Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Most people seem to think it’s magic, what I do. How I can just find out anything, about any building in the county. I’ve had a few good columns recently about local buildings, and as a result, people ask me about them.

“Hey, what’s with that building over there?” And I don’t know. I don’t have every house in town memorized; I just know how to do the research.

Since you seem interested—Or at least, you read John Lipez’s column and then didn’t stop—I figured I’d share some of the process with you. It’s not as hard as people think, and it’s all public information, available to anyone.

I have two methods for doing property research: The Quick And Easy Way, and the Somewhat More Complicated Way. I use one when I’m in a hurry or just want to get the answers fast, and the other when I have a bit more time to dig in.

For the Quick Method, stop by the library. (That’s what makes it quick. I’m already there.) You’re going to start with the city directories. A city directory is kind of like a reverse phone book, listing all the houses and who lived there each year. Start as far back as you can get, and look up the address—You’ll find a name of the occupant.

Write it down and move on to the next year. (The writing it down part can be a bit tedious, to the point I came up with a form to streamline it a bit.)
Once you have the names, it’s time to start looking up obituaries. We have those, too. We have newspapers going back to 1813, and they’re all indexed alphabetically. The obit is the little notice that runs after someone dies, and they generally list relatives, occupations, and other interesting things about the person’s life. At this point, you’ll know who lived in the house, how many family members they had, and what they did for a living. You’re good to go.

Now, ready to learn the more complicated way?

This one involves a trip to the courthouse. Actually, in our case it’s the courthouse annex these days, down by Piper. Start with the Assessment Office, and request a copy of the assessment form. (They may charge you, like, fifty cents for the paper.) That will have some information on it, such as an estimated year it was built, and the last couple of owners. Up in one corner, there’s a box that will have the name of the most recent owner, as well as a deed book and page.

That, right there, that’s what you want.

Now. Proudly carrying your assessment record, you go over to the Register and Recorder’s Office. Remember where you found the number of the deed book and page? Those are all labeled. Find that deed book, flip to that page, and you’re looking at the deed to your property.

Yes, you’re allowed to do this. It’s all public information; nobody can legally prevent you from getting it. Look for the clause on that deed that starts with “Being”. It’ll read something like,”Being the same property sold in 1969 to….” And it will have the next deed book and page listed.

Using this method, you can trace a property all the way back to the founding of the county. In our case, that’s 1839.

You may also want to check the “Improvements” clause. This will list all improvements to the land—Houses and garages and such. By checking this, you’re verifying that the house was there when each deed was issued. It’s a pretty good way of finding out when the house was built; just check for when the Improvement Clauses stop.

And then once you have all the names, report back to the library and look for the obits.

That’s basically it, the whole trick. The information is waiting out there for people to find, and it’s worth the research. Deeds, obits, the Sanborn Maps….Wait, did I not mention the Sanborn Maps? Well, I can’t be expected to reveal all my tricks, can I?