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Where can I find out who lived in my house before me?

Does anyone know where to find information that could tell me who lived in a house prior to myself?

  • Planning on moving into a house in the Portland, OR area that was built in 1915 or 1918. Oddly enough it isn't on the Historical-whatever-list so I'm turning to you guys. I would LOVE to know the history of the house, who built it, the original family, etc. Maybe even find some old pictures of it! If anyone can point me in a direction of discovering that information I'd be a very happy man.

  • Answer:

    At the county courthouse/office-building there is an office called the Register of Deeds or the Cadastral Office or something like that; the name differs from state to state. It's like a DMV for houses and land. They keep records of who owned every piece of property back to when records started being kept. (For some reason they often do not have the piece of paper that says "And then we stole it from the Indians who had been here for 12,000 years....") Often the sale price of the property is also recorded. If they have enough personnel they may be able to show you how to search the records. If not, you may need to hire a lawyer or somebody else (a real-estate agent may be able to do it or recommend somebody who can) to search the records of the title to the property. This doesn't necessarily show you who lived there; the owner of record may have rented it out to other people. But it gives you a start, at least.

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At the county courthouse/office-building there is an office called the Register of Deeds or the Cadastral Office or something like that; the name differs from state to state. It's like a DMV for houses and land. They keep records of who owned every piece of property back to when records started being kept. (For some reason they often do not have the piece of paper that says "And then we stole it from the Indians who had been here for 12,000 years....") Often the sale price of the property is also recorded. If they have enough personnel they may be able to show you how to search the records. If not, you may need to hire a lawyer or somebody else (a real-estate agent may be able to do it or recommend somebody who can) to search the records of the title to the property. This doesn't necessarily show you who lived there; the owner of record may have rented it out to other people. But it gives you a start, at least.

玄子 Dude the Obscure

Research your county tax assessor for property record information. In big city areas that information is publicly available online. In more rural areas you would have to pay a visit to your tax assessor or court house for property records search info. You will obtain the owners name, last known contact info and years and amount of value along with any other property related info.

GotNoName

Research your county tax assessor for property record information. In big city areas that information is publicly available online. In more rural areas you would have to pay a visit to your tax assessor or court house for property records search info. You will obtain the owners name, last known contact info and years and amount of value along with any other property related info.

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