DO YOU KNOW WHO LIVED IN YOUR OLD HOUSE?
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Most people don’t know that the entire history of their homes can be dug up with a little bit of elbow grease. While Brownstone Detectives provides this service to clients, we are always more than happy to help homeowners to do the digging themselves. One of the first steps – of many – that we take when researching the history of your old house, is uncovering the chain of title – that list of individuals who bought and sold your property throughout its lifetime. To discover this list, a trip to the Department of Finance leads us to the old dusty tomes that contain this information, recorded in the old stylistic cursive freehand of the time. The listings of the home sales of a certain house/address were not simply recorded in order within the book. Each sale that took place in relation to that property was recorded as it occurred. So, for instance, if there were 20 years between sales of your home, those sales would usually be located several pages from each other. So, finding the chain of title usually takes a bit of digging. Once you have determined the property conveyances that have taken place, you record the information for each sale and then you head to the microfilm […]
