Have you ever seen a building (especially an older one) and wondered how many different businesses/people occupied it? Even with malls, different stores always seem to come and go, and it's neat sometimes to think back and remember what stores used to be there.  I used to work at the mall at a bookstore, but now the exact location houses a Chuck E. Cheese. It's funny to think that those kids are playing games and stuff in the exact spot that I used to work at. :D

In Lancaster there putting in a convention center and some of it is going where part of Thaddeus Steven's property was.  Builders ran into some difficulty when they unearthed a small cemetery.

One of the hospitals is built over top of the remains of a Mennonite meeting house.  Meeting house hasn't been there for over 60 years, however I know some people who remember it.

As for buildings that still stand.  There used to be a charity hospital where they forced people to go during the early 1920's outbreak of cholera.  It is now a county government building.

I have memories of a local funeral home going out of business.  The building later became a Burger King.

In Lancaster there putting in a convention center and some of it is going where part of Thaddeus Steven's property was.  Builders ran into some difficulty when they unearthed a small cemetery.

One of the hospitals is built over top of the remains of a Mennonite meeting house.  Meeting house hasn't been there for over 60 years, however I know some people who remember it.

As for buildings that still stand.  There used to be a charity hospital where they forced people to go during the early 1920's outbreak of cholera.  It is now a county government building.

I have memories of a local funeral home going out of business.  The building later became a Burger King.



that's cool..I love hearing stories like that.

yeah...i love nostalgia. i've seen alot of places come and go, and enjoy when i remeber the places. our Gemco became a Target, our Montgomery Wards became an Albertson's, our Thrifty's became a Starbuck's...it's just neat to remember that and refresh peoples memories

I did a deed search on my house to find out the history of who lived in it.  I found one couple who lived here in 1900, and in the US Census he resembles to a man who lived a couple of towns over with a wife and a couple of kids.  Same name, same occupation, same place of birth, same age, same place of birth of parents.  :o

I did a deed search on my house to find out the history of who lived in it.  I found one couple who lived here in 1900, and in the US Census he resembles to a man who lived a couple of towns over with a wife and a couple of kids.  Same name, same occupation, same place of birth, same age, same place of birth of parents.  :o


Interesting.

I did a deed search on my house to find out the history of who lived in it.  I found one couple who lived here in 1900, and in the US Census he resembles to a man who lived a couple of towns over with a wife and a couple of kids.  Same name, same occupation, same place of birth, same age, same place of birth of parents.  :o



that's very interesting! How do you go about doing a search like that?

that's very interesting! How do you go about doing a search like that?


Deeds are registered at the registry of deeds in the county.  Each deed has the registration number of the owner before so you can trace them back.  Once I got the names of the previous owners I looked them up on Ancestry.com. 

In Ohio (were my parents grew up) the post office used to be the first high school established in the county.  My great-uncle who died in WW2 was the first math teacher.

There is a house in the next town over that always stood out because it was made of stone.  A two story house with about 6 rooms.  Turns out it is about 200 years old and at one time it was the county jail.  Now it is someones home.

We have the full history of our house in the UK.  Shortly after we bought the house our solicitor forwarded some papers from the mortgage company that were no longer needed. 

Included was the formal document relating to the purchase of the land from a local 'family', the plans for the house and some correspondence relating to the site of the garage (one of the utility companies had a small building on the site that was converted into a garage).  The original house was built in the early fifties. 

It was sold sometime in the eighties to the owners grandson.  He altered and extended the house (and we also have those plans because he left them behind).  We bought it from him in 2000.

In our basement, someone wrote their name on one of the beams with the date 1915. In 2015, Carlos & I are going to write our names next to his. I also know that the phone company used to be in my living room. I heard that the house was originally across the street but I really don't know how true that is. There have been a lot of people who have lived in this house-just within the time that I have lived in it, too. (USED to be 2 family-until we took over the entire house.)



Cat

In our basement, someone wrote their name on one of the beams with the date 1915. In 2015, Carlos & I are going to write our names next to his. I also know that the phone company used to be in my living room. I heard that the house was originally across the street but I really don't know how true that is. There have been a lot of people who have lived in this house-just within the time that I have lived in it, too. (USED to be 2 family-until we took over the entire house.)



