From: SARA STEELE <smsteele@wisc.edu> Subject: Re: Speaker for Researching House History Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 19:22:42 +0000 Message-id: <2392dcb1-e4be-97a9-7ea9-1c37ef2e98a0@wisc.edu>
Hi Patti
I'm not a speaker, nor can I suggest anyone. The six pages someone
mentioned may be very helpful. This is an area where you may want to
build your own expertise, because the stories of houses make up one
kind of history of your community.
At present I am trying to put together histories of two or three
houses, so I've doing some thinking about the processes and some of
these ramblings might be of help to you until you find the speaker.
One step is visually trying to pin down the time period when the house
was built and how the house in question may relate to other houses and
what was going on in the village or township during that general period. .
Besure to determine whether it is the building itself or if it is the
people who lived in it first or early that are of interest. Regardless
of the answer, if the house was built before building permits were
issued, the name of the first owner is going to have to be located which
may mean following plat books, if it is a country house, or going to the
Register of Deeds office and finding who filed the first plat plan and
the date, and then following land records for the purchaser. Then use a
variety of sources to learn about that owner and if it were likely he
built the house.
Sources include any diaries of the period you already have in your
collection, reading newspapers from the period you think the house was
built, looking at family trees to see if there is a descendant that
might know--the kind of things that one does to prepare a family history.
IF the person asking goes ahead and especially if one of the HS
volunteers helps, be sure to add a copy of what they find to your
archives and use it as a reference and example when the next person
comes along.
Sara
Former CGAHS archivist
n 1/9/2020 11:34 AM, marsicano@charter.net wrote:
> Hi -
>
> I was wondering if anyone can suggest a speaker who could teach how to
> research the history of your house?
>
> We have more and more people coming in to see if we have the history
> of their house and I'd love to have a workshop to teach people how to
> do it.
>
> Any suggestions? We are located in SE Wisconsin. Thank you!
>
> Patti Marsicano
> Delavan Historical Soceity