Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

So I’m sitting here drinking my coffee, writing my column, mad as hell because of something Chris Miller sent me.
Miller sent me a message this morning to share an ad that he saw. The ad is for research services—A company will find you the history on your house. They charge you anywhere between $750 and $3,000 to provide you with your home’s history and details about the people who lived there. And one thing I will say for Chris Miller is that he’s definitely smart enough to know not to pay that kind of money for something like this.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that anyone who charges those kind of fees is running a scam. They’re basically preying on the fact that most people don’t know how to do the research. Do you know how much it costs to research the history of your home?
Zero. Nothing. Completely free.

Okay, admittedly if you print something, the courthouse may charge you about fifty cents for the paper, which is fair. And if you go to a nonprofit, such as a library or museum, they may charge you between two and fifteen dollars to do the search for you, which is also fair. Nonprofits have to bring in a little money, too. But thousands of dollars? If you pay that much, you’re getting ripped off.

This information is free. Not only that, but it’s public information, which means that nobody can legally prevent you from getting it.

You want the history of your home? Start at the county courthouse. You can find the deeds there. You should either start with your own deed—Don’t tell me you don’t have one; if you bought a home they legally have to give you a copy of the deed—Or get the assessment record. On either of those, it’ll have the book and page of the previous deed, usually in a line beginning with the word “Being.” (“Being the same property sold in….”)

Every deed should have that information, to direct you to the previous deed. They’ll also have a date, seller, purchaser, and price, so you’ll be able to learn all of that. All the deeds can be found in the Register and Recorder’s office. Also in that same office are wills and marriage records, which, once you have the names of the owners, will tell you even more about them.

Not too far away, in the Prothonotary’s office, you can find records on divorce, naturalization, coroner inquests, and trials. Once again, it’s all free. If you want this information, these offices are like Santa Claus, dropping by to give you something for nothing.

After you’ve bled the courthouse dry, take your list of homeowners and stop by the local newspaper or library, depending on where you live. I work for the Ross Library in Lock Haven, and we can help you with this kind of research.

We have city directories, which is kind of like a reverse phone book. You can look up an address and find out who lived there, for how long, who they were married to, and what they did for a living. And that’s just the beginning.
We have newspapers going back to 1813, available to search. They’re all indexed—If you want to learn about the person who owned your home, look up his name in our card file, then get the microfilm and find his obituary in the newspaper. It’ll tell you all about him. And, once again, this service is entirely free.

Cemetery records will tell you where the person is buried, if that interests you. (It interests me.) You can track the person’s entire family. And, again, except for the paper used to print, this costs you nothing.

Don’t pay ridiculous amounts of money for information that’s readily available. Do it yourself, or let me help out. I just saved you three thousand dollars. You’re welcome.