Introduction to House History (332)

Researching the history of a house has become increasingly popular in recent years, helped by the broadcast of TV programmes such as ‘A House Through Time’. It can be fascinating to discover who once owned or lived in your house and how old it may be whilst the study of house histories naturally complements family history and local history research. Even if you don’t happen to live in an older property, obviously your ancestors would have done and studying the records to find out more about their time in a house, may in the process provide more information about the family.

This course will set out the main documentary records available for house histories including national and local sources and will use various case examples to show how the records can be used together to discover the history of a house. It will take you step by step through the records and where to find them including those available online and those that normally need to be viewed in local archives. The course will concentrate on how to identify the respective owners and occupiers of properties through the records and discover more about them but it will also briefly look at architectural styles, how to recognise properties from key periods and how they may have altered over time.

By the end of the course students will have developed the skills to use a variety of sources to start carrying out a house history project of their own.

The course is for anyone who wants to find out more about their own house, one in their area and/or properties where their ancestors may have once lived, (although the information provided is limited to research of properties in England and Wales). Students should choose at the outset a particular house they are interested in researching as some of the exercises will be based on finding out more about records in the relevant area. No previous experience of house history research is needed but a familiarity with key family history sources such as census returns and birth, marriage and death records would be useful. A subscription to one of the main genealogy sites such as Ancestry or FindmyPast would also be useful but is not essential.

Reading List:

Students often ask us for recommended reading for their courses, that they can look at before the course starts. Here is a suggested book list for this course.