House History

Author: SFgenealogy

How much do you know about the property and building where you live? They also have a genealogy. Even if your building is relatively young, the property that lies beneath may have an interesting history. Below are resources that are focused on some of the larger cities in the San Francisco Bay area, but may be used for getting started on any location.

The Oakland Heritage Alliance has a good article by Betty Marvin, Oakland Cultural Heritage Survey and William Sturm, Oakland History Room, Oakland Public Library, on researching your house in Oakland.

The San Francisco Public Library History Center has an excellent guide to doing your house history in San Francisco. The topics in the guide include:

• How Old Is It? Who Built It?
• Who Lived In It? Who Owned It?
• Are There Articles Written About It?
• Guides and Helpful Hints
• Are There Any Photos Of It?
• Online Resources

There is a Youtube video of a presentation that two of their librarians gave on How to Research a San Francisco Building.

Two older articles, previously on the SFPL website, include:

1. How to Research Your San Francisco Building, by Jean Kortum.
2. Researching Historic Buildings: Research Resources Useful for Researching Historic Buildings by William Kostura, 1997.

The San José Public Library has a list of resources to assist in researching houses.

The Santa Cruz Public Libraries have a guide online. There is also a helpful document online regarding how to research the history of a property.

• Guide to Researching the History of a House by ipl2
• How to Research the History of Your House by wikiHow
• How to Research the History of Your House by This Old House
• Your House Has A History by City of Chicago