General Chat

how do I research this on Genes- a post by genes suggested this but no link
John

I would like to know the history of the house I was born in.

The only way I know is to go to each census, and search by using the address. There would be no separate link to such a search.

I did that years ago for the house I lived in from 1951 to 1967, but not on GR.

I used Ancestry which I have subscribed to for many years. FindMyPast would also allow that.

Even on those sites, some censuses are easier to search than others, just because of how the census was set up, nothing to do with the site.

I've never used any of Genes' records, so have no idea whether you can actually do this with them.

Can I suggest you have a look at Victoria County Histories on A2A as a start.

If your county is on there you can get a good idea about the area.

When do you think your home was built? 1900's, 1800's, earlier?

Further to my question above:-

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/houses/

As well as the nationarchives link there are other records often online and free.

(1) electoral register - Ancestry have quite a lot of this online inc London (but not Essex) going back well into the C19 ; local records centres will also have it but you may have to visit and/or shell out. Although women did not get the vote for parliament until 1928 they were able to vote based on property long before for local govt. which is useful for house tracking

(2) land tax levies - these pop up all over the place but Ancestry have a lot going back to early C19

(3) wills often give residence addresses, as do church bmd records

(4) if the house in question is older than 1600 taxes on the property may show up as feudal dues aka "fines".

(5) A great deal can also be discovered from planning applications and architect records.Large cities often have detailed records of destruction caused by ww2 bombing some of which are online.

(6) Simply by googling a street name/locality and choosing "images" tab it is often possible to find useful pictures of the street of interest and sometimes even a specific house!
Hazards include changing street names - there are sites which have lookuo lists of old/new names, change of use pub/house/shop etc and of course wholesale demolition. Quite often redevelopment still uses the original street name and numbers so a C19 tenement becomes a modern expensive block of flats!

Look out for duplicate street names, there are very few unique. Two for starters are Pall Mall in St James and Wybert Street in St Pancras

As recently shown on the series "A House in Time" (BBC) it is possible to dig out quite a lot of history about a house but it can need some effort. This series is available for Liverpool and Bristol. I think Newcastle is next. It has a lot of hints on going about the search.

good luck

The Newcastle one has been on, Rollo, before the Bristol one. It was every bit as interesting as the Liverpool one.

I hope they continue to do more.

If anyone can point me in the direction of Hurst Street, Liverpool records, I'd be delighted.

In the latter part of the 1700s one of the houses (no idea which one) was occupied by Philip Cubbon/Cubbin. My great grandparents, 2 x great grandparents and 3 x great grandfather (and possibly 3 x gt grandmother who died young) all lived (at various times) in the same house in that street for decades. I found my 3x gt grandfather on the electoral rolls for Hurst Street so he may have inherited from his wife, who in turn may have inherited from Philip.

The house no longer stands but the pub on the corner is still there (The Baltic Fleet).