Cat



that's really cool, Cat. I love hearing about..finding neat things from the past.

Yeah I often wonder about that. Somewhat annoyingly, I've lived in the same house since I was 3: we got the house built in 1989 so there have been no previous occupants. I've always wanted to live in an old house with the ghosts (literal or otherwise!) of the past still hanging around. But I'm still pretty aware of the past; the past isn't really that far away.

In our basement, someone wrote their name on one of the beams with the date 1915. In 2015, Carlos & I are going to write our names next to his. I also know that the phone company used to be in my living room. I heard that the house was originally across the street but I really don't know how true that is. There have been a lot of people who have lived in this house-just within the time that I have lived in it, too. (USED to be 2 family-until we took over the entire house.)



Cat


When we had do do some repairs behind a wall I took a photo of me and Jake, put our names and the date on the back of it and stapled it inside the wall.  Someone will find it one day.  :)

that's very interesting! How do you go about doing a search like that?


I research histories of people's homes as an unofficial side business.  In addition to deeds, there are city directories usually in the library of your nearest big city, dating back to the late 1800's...it gives peoples names, occupation, number of children under 18, etc.  then you can look them up on the census to find out more once you have their name.  Then to take it a step further you can search old newspapers because almost everyone was in the paper back then, it's a great way to find pictures.. 5 year old's birthday parties were in the news.

The deeds are really interesting, alot of the houses back then were purchased with gold coins.

I have been trying to write a book about the history of downtown San Jose residents, I have plenty of great information but can't quite figure out how I should put it all together.

I looked up the history of my parents house.  My great grandparents came here from Virginia after the Civil War.  They lived in Boston on Beacon Hill.  They were African Americans and we always wondered how they were allowed to purchase this house in what was a white neighborhood.  It turns out the original deed was in my ggrandmothers name only(she was very, very, light skinned and they probably thought she was white).  One week later there is a second deed with the names of both her and her husband, my ggrandfather. 

I find that kind of thing really interesting, especially when you can drive by the houses that are still standing, knowing who parked their horses in front of them way back when...

The only bad thing, is that I get really annoyed when they tear down the old houses to build modern office space, etc... I guess one good thing with this recession is there isn't much of that going on now.  But I feel like I want to preserve these people's legacies...

The first African Americans began appearing in San Jose around 1916-1918.  They were mostly single men living in boarding houses, that came from the south to work for the railroad.  In the 20's, there were several African American families here.  Most of them, along with mostly all of San Jose's early residents, left downtown in the early 1940's for the unincorporated suburbs or went to L.A.  Not sure why everyone left around the same time.  Maybe they wanted more open space?

I haven't really been able to follow it post-1940 because there were so many more people that ordinary people aren't found in the newspapers (except for death notices) and the 1940 census isn't out yet...

wow...this is all so very interesting! My house is about 70 years old..I would love to know stuff about the prior occupants.

wow...this is all so very interesting! My house is about 70 years old..I would love to know stuff about the prior occupants.


Usually libraries are pretty cool about doing lookups for you as long as you're not asking constantly... you should send an email to the main library in Pittsburgh, or maybe even your town's local library, ask them to look up your address in the 1940 city directory, they will probably be able to send you a scanned copy of the page.  That should give you names and occupation... it might be hard to get much more though, until the 1940 census comes out in another couple years.

The first African Americans began appearing in San Jose around 1916-1918.  They were mostly single men living in boarding houses, that came from the south to work for the railroad.  In the 20's, there were several African American families here.  Most of them, along with mostly all of San Jose's early residents, left downtown in the early 1940's for the unincorporated suburbs or went to L.A.   Not sure why everyone left around the same time.  Maybe they wanted more open space?

I haven't really been able to follow it post-1940 because there were so many more people that ordinary people aren't found in the newspapers (except for death notices) and the 1940 census isn't out yet...


My father was in California in the late 30s early 40s.  I would say most of the African American single males did what he did and left to join the army(WWII)