Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Cleveland ward boundaries in 1858
View Cleveland Wards in 1858 in a larger map
To provide better local history to my kids, I've been researching the locations of residences of important 19th century Clevelanders. The problem is that the historic census records only provide the ward of the city that the person lived in. The ward boundaries are totally different today. Further, many of the street and road names have changed, as well as their routes.
The Cleveland Public Library has a wonderful map of Cleveland, showing the ward boundaries and Cuyahoga County, but it's hard to read, and there are also the problems mentioned above. I said to myself, "I wish that there was a nice, clean map, showing the historic ward boundaries." Now, to make my research easier, there is.
All boundaries are drawn to the best of my ability. I haven't been too fussy about the historic river shape nor the historic lake shore. The only area that I'm not completely sure about is the southern boundary of ward 6.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Researching our Trenton Potteries Si-Wel-Clo toilet
I've been using Google Books to do some research and try to figure out exactly when the toilet, a Si-Wel-Clo by Trenton Potteries, in my non-master bath was made. I haven't been able to find anything exactly like it in the literature I've seen for their products in 1925 or 1926, when our house was built. Google Books now allows you to cut and paste from books that are in the public domain (and probably some others, too).
The closest match I've been able to find is the one below, in The Architectural Review, from 1919. The tank, however, looks closer in shape to the one shown in the American Review of Reviews from 1915. While the shape of the tank is right on, the water supply for our tank is at the top, not the bottom.
Trenton Potteries published a hardbound catalog of their complete collection, under the title of The Blue Book of Plumbing. The 1921 edition, Catalogue R, came in at about 350 pages, the 1927 edition, Catalogue T, a mere 200 or so. As for Catalogue S, WorldCat lists no copies, so I cannot be sure, but I expect it would be somewhere between the two. These books, like many trade catalogues of the vintage, are extremely rare. WorldCat lists but five copies of Catalogue R and four of Catalogue T worldwide. There are no copies of catalogues O through Q, nor are there any listed before the letter N. As for their locations, there are two libraries that have all three of the catalogued catalogs - Rutgers University and the US Patent and Trademark Office. It'd be great to sit down with copies of these catalogs so that I could compare and contrast them.
[Note: this post brings to my attention that I really need to adjust the template I'm using to more readily show wider images.]
Architectural record By American Institute of Architects - 1912
The World's work a history of our time By Walter Hines Page, Arthur Wilson Page - 1914
The American Magazine - 1915
The American Review of Reviews By Shaw, Albert, 1857-1947 - 1915
McClure's Magazine ... - 1915
The Architectural Review - 1919
The National geographic magazine By Henry Gannett, National Geographic Society (U.S.), Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, Melville Bell Grosvenor, John Hyde, John Oliver LaGorce - 1922
The closest match I've been able to find is the one below, in The Architectural Review, from 1919. The tank, however, looks closer in shape to the one shown in the American Review of Reviews from 1915. While the shape of the tank is right on, the water supply for our tank is at the top, not the bottom.
Trenton Potteries published a hardbound catalog of their complete collection, under the title of The Blue Book of Plumbing. The 1921 edition, Catalogue R, came in at about 350 pages, the 1927 edition, Catalogue T, a mere 200 or so. As for Catalogue S, WorldCat lists no copies, so I cannot be sure, but I expect it would be somewhere between the two. These books, like many trade catalogues of the vintage, are extremely rare. WorldCat lists but five copies of Catalogue R and four of Catalogue T worldwide. There are no copies of catalogues O through Q, nor are there any listed before the letter N. As for their locations, there are two libraries that have all three of the catalogued catalogs - Rutgers University and the US Patent and Trademark Office. It'd be great to sit down with copies of these catalogs so that I could compare and contrast them.
[Note: this post brings to my attention that I really need to adjust the template I'm using to more readily show wider images.]
Architectural record By American Institute of Architects - 1912
The World's work a history of our time By Walter Hines Page, Arthur Wilson Page - 1914
The American Magazine - 1915
The American Review of Reviews By Shaw, Albert, 1857-1947 - 1915
McClure's Magazine ... - 1915
The Architectural Review - 1919
The National geographic magazine By Henry Gannett, National Geographic Society (U.S.), Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, Melville Bell Grosvenor, John Hyde, John Oliver LaGorce - 1922
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Researching the history of your house
Many homeowners are interested in learning the history of their house. The following will be a general description of some of the routes one can take in this research. As with many things relating to old houses, it takes a fair amount of time or money, more of one almost always making up for a lack of the other. The following resources wil be presented in the general order one might take. Keep in mind that, in many places, street names may change over time, so it may be necessary to consult additional resources to determine this.
Talk to the current owners and to the neighbors. While they may be somewhat sketchy on the exact details of the ownership of the house, they'll likely have photographs and other history not available elsewhere. Also look at the physical records attached to the heating and other mechanical systems, which will often have a name attached to them, usually with a date, which should provide some idea as to who owned the house and when.
Real estate transfers are a matter of public record. In Ohio, these records are kept at a county level, but elsewhere they may be recorded at a city level. In some places, like Cleveland, the County Recorder or equivalent will have an online database of all real estate transfers, which, in the case of Cleveland, goes back to the early 19th century. Keep in mind that the quality of the search results is entirely dependent upon the quality of the original documents, and that variants in names can make things more time consuming, for instance, someone might be John Smith in one instance and Jno. Smith in another.
If the real estate records are not available online, they can probably be search at the place of record either in person or as part of a fee-based service. This will generally require knowledge of the individual parcel number for your residence, which should be listed on the title transfer paperwork and the mortgage. This is usually very time consuming, and methods discussed below should probably be attempted first.
See if your city hall keeps building records. They may, for instance, have documentation as to when the building was built, the architect, builder, and cost. They may even have copies of the blueprints. Even if they don't have these, they may have records of building permits taken out on a property, which will help determine what work has actually been done on a residence and by whom.
Look at city directories and Criss-Cross directories, both of which list the resident or residents of a given address. A detailed ownership history might be learned by looking at these directories, year by year, and seeing who the listed residents were that year.
Fire insurance maps, sometimes called Sanborn maps after one of the major publishers of them, can sometimes provide clues as to when a structure was built and added to. Plat maps can also be useful, if available. These, as well as the directories metioned above should be available at the closest major public library.
Your local public library or historical society may have other types of information not mentioned here - before you begin researching the history of your house, it is probably adivsable to contact them and see if they might have other useful resources.
Once you have a general ownership history, start looking at local genealogical resources. Many public libraries have indices of obituaries from local newspapers. These often include the survivors of the deceased, and sometimes even their address, which helps to confirm the information that you've already located. The library may also have other resources that can help you learn about the history of an individual or family.
Ancestry.com can provide a wealth of information, but it requires a subscription - it is also available at many public libraries. When searching for a name, it really helps to limit by approximate date of birth and death, if known. The most useful records, in my research, are those relating to immigration and the WWI and WWII draft cards, which in addition to name and address will often list profession and location of business, as well as other history. Census records can also be useful, though the quality of the microfilms from which the scans were made is very hit-or-miss. Census records will list the names of all the residents of a given address, which can be useful when searching for other records - often things will come up for one name that might not come up for another, again due to the quality of the original documents.
I hope that this provides some assistance to the casual researcher. Most of all, I want to emphasize how helpful the local history department at your library can be, as they surely have resources and methods available that I have not mentioned here.
Talk to the current owners and to the neighbors. While they may be somewhat sketchy on the exact details of the ownership of the house, they'll likely have photographs and other history not available elsewhere. Also look at the physical records attached to the heating and other mechanical systems, which will often have a name attached to them, usually with a date, which should provide some idea as to who owned the house and when.
Real estate transfers are a matter of public record. In Ohio, these records are kept at a county level, but elsewhere they may be recorded at a city level. In some places, like Cleveland, the County Recorder or equivalent will have an online database of all real estate transfers, which, in the case of Cleveland, goes back to the early 19th century. Keep in mind that the quality of the search results is entirely dependent upon the quality of the original documents, and that variants in names can make things more time consuming, for instance, someone might be John Smith in one instance and Jno. Smith in another.
If the real estate records are not available online, they can probably be search at the place of record either in person or as part of a fee-based service. This will generally require knowledge of the individual parcel number for your residence, which should be listed on the title transfer paperwork and the mortgage. This is usually very time consuming, and methods discussed below should probably be attempted first.
See if your city hall keeps building records. They may, for instance, have documentation as to when the building was built, the architect, builder, and cost. They may even have copies of the blueprints. Even if they don't have these, they may have records of building permits taken out on a property, which will help determine what work has actually been done on a residence and by whom.
Look at city directories and Criss-Cross directories, both of which list the resident or residents of a given address. A detailed ownership history might be learned by looking at these directories, year by year, and seeing who the listed residents were that year.
Fire insurance maps, sometimes called Sanborn maps after one of the major publishers of them, can sometimes provide clues as to when a structure was built and added to. Plat maps can also be useful, if available. These, as well as the directories metioned above should be available at the closest major public library.
Your local public library or historical society may have other types of information not mentioned here - before you begin researching the history of your house, it is probably adivsable to contact them and see if they might have other useful resources.
Once you have a general ownership history, start looking at local genealogical resources. Many public libraries have indices of obituaries from local newspapers. These often include the survivors of the deceased, and sometimes even their address, which helps to confirm the information that you've already located. The library may also have other resources that can help you learn about the history of an individual or family.
Ancestry.com can provide a wealth of information, but it requires a subscription - it is also available at many public libraries. When searching for a name, it really helps to limit by approximate date of birth and death, if known. The most useful records, in my research, are those relating to immigration and the WWI and WWII draft cards, which in addition to name and address will often list profession and location of business, as well as other history. Census records can also be useful, though the quality of the microfilms from which the scans were made is very hit-or-miss. Census records will list the names of all the residents of a given address, which can be useful when searching for other records - often things will come up for one name that might not come up for another, again due to the quality of the original documents.
I hope that this provides some assistance to the casual researcher. Most of all, I want to emphasize how helpful the local history department at your library can be, as they surely have resources and methods available that I have not mentioned here.
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