House Histories
HOW TO RESEARCH THE HISTORY OF YOUR HOME
by Richelle Emery and Laura Hine
The main scope of this article is to show you how to research the history of your home, including previous owners. We will take you on a step-by-step tutorial showing you where to look and how to do this work and will show an example of the process using the Lava Lounge located at 1307 Auburn Avenue. Our grandmother, Paulina Liebert, was an early female business owner in Tremont. She owned and operated the Eagle Printing company out of the building at 1307 Auburn Avenue in the early 1920's.
The first stop in your research is the Cuyahoga County Auditor's Website located at:
https://myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov/
You need to remember these terms:
GRANTOR is the seller
GRANTEE is the buyer
1. On this page, choose to search by address and enter the address of your residence. In our example, we will search for 1307 Auburn. Hit the search button.
2. A page comes up showing you the current owner of the property, Jack Lounge Inc.
3. Click on the "Transfers" on the left.
4. You'll then be presented with the transfer history going back to 1975. Click on each one and make note of the date and grantor and grantee. In our case, this shows that the previous owner was Richard A. Sosenko. He sold it on August 18, 1999 to Jack Lounge. As you click through the others, you will again see the previous owner. This website goes back to 1975. In our case, we see that the earliest owner back in 1975 was Helen Sosenko.
Having completed your work at the Auditor's website, the next place to go to trace your property back even further is the Cuyahoga County Recorder's Site located at: https://cuyahoga.oh.publicsearch.us/
A.
1. On this page, you'll be searching property records and be able to see the deeds. (The date being searched can be changed if you'd like).
2. Type in "Sosenko, Helen" without the quotes. Be sure to use a comma between the last and first name. Hit enter or the magnifying glass.
3. A page will come up showing every deed, mortgage, or transaction involving Helen Sosenko. Click on the column heading "Recorded Date" to put them in chronological order. Now, from the auditor's site we know that Helen owned the house in 1975, but she could have purchased it prior to 1975. So, you need to look through the list for a date prior to 1975. Watch the "Property Address" column for the word AUBURN, but be aware that the street name will not always appear.
6. In this case, I saw Auburn Avenue, so I clicked on that record. If the street name does not appear, you'll have to click on all deeds with Helen Sosenko as the Grantee until you find one mentioning 1307 Auburn Avenue. After viewing the deed (which you can download for free), Julius Hollowacz did sell the 1307 Auburn property to Helen Sosenko on November 5, 1965.
B. Now we need to start this entire search again for Julius Hollawacz. Go back to #1 directly above and repeat the entire process. You see that on October 24, 1957, Alex and Viola Mark sold the property to Julius Hollowacz.
C. Start this entire search again for Alex and Viola Marko. I didn't find anything using Alex Marko, so I tried Viola Marko. On Nov. 29, 1954, Paul and Laverne Maximuk sold the property to Alex and Viola Marko. I know this is the correct entry because I downloaded a copy of the deed and ascertained that it was talking about the property on Auburn Ave.
D. Start the search again for Paul Maximuk. I can't find a Paul Maximuk that fits, so I go back to the original search screen and change the last name to Ma *
This is a wildcard that gives you all entries that start with "Ma". I see the word Auburn under the column "Property Address" and see that on April 4, 1924, George and Anastasyz Kociszewski sold the property to Isador and Zuzana Makimuk.
E. Continuing on, we search for Kociszewski. On February 5, 1923, Charles McCoombs sold the property to Anastasya Kociszewski.
F. I continue and try with the name McCoombs and see no relevant entries for Auburn Avenue. So, our work is done on this website for now. This website goes back to the 1810, so perhaps the name of McCoombs is misspelled on earlier deeds. Try different spelling variations and wildcards until you can go no further. Often, you can go all the way back to 1810. In the case of a brick wall, the next step is to go to the Cuyahoga County Archive.
Cuyahoga County Archive - 3951 Perkins Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
In continuing our search, we went to the Cuyahoga County Archive (an appointment is necessary). We asked for the plat maps for 1307 Auburn Avenue. The staff pulled the plat maps and will even make copies for you. Tell them that you wish to trace the ownership of this property and given them the earliest owner that you know of from the Recorder's site and the date of transfer. There are different sets of plat maps for different timeframes and you want to start with the one that shows the earliest date that you found on the Recorder's site. By tracking the plat maps backwards, you'll see who owned the property to its earliest date. The Archive also has tax duplicates that may have a early picture of your residence. Be sure to ask for this.
In the case that we are using here, the list of owners from the plat maps were:
6/26/1902 - Dorcas Society
5/2/1905 - Charles E. McCombe
2/3/1923 - Anastazya Kociszewski
4/3/1924 - Isidor & Zyzana Maximulk
4/21/1989 - Julius Hollowacz
(I was only interested in going back to 1902 in this example, but could have gone back further using the plat maps)
1. So, we see that Charles McCoombs name was indeed misspelled and should be MCCOMBE. We could go back to the recorders site and continue the search using this spelling. I did this and still couldn't find anything under Charles McCombe. So, I tried searching with the last name field of DORCAS and a * in the first name field. The results show that Martha McCombs sold the property to the Dorcas Society on July 11, 1902.
2. Continuing on, we see that Henry Senne sold the property to Martha McCombs on April 23, 1888.
3. Finally, on May 5, 1886, there is a transaction between Charles Oehlstrom and Henry Senne. I tried searching for Charles Oehlstrom and found nothing, so we can perhaps assume that this was the earliest transaction and perhaps Charles Oehlstrom was the first owner.
So, to recap the owners of this property:
5/5/1886 Charles Oehlstrom sells to Henry Senne
4/23/1888 Henry Senne sells to Martha McCombs
7/11/1902 Martha McCombs sells to Dorcas Society
5/2/1905 Dorcas Society sells to Charles McCombe
2/5/1923 Charles McCoombs sells to Anastazya Kociszewski
4/4/1924 Anastazya Kociszewski sells to Isidor & Zyzana Maximulk
11/29/1954 Maximulks sell to Alex and Viola Marko
10/24/1957 Markos sell to Julius Hollowacz
11/5/1965 Hollowacz sells to Helen Sosenko
2/12/1991 Helen Sosenko sells to Richard Sosenko
8/18/1999 Richard Sosenko sells to Jack Lounge Inc.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
You can also use Census records to learn more about the various families that owned your house throughout the ages. Census records are available for 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1950. So, if you know who was living in your home in 1920 for instance, you can look them up in the 1920 census records and see how many people were in their family, and their ages and occupations. The Cuyahoga County Public Library system has a subscription to Ancestry.com where these census records can be searched for free, but you have to be at the library to do it. FamilySearch also has census records online and for free here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/united-states/ and you can search FamilySearch from home. In our example, we could search for the following in the census records:
1900 Census - Martha McCombs
1910 Census - Charles McCombe
1920 Census - Charles McCombe
1930 Census - Isidor & Zyzana Maximulk
Sanborn Maps, which are available through the Cleveland or Cuyahoga County Public Library website with a valid library card (found under research databases), shows you the businesses and churches surrounding the house, and also the type of house that it was.
GOOD LUCK!!