Do you ever wonder who lived in your house before you?
Ever wondered about the juicy secrets of your home? Well, using the steps in this guide, you can finally figure out about the potentially fascinating folks who lived there before you.
When you think about your house, you see it for how it is in its current condition and naturally view it as your own space. But have you ever wondered who lived there before you, not just in recent years, but even several decades ago?
Whether you live in a relatively new property or one that’s hundreds of years old, it’s interesting to think about what the previous occupiers were like and what their lifestyle may have been like in the same home. In many cases, previous property owners have completely transformed their properties, extending them and refurbishing them to turn them into a completely new space altogether.
Some properties haven’t changed hands much over the years either, so you could be living in a listed home that’s steeped in history.
How to find out who previously lived in your house
In the past, it was somewhat difficult to trace previous owners and find records of a property. Nowadays, you can access public records online in an instant. Further, there are many companies that specialise in property history, providing detailed timelines of who lived in a particular house at any given time. Here are a few of the ways you can find out.
Electoral Roll
Formed in 1832, the electoral register has a record of the people who lived at specific addresses. However, women couldn’t vote until 1918 when they were able to vote, which means many people will have been omitted as a result. Since 1969, the electoral roll has been more extensive with both women, men and those 18 and above eligible to vote.
Title Deed
The title deed to your home will usually include a list of previous buyers and sellers of your home, along with the price it changed hands for in the past. A title deed can give great insight into what your property was like “back in the day”, as a description is often included as well.
Multi-era owners and occupiers
If you live in a relatively new property, whilst you may have had some interesting occupiers in the past, there is unlikely to be much in the way of history behind the property.
Period properties, on the other hand, have been around for several hundred years in some cases, and are bound to have had interesting owners and occupiers over the years.
For many people, the fact that a period property has history and character to it is one of the main reasons they choose to buy this type of property. Understandably, many new owners like to delve into the history of their property, as it would have been home to those of different backgrounds across many generations and from different eras, too. It’s also interesting to delve into how the property itself may have changed over the years.
When you consider that there are many Grade I and Grade II listed properties across the UK that have been around since the Medieval era, or even before this time, it does make you wonder what the owners must have been like. For example, if you live in a house that was built in the 1300s, this means that it’s had people living in it from the Medieval through to Tudor, Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and 20th Century eras. That’s a lot of history.
Blue Plaque Scheme
The Blue Plaques scheme is run by English Heritage, where homes with previous famous or influential owners and occupiers receive a blue plaque which is affixed to the outside of the house. If you purchase a property with a blue plaque it’s a surefire way to know who lived there before you, and often you can find further information about the previous owners through English Heritage. This isn’t restricted to period properties, as even more modern properties have blue plaques which can give you a great insight into the previous owners.
Summary
It’s intriguing when you think about who might have lived in your house, especially for those living in older properties. For all you know, you could be living in a house that was built on an old Norman hunting ground, for example, and has been lived in by many families over the years. But, even if you live in a newer property, it would likely have still had people from various backgrounds and walks of life living there.
Luckily, there are many ways to find out detailed information on who lived in your house previously. In older times this information was hard to come by and only physical records were kept, so if these were misplaced or destroyed, the records were gone forever. There are lots of websites which can help you trace your property’s records, and you can also access the electoral roll to find more information.
Title deeds can also give great insight into a property’s history, as they show a history of previous owners, how much the property cost, as well as a description of what it looked like and its condition at the time.