Directories will provide you with a description of a town or village and may often be accompanied by maps. These all can help you to form a picture of the district around  your house. You should also be able to discover more about the key services such as transport, churches, schools, government offices and shops that served the area as well as  information on specific people, businessmen, traders, and shopkeepers. ​

Where to find directories
Your local library, family history centre or county and town record offices will have a selection of local directories. 
By far the best collection on line can be found at the University of Leicester’s Special Collection site. 
This collection provides access to scanned images and full-text of the trade directories from the 1760s until the 1910s for most of the UK.
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The same content can be accessed via Ancestry, which offers the ability to search by name, place, occupation or keyword, through their database UK, City and County Directories, 1766 – 1946. You will need an Ancestry subscription or you can access this via your local library. 
In Scotland try Scotland Post Office Directories.
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If you would like to know more about the issues in this blog in your country here are some links that may help

Directories
Canada Directories Collection
Canada, City and Area Directories, 1819-1906
USA
U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995
City Directories
Directories and Almanancs at Find my Past
Online Historical Directories
An over looked but free way to find directories is to go to Internet Archive https://archive.org/index.php  Just enter "city directory" with quotes in the search box and press "Go".
Phone Books
Where to find USA Telephone Books
Electoral Rolls 
USA Cyndis list, provides a useful link to Poll books and Electoral Rolls
Australia Electoral Roll on Find my Past
Ancestry Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980

Most people who set out to discover the history of their house do so because they are interested in finding out about it’s origins and the people that lived there. There are some however, that see a home history as a means of boosting their property’s value and it’s saleability.
 
For some time and particularly since the most recent economic downturn vendors and their agents have been looking for ways to give their properties an edge.  An article in the Daily Telegraph by David Rose recently rekindled the discussion, as he set out how sellers keen for a good price are hiring historians to discover interesting facts about their properties in order to sell them for a higher price.
Estate agents, he says  are “including the details of a property’s past to add interest to historic buildings amid a surge in public curiosity about the provenance of their homes”.
 
But does the history of a house add any value and more important  could it even detract from it? 
 
Certainly in America it has long been held that in certain historic districts home values rose between 5% to 35% compared with home values in undesignated neighbourhoods within the same communities, 
 
A study by the Washington based National Trust for Historic Preservation a few years ago found that US homes in historic neighborhood designations were more likely to be protected from “out of character” refurbishments or  new “inappropriate” buildings thus  ensuring that those aspects that made the area so attractive to buyers are protected over time.  
 The study discovered that even if the home’s price didn’t rise, it is less likely to fall if the neighborhood is in a historic district. In the UK we, of course call these districts  a conservation areas but it’s essentially the same.

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Stories about the life (and death) of residents who once lived in your house might be fascinating but what if you find a grisly secret?  Anyone who has researched homes knows that the past was not always rosy and houses have had their share of dubious stories that might  not improve sales potential. 
 
As historian, David Olusoga presenter of A House Through Time TV programme pointed out we don’t have to go far back in our national past to find ourselves in an age where births and also deaths took place in the home rather than hospital.
So it’s not unlikely that some births and several deaths took place in your house and most likely in your bedroom. You can probably live with that – you probably do - but how about if they were murdered? Does that alter things? What if a former resident was a serial killer or committed suicide? 
 
If you live in America you have to be careful when selling a house because in some states you must disclose whether any deaths occurred in the property within the last three years. By contrast other states explicitly tell sellers that they do not need to disclose deaths on the property to buyers. 
 
A nationwide survey here by Sell House Fast, reveals that 36% of us wouldn’t buy a property if we were told that someone had died there. Not surprising perhaps this increases when they find out that there has been a murder or suicide and 67% of homebuyers can’t imagine living in a property with a history of violent death.
 
Just as an aside respondents were also concerned about other issues that may have taken place on the property, with people expressing reservations about buying a property that had been the site of rape or other violent crime (21%), followed by illegal drug production (13%) and house repossession or eviction (7%). 
You can just imagine how that would read in the estate agent’s usual sales pitch – 
 
         "Semi detached, three generous bedrooms, a large garden –and the site of a gruesome murder."

​But that is not the only downside to tracing your house history if it is just  for the benefit of improving a sale. What do you do if you find the house is not only the scene of an unpleasant episode but someone also reports that it is haunted? 
Should you then tell your prospective purchasers that there is a ghost of Lady Mary Smythe who walks out of the mirror in the upstairs hall and screeches when there is a full moon?
 
Oh yes! and what happens when you fail to mention Lady Mary’s peregrinations and she scares the hell out of the new owners five year old son leaving him traumatised and they sue you? But as there is no such thing as ghosts (are there?), perhaps we should not dwell on this for too long. 

Meanwhile over the other side of the Atlantic in the US they are so worried about home deaths that if you Google the subject you will find  pages and pages of people asking if there’s a way to find out whether someone died or their house is haunted.
 
Not surprisingly a website and App -  DiedInHouse.com  - which seems to be doing well –is  the first web-based service that helps you find out if anyone has died at any valid US address
 
So what does all this mean to the house historian? Well, I suppose the lesson is, that if you are researching the back story to your house for the purpose of increasing the value and making it attractive to the market then tread carefully. ​​

The older and perhaps grander the house the more likely your story is going to include some, let us say, les salubrious goings on and you might want to use the edit pencil on some of the tales if you think it is going to have a negative effect on your ability to sell. 
 
For me the joy of finding out more about the celebrations, dramas and tragedies of the people who lived in my house, my ancestor’s house or client’s houses  - warts and all  - is all consuming. I will go where that leads me. 
 
I am sure that in the right area and with the right building, a well documented house provenance does no harm and might well add to the value, but as we have seen it depends on the story. 
 
Resources and links mentioned in this blog
 
David Rose in Daily Telegraph “Could your house be a secret goldmine?”
 
Benchmark House Histories
 
National Trust for Historic Preservation
 
BBCA House Through Time
 
Sell House First
 
Who died in House
 
Christopher Middleton in Daily Telegraph Why houses will sell

An important part of tracing your house history is discovering more about the people who lived in it and how the house formed a backdrop to their lives. Finding out more about the celebrations, dramas and tragedies of the people who lived in your house- discovering their stories - is uniquely linked to the history of the house. One of the key places to start is the census.
 
The census has been taken every ten years since 1801 when the government wanted to ascertain how many men were available to fight the Napoleonic wars at that time.  The idea stuck and with the exception of 1941 and in Ireland 1921 is a key resource for the house historian. However, the first census which contained personal information of use to the historian is the 1841 census. Generally, the census is  only available to view after 100 years so from 1841-1911 it is possible to discover who lived in every house in the country.  The census can be searched by address and we show you how and provide some useful tips.
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​Go to the 'A-Z of Record Sets' drop down from the 'Search Records' menus.
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Next enter the year of the census in the search bar
or scroll down to find the individual census year you require​

.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

​The required census page will then load and you will see the option to search by address for that census with the 1901 and 1911 census years, there is an 'Address' tab on the search page that would then need to be clicked to search by address

​If you cannot find the address first time, check the registration district as it may have changed and examine old maps and street directories online for clues that may help you locate the house in the census. The street directory may give you a resident’s name which you could also use in your search. 
 
Search for ‘St’ as well as ‘Street’, ‘Road’ and ‘Rd’, ‘Avenue’ and ‘Ave’, and ‘Ln’ in addition to ‘Lane’, etc, or miss these suffixes off entirely. For example, Blacknest as well as Blacknest Road 
 
The 1841 Census did not require an exact address just a place name. From 1851 however, an exact address giving the house number or name was required. Too often however in rural areas the only address given was the name of the village or parish. Also remember that the numbers in the extreme left-hand column are schedule numbers, and not house numbers.
 
A Schedule was a form that the enumerator delivered to each household during the week before the census was taken to be completed by the head of the household on the census night. Each house has a separate schedule number.
 
The enumerator visited all of the houses in his patch, to collect these schedules and then he copied the information on it onto into his enumerator’s book, in schedule number order.

1911 Census – a few problems searching by address. 
 
The address given in the 1911 Census is taken directly from the entry made on the form at the time by the householder. This leads to several problems.
 
In 1911, householders did not have a uniform way of stating their address as we do today. Some people listed their address as a house name followed by a town rather than a house number followed by the street name and this was the information that was transcribed.
 
The original form only provided a small space for the address, and that only encouraged the householder to either write smaller and perhaps illegibly as well as abbreviate the address to make it fit. 
 
The spelling of the name of the property or road may have changed over time. 
An example is Blackness Road in the town of Crowborough, East Sussex. In 1911 it was variously described as just Blackness or Blacknest Road and was in the registration district of Uckfield whilst in an earlier census it was East Grinstead and in more modern times has it’s own registration district.
 
*Trace My House has no connection with FindMyPast. We recommend using it simply because it is the only service that offers the address lookup facility and therefore is of great value to house historians.

​To read more about using the census to trace the history of your house go to Census 

Search a date range
If you know the approximate date of an event you could narrow down search results by using two full stops between a date range -   Date..Date
So, enter - Birth “William  Stevens” 1835..1855and that will give you the birth of all the William Stevens between 1835 and 1855
 
You could exclude a certain date by writing   -dateafter the search terms as in  
“William  Stevens” 1835..1855 -1850 so you get all mentions of his birth between 1835 and 1855 excluding any in 1850.
 
Search multiple words- or
If you are looking for a place or person and you think that it might be known by various names then use ORand Google will return all the instances of these combinations. 
For instance - William Stevens OR Bill Stevens.

A word of warning. It seems that if you use some of these shortcuts often, or several times in a row, Google may ask you to confirm you are a real person not a robot and take you to a captcha or verificiation page. That’s ok, just follow their instructions – complete the verification and carry on.  
 
Finally, these tips are simple to use but unless you use them often it might be that you forget the terms to use. One simple way round this is to use Googles Advanced search facility.  
Click Settings on your google search page and then choose from the dropdown list Advanced search.

​The mill usually had a mill house adjoining and many watermills survive today and have been converted into prestigious homes. We are less likely to see converted windmills.
 
Every village and town also required other craftsmen such as the wheelwright and smith which were vital trades in pre-industrial times. Their workshops and homes have in some cases survived.

​HOUSENAMES
House names often reflect their past use and there are many -  The Coach House, The Old School House, The Old Rectory, The Old Vicarage, The Old Post Office, Mill House, The Granary, The Grange, The Bothy, Blacksmiths Cottage, Old Forge, The Old Station House, The Old Police House, The Old Surgery and Railway Cottage. All of these are signposts to the history of your home.

Some homes have been named after people who lived there and others reflect the environment around the house- Honeysuckle, Orchard, Oaktree, Hillside etc. These are probably not useful in helping you date your house but might give you a clue about what the area was like at one time. 

So! having examined your house, its environs and looked at obvious clues the next stage is to examine the architecture and style of your house. to try to date it.  
Howoldismyhouse.com has examples of house styles of every period and plenty of clues to help you determine the age of your house. Below are a few more examples of houses whose origins might give a clue plus one surprise house.
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