How to find out who lived in your house throughout history

One of the simplest ways to begin researching your house’s history is with an online address search. You don’t need names or specific dates to do this - the street name and general location is enough to get started. On family history websites like Findmypast , you can search a wide range of digitised British and Irish records by address.  

A broad address search will scour online records like census returns, electoral registers and trade and street directories for mentions of your street or building. It is a great way to build a rough timeline of your home’s former occupants, giving you clues for where to delve deeper.

Like the world around it, your house has likely witnessed large changes over its history. Decades ago, your street name may have been different. It may have belonged to a different parish or county. Town names have changed, too, with administrative boundaries changing for various reasons.  

These historical factors will impact your house history research. To avoid getting caught up searching the 1921 Census for a street name that didn’t exist a hundred years ago, it’s a good idea to look at old maps of your local area and notice changes that have taken place.  

Findmypast's historical map search.

Old Ordnance Survey and tithe maps can provide a geographical and structural view of your house’s history - what was built around it, how the land was divided, and how the neighbourhood evolved. 

Armed with a general understanding of your local area over time, you can delve deeper by exploring specific censuses.  

In England and Wales, censuses have been taken every ten years since the early 19th century. Thanks to large-scale digitisation projects, British censuses from 1841 onwards are now searchable online. These records provide a detailed snapshot of who was living at a property on census night. For each member of the household, you’ll likely find out: 

• Full name  
• Age 
• Birth year 
• Occupation 
• Relationship to head of household 

As well as revealing who lived in a property, census records are also valuable for understanding a building’s usage. Was it a single-family home or divided into lodgings? Did a business operate from the ground floor? Censuses can thus offer insight into issues of poverty, class and homeownership. By viewing multiple census returns over time, you can track changes in occupancy and family structure.  

Taken on the eve of the Second World War, the 1939 Register can also provide important house history insights.  

While genealogy records provide you with names and dates, old newspaper articles can help bring your home’s history to life. Once you’ve identified past residents, try searching their names (or indeed the address itself) in newspaper archives to learn more about their experiences. 

What information can you find in historical newspapers?

When exploring historical newspaper archives, you may discover: 

• Property listings offering your home (or a room in it) to rent 
• Details of court proceedings where the address is mentioned. Perhaps a previous resident committed petty theft, or the house was burgled  
• Death notices, wills, and obituaries which list the address in any capacity 
• Photographs of buildings or streets from years gone by

From newspaper articles, you may glean rich details about the community and the day-to-day experiences of its residents, from air raid drills during the Blitz to post-war prosperity.  

With Findmypast , you can put relevant newspaper clippings together in a Collection, which will keep your research organised and help you to trace the history of your home over time.  

Over hundreds of years, every street in Britain has been affected by socio-economic shifts and boundary changes. Understanding the broader history of the place you're researching helps you to put your house history discoveries into context.

Whether by reading books, visiting local archives, or examining family photographs, you should look beyond traditional records to gain a full understanding of the area.

Once you've found a valuable clue about a house's history, ensure it doesn't get lost within your research by storing it in an online tool like Findmypast's Workspaces. Much like a family tree does for family history research, Workspaces allows you to keep your thoughts and findings together as you go, in an organised manner.

You can save record transcriptions and newspaper clippings alongside your own notes in dedicated folders and sub-folders. You can add standalone notes to track your research goals or to make notes for your next research session. Learn more about how to organise your house history research here.