Your House History, Digital Edition (PDF)

Your house history as a full-color PDF, researched for your address. The same research as our hardcover books, from the original records, delivered to your inbox. Choose the edition that fits your home.

The Residents Edition (for homes built before 1950)

Everything in the Modern Home Edition, plus the people who called your house home:

• Who lived here, through 1950: the households at your address, census by census, wherever the records name it. That means names, ages, birthplaces, occupations and who shared the house.
• Who owned it next, 1950 to 1980: later owners' names from deed records. We never name the current owners.
• City directories and newspaper mentions that fill in the years between records.
• A Sanborn fire-insurance map of your block wherever one survives.
• The first time your house appears on a map, which often narrows down when it was really built.

Modern Home Edition (for homes built 1950 or later)

The true story of the ground your house stands on. It doesn't name past residents.

• Your lot circled in red on historic U.S. Geological Survey maps, from the oldest survey that covers it up to today.
• A then-and-now map spread showing the same ground decades apart.
• The land, era by era: the first peoples who lived there, early settlement and land grants, the railroad and town years, 20th-century growth, and how your street came to be.
• Old newspaper clippings about your neighborhood, from digitized archives.
• How your street was laid out, from plat, permit and county records where they're public.

Both editions include a sources page listing where every fact came from, and a blank "Our Chapter" page for your own family.

The details

• Full-color PDF, researched from primary public records, with every fact checked by a person
• Emailed within about 5 business days of your order
• Nothing is shipped
• Want it on your shelf? You can upgrade to the hardcover later.

How it works

1. Tell us the address and the approximate year it was built (a guess is fine).
2. We research the original records. A person checks every fact.
3. Your PDF arrives by email.

What if the records for my address are thin?
We check the records for your address before we deliver anything. If we can't make a book we're proud of, we'll tell you and refund you in full.