Previous Occupants of Address

[portocat]

we would like to research the history of our house.  We know about the man who built it, but between when he died and the people who lived there before us we have no idea who used to live there.  Does anyone know how I could go about researching this?

[Rumford]

Try the main reference library or archive dept for your area. One of them should have past electoral registers covering your current house. Looking at electoral registers is not as easy now as it used to be but old ones shouldn't be a problem. You may also find that they have other resources that can help you such as registers of when a street was first built and named.

[dothawkes]

Building Societies no longer need to keep the bundle of documants relating to your house, when I remortgaged in 2004, my solicitor passed to me all the papers on the house dating back to 1885.  It contained all the bills from solicitors, the names of all occupants, even a few marriage certificates. I think building societies are trying to reduce the amount of hard copy files.  It might be worth writing to your's and asking, as I found a detailed boundary map dated 1956 which gives me access to the side of the house that I hadn't realised I had.

[portocat]

thats a good idea about contacting the building society, they might even be able to give me photocopies.  thanks I will try that

[Artemis]

The Utility companies will also have records of who lived at that address. They will also be loathe to give out info because of the DPA.

[stoo_pid]

Depending on the age of your house you may have some luck with the census returns (the most recent you can currently search is 1901).

Have a look here
http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

and here
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census/

Also, is there a local History Society in your town?  They may be able to help.

[chrisl25]

dothawkes right, we asked for a copy of something from our solicitors and they sent everything to us to do with the house, all the original handwritten documents. We thought that they had sent them to us by mistake, but they don't want to keep them anymore.

But we let them look after them for us, its safer, just in case something happens.

They are really interesting to read, we found out that our address changed about 60 years ago so the post office could deliver the post from a different depot. So we live in one village but our address is the previous one, figure that out. They were give a grace period to change the address on correspondance then they would be fined!

[portocat]

Thanks for all your tips.  I have managed to find loads more out at least about the first people who lived there so that has been really interesting.  I will keep on searching!

[lilley1968]

72 the struet brecon

[ibbyk]

historical electoral roll in the central library for that area from 1950 and census records before that via findmypast