‘What’s the history of your house?’

- Resources for Goldfields Library

Why do people want to find out the history of their house?

- Restoration & preservation

- Improve the value of their house

- Sense of place, history of their home

- It’s fun!

What’s the process?

-Start in the easiest place: the present

-Find key points in the past

-To help guide us through different resources & piece together the puzzle of the past

How do we do a history of a house?

- Check a lot of resources!

- Build up a layered picture

- Jigsaw puzzle – not all questions can be answered

Resources - BUILDINGS

- Parish plan 1st Crown grant PROV

- Rates date, improvements BRAC, GRC

- Title all owners & land over time Landata

- Historic newspapers Trove- Photos GRC, SLV, BHS- Wills & probate PROV

- Heritage studies CoGB / GRC- Local histories GRC- Street directories GRC

Other Resources - BUILDINGS- Architecture styles- Apperly et al Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian

Architecture- Butler et al Bendigo & Eaglehawk Heritage Study GRC- CoGB PPP & Heritage Design Guidelines, Planning

Dept – late 2014- Lovell Chen Greater Bendigo Thematic Environmental

History (chapter 6) http://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/Residents_and_Services/Heritage/Greater_Bendigo_Thematic_Environmental_History

- What house is that? A guide to Victoria’s Housing Styles http://heritage.vic.gov.au/Heritage-places-objects/What-house-is-that/index.html

Parish plans

- Public Records Office of Victoriawww.prov.vic.gov.au

Parish plans – resource info

- Created by Dept of Crown Lands & Surveys (now DEPI)

- Recorded first transfer of land from Crown Lands Dept – owner & date

- i.e. how it moved out of Crown Lands authority to another status

- Private land in the goldfields is either freehold or mining leasehold

- Public land remains in Crown Lands authority, but can have different management arrangements

Parish plans – private land

Freehold:-Is the outright ownership to a piece of land & what is on that land-Can be traced through titles LandataMining leashold, or ‘Residential Area’:-Is the permission of a person with a Miner’s Right to reside on that land-It’s a lease, so there’s no transfer of ownership & can’t be traced through titles-Initially managed through Dept of Mines until 1920s, then by the Dept of Lands

PROV

Parish plans – how to use

- Follow the steps on the Goldfields Research Centre handout ‘Parish land records’

- Or, follow PROV Guide 30 http://prov.vic.gov.au/provguide-30

- Check the ‘Sandhurst Key Sheet’ to locate correct parish plan map for your address

- Bendigo, Eaglehawk, & outer suburbs are under ‘S’ for Sandhurst

- Other towns are alphabetically listed

Parish plans – a freehold example

Parish plans – specific plan

Parish plans – a Residential Area example

Parish plans – specific plan

Parish plans – specific plan analysis

Parish plans – where to now?For the RA information, this person goes to: -DEPI Epsom - the file may be held locally, or PROV North Melbourne-For the PROV file, go to www.prov.vic.gov.au-Select ‘Access the collection’ -Select to ‘Search within a series’

Parish plans – where to now? (cont)- Enter VPRS 5357 for Land selection &

correspondence files for Sandhurst- Search on the serial number – e.g. 3614

Parish plans – where to now? (cont)- This will return a

few file results- Select the one you

want & go into it

- hit the ‘order item’ button

Parish plans – where to now? (cont)

- There are thousands of Land selection & correspondence files

- This search capacity is being developed progressively

- If you can’t locate the file by serial number or the name, then the microfiche index will need to be used

- The microfiche INDEX for Land selection & correspondence files at Sandhurst is at VPRS 7312 in North Melbourne

Titles

- Landatawww.landata.vic.gov.au

-

Titles – resource info

- Created by the Registrar of Titles- Records the history of ownership on a

piece of land & whatever is on it- Any changes to the land will create a

new title or several new titles e.g. subdivision

- Any changes to