Historic House Research in Maryland

WHERE TO GO AFTER THE LIBRARY

Now that you have the basic materials on historic house research, it's time to discover other types of resources available to you and where they can be found in the state of Maryland. This list will provide a number of important materials to examine in the research process, their uses, and their locations. For a step by step guide to this research, go to the Research Diary, which traces the history of a particular home in Hyattsville, and shares the nitty-gritty of research in this field.

• MAPS
• TAX ASSESSMENTS, DEEDS, BUILDING PERMITS, & OTHER LAND RECORDS
• CENSUS DATA
• CITY DIRECTORIES
• INVESTIGATION
• NEWSPAPERS & VERTICAL FILES
• ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS & SUBDIVISIONS
• HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY (HABS)
• PERSONAL INTERVIEWS, IMAGES & MEMORABILIA
• PROPERTY RECORDS
• OBITUARIES

• MAPS: Historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and Baist Real Estate Atlases are an easy way to learn the lot and square number of your home. These numbers will be helpful later in your research. Alongside the lot and square numbers, the Sanborn Maps date from the late nineteenth century and can reveal the change in a parcel of land through its history. You can trace the date of your home's construction, the building materials, methods of heating, additions, and other changes to the house, as well as changes in street names. The maps also provide context for your home. You can find local schools, churches, shops, and other sites relevant to your home through the past. Sanborn Maps are available in the Maryland Room at the University of Maryland Library, in both paper and digital form. For more information about the Sanborn Maps, consult the Guide to Using the Digital Sanborn Collection.

  Other useful maps include planning and city or county maps and Plat books available at a city hall, county courthouse, or local library, as well as atlases which show geographical features and can be found in libraries and archives.

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• TAX ASSESSMENTS, DEEDS, BUILDING PERMITS, & OTHER LAND RECORDS: Land records are useful in establishing a chain of title for your property from its original owners to the current owner. Once you have found your lot and square number from the maps, you can find land use records for your home in a number of places; however, in order to trace these records, you must work backwards, starting from the present.
  
  
  
  1. Tax Assessments are often the fastest way to establish a chain of title. Recent tax assessments are available for the entire state of Maryland online at the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation Real Property Data Search. When you select Prince George's County from the drop down list, you should also select "street address" from the options below. Once you make these selections, you are prompted to enter you address and information about recent tax assessments will appear. You can use the deeds listed on the Tax Assessment to trace the title through a deed search.
  
  
  
  2. Deeds help to establish chain of title for a home. They give dates of the exchange of a home from one owner to the next, restate the dimensions of the parcel of land, and sometimes include other interesting information. Deeds in the state of Maryland can be accessed on microfilm at city and county repositories, as well as at the Maryland State Archives. Deeds can also be accessed online through MDLandRec.net, A Digital Image Retrieval System for Land Records in Maryland. To use the site you must first set up a password. Once you have received this password you can begin searching deeds. To begin, you can locate recent deed numbers on your tax assessments. This will be a series of two or three letters, followed by two series of numbers (i.e. ABC 123 045). Select the county of interest on the MDLandRec site, then enter the recent deed information into the three boxes on that page. As deeds appear for your property, you can locate the previous deed's liber and folio number and enter it into the boxes in the upper right hand corner to trace back further. If your house is very old, all of the deeds for it may not be available online, in which case you should find them at the Maryland State Archives.
  
  
  
  3. Building Permits are a helpful resource in the investigation of the history of your home. Permits can reveal architects, builders, construction dates, materials, alterations, and much more. Historic building permits are held in a variety of locations, so it is best to contact your local planning department to find out where they are kept for your area. Knowing the lot and square number for your property will be helpful in the search, as many permits are organized in this way. Some are also organized by street name and number, so if your street name has changed, be sure you know the old name and when the road name changed.
  
  
  
  4. Property Abstracts are compiled by local governments from deed records, showing the chain of ownership through a property's history. If available, property abstracts can be found at the registry of deeds or you may have received this document when you purchased you home.
  
  
  

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• CENSUS DATA: The census is taken every ten years, and household specific data from it is made available seventy years later. This means the 1930 census is the latest complete census available. Many libraries, including the Maryland Room at the University of Maryland, have the census available on microfilm. If your house was built prior to 1930, examining the census from the earliest available to 1930 may be helpful in establishing your chain of title. The census also collected other data, such as children, the level of each resident's education, the cost of the home, whether the home had a radio, and other interesting details.

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• CITY DIRECTORIES: City directories, the predecessor to modern phone books, are a useful tool in learning the previous occupants of your home, as well as their occupations. The directories are held in many local libraries, including the Maryland Room at the University of Maryland and list both by address and by last name. Some city directories are available in their original book form, while others are on microfilm. If you are unfamiliar with city directories, be sure to ask a librarian for assistance.

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• INVESTIGATION: By physically examining your home, you can determine a great deal about the house and its changes over time. Look for visible clues of changes to the appearance and construction of your home over time. With the help of a professional or research in books provided under Library Resources you can learn how to investigate your home for clues from the past.

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• NEWSPAPERS & VERTICAL FILES: Once you know the date of your house's construction, style, and some of the owners of your home, you can begin to research through newspapers and vertical files available at many libraries. In these newspapers and files you may find information about the architect or builder of your home, the neighborhood, and information about the previous occupants, including their professions and affiliations. When you visit a repository be sure to ask if they have any vertical files that would be of use. Libraries can also provide access to microfilm and electronic databases of major metropolitan newspapers, which will allow you to search for information about your home and its occupants. You may also find photographs of your home or its occupants in the newspapers or vertical files.

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• ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, & SUBDIVISIONS: When investigating your home, pay attention to information about architects, builders, and subdivisions. There is a lot you can learn by researching the Architect of your home. Learning about the people involved in the construction of your home can tell you whether it was a creation of a local builder or national company, and whether your house was manufactured from a pattern (perhaps a Kit House) or if it is an individual plan. You may also find you house in Builders Guides or Stock Plans, which were popular in the late 19th century. These books provided plans for builders to construct and modify to a specific site. If you are lucky, you might locate Architectural Plans for your house at a local library or historical society. Though plans are hard to locate, they provide the most detail about your property. Finally, if you home was part of a Subdivision, you can learn more about the builders and the surrounding houses by searching local records. Information on subdivisions in Prince George's County is available at the Prince George's County Land Records Division.

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• HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY (HABS): The Historic American Building Survey is a collection of documentation- such as photographs, plans, and drawings- for buildings across the country. A portion of HABS is searchable through the Library of Congress' American Memory Page. You can search by place or by subject. For historic house research, it is easiest to search by place, first selecting a state, then a county, then a city within the county. All though not all homes are listed on the HABS site, it is worth looking to see if your home or one nearby is listed. The photographs are often older and can give you a sense of what your house or neighborhood looked like in the past.

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• PERSONAL INTERVIEWS, IMAGES & MEMORABILIA: Another great way to learn information about your home and its occupants is through Interviews. You may be able to locate a former owner or resident, or ask someone who has lived in the neighborhood for a long time. If you are able to speak with anyone, you may want to ask them if they have old photographs of your home, or any other material that would give you a better understanding of how your home looked in the past. Helpful forms of images and memorabilia include:

  1. Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates, which are kept at the county courthouse or city hall;
  
  
  
  2. Family Letters, Papers, and Scrapbooks, found at a local library or historical society;
  
  
  
  3. Photographs in the library, family papers, a historical society collection or newspaper;
  
  
  
  4. Prints, Lithographs, and Postcards held in libraries and historical societies, as well as commercial dealers;

     A good example of a postcard.

  
  
  
  5. Aerial Photographs, kept by the city or county planning office or in a local library;
  
  
  
  6. Birds Eye Drawings, found in local libraries or archives.
  
  
  These sources will provide a fuller picture of the history of your home if you find them.

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• PROPERTY RECORDS: With the names of the previous occupants, you can get the wills and other records of those occupants at the Register of Wills. This will provide you with some insight into their lives and may supplement the chain of title. Wills, Probate Records, and Insurance Records show many of the possessions of the house, and may give insight into certain pieces that came with your purchase. These records can be found in libraries, historical societies, or the local probate court. Getting a will usually comes with a fee, so be sure to inquire about this beforehand. If you are interested in genealogical work, wills and other records may also aid in that work; however, this site is not focused on that type of research.

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• OBITUARIES: Obituaries are also a great way to learn more about the former occupants of your home. You can learn where the person or family moved from, their children, and their local affiliations. For people living in Prince George's County, The Washington Post is an excellent source for obituaries. Most local libraries offer access to Washington Post Historical database on their computers. Alongside obituaries, many people have memorials posted in newspapers by organizations of which they were a part, such as the Lions Club. Some people may even be featured in a full length article about their life. It is also worth checking in a local or county library for area newspapers which may feature obituaries of local people. The libraries may have these papers archived, or may have vertical files with obituaries in them.

GOOD LUCK!

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