and found all of them. Actually finding the families involved took a lot more work, months of it, with obituaries and phone calls. Some of it was much easier after the internet was more prevalent. But we did find actual descendents of the family that owned the house between 1921 and 1958, and have visited them and seen many photos from the 1940's.

The saddest part was the first family. They moved to northern California and, working from a Social Security death notice, I was able to hire the local newspaper to find obituaries. It turned out that the grandson, born after the family moved away, was killed in an accident at the age of 20. And since he was the only child of only children, there are no more relatives. We were so upset about this---and it happened in the 1940's!

I want to have a big party and invite everyone connected to the house; maybe next year.

The man who built our house, was part of the California Gold Rush in 1850-1852. He kept a diary, and in the 1970's, his grandson had it printed. He wrote a foreward and talked extensively of his grandfather and about this house and there is even a sketch of the house in the book. The front of the book has a great photo of the man that built this house.

We also have the 1883 county platt book, with the sketch of the house.

We know quite a few people that grew up here over the years, and I love talking to them. I do want to go to the court house and look up more info, because I'd like to have it traced from owner to owner.

I read this thread with interest as I was just recently discussing with my siblings what to do with our parents house when "the time comes". We grew up in the house as kids and so did my father. My grandfather had it built in 1913 so in just a few short years that house is going to be over a hundred years old! None of us have any kids or grandkids, so nobody needs a huge house and it will probably be sold. Do you think the new owners will want to know about the history of the house? I mean, what are the odds? Is it common to do research on a 100y/o+ house? Will they cry when they find out that my mother had all the stained glass windows ripped out and tossed out, back in the 50's to "modernize" it with glass block wndows? (True!) Would they be interested in our family too? Should I write something and leave pics behind? How could I let the realtors know it would be OK to contact me if they want a history? Or would that be a bad idea? Should I hid info in the walls or rafters? Or should I just forget about it?

It is soooooo much fun to find stuff in an old house.If I were you Id write down everything you know maybe a few pictures.Put it somewhere where they will find it.Like you say rafters.Id protect it some how maybe a large sealed plastic bag.I did this in both houses we've owned.Now with the old house, Im still hearing about it.Make someone happy,So much history gets lost.If everyone would pass on info.If they arent interested they would probably look and leave it for next person.

My house history just pales by comparision with all of those posted so far!
From the attic, we have lots of old newspapers dating to 1933 -- used for insulation.
Last fall, when we pulled out the old wall around the tub, we found an odd item stuck in the original hole for the soap holder. It was a paper bag that had once held an old toy -- nothing else, no toy, not even a note. Btw, the manufacturer was located in our city in the Depression era. But it has long since shut down.
I wish the son of the original owner had more info about the details of the house. But he was very young when it was built. And the parents and he never talked about it even when he was older. So, he only had a few tidbits such as how the couple had lived in the house next door for a while, then built a garage next door. They sold the first house at some point and then lived in the garage -- thru the winter in MN with a wood stove -- for some months until the second house was built. His mom hoarded bags of sugar in one of the attic areas during the Depression. The dad was considered well off during the 30s because he worked for the city. But the house is very modest.
Bud, I would write down everything you know about your house and personally give the info to the next owners. I would let them know also that you are available for questions about the house. But be aware that they may be more interested in questioning you after the sale about how to install a new faucet, vinyl tile floor, etc. than in the history of the house. So, I would submit another copy of the house info to the nearest museum and/or historical society.
Thanks Molly for the info about spam.

Bud, I would go for it! People who aren't into old houses won't really care but those who are are likely to go bonkers! And I would cry over those windows - I've already gotten a bit misty for the loss of the windows and so many other things that I am sure were in my own house-to-be once upon a time. If when you go to sell it you try marketing it through an old-house specialist, you might have a better chance of selling it to an old-house buff who will care about the history and the integrity of the house.

Make copies of as many photos of both inside and out as you can get your hands on, especially early ones that show what the house looked like before its modernization. People's faces can be blurred with Photoshop if you want to preserve someone's anonymity. Package them so that they won't stick together, which can be a bad problem if photos get too hot or damp - there is a special tissue paper called "interleaving tissue" that you can put between the pictures, and it is not at all expensive. You can get it at photographic supply stores, archival suppliers, and some scrapbooking stores. Type out as much information as you and your family can put together, no matter how minor it sounds - "Grandma always had peonies and azaleas in the front yard" or "the tile in the bathroom was jade green and pale yellow" might be useful to someone. Make copies of deeds, wills, floorplans, blueprints, whatever you can get your hands on. If you can, use acid-free paper (quite inexpensive if purchased by the ream, and places like Staples or Kinkos will happily use your paper to make copies on). Make two sets of everything. Package one set up in an acid-free archival box, label it "history of 37 Oak Street, 1913-2010: please keep with the house" and put it in a safe place. Put the other set together in a nice album or two and leave it on display when the house is being shown for sale. You could also make up a third set for the local historical society, if they are interested. Make it a family project - cousins, aunts/uncles, family friends may have pictures or stories to contribute. If you package these things properly they can last another hundred years; stored improperly they could be crap in less than a decade.

I don't know a lot about the circa-1900 house we're buying yet but I do plan to research it with an eye toward eventual restoration of the stripped-and-remuddled house. I am hoping I will be able to find family members willing to talk to me and who will have pictures to show, because I have been hearing horror stories of family members who refused to talk or were otherwise unhelpful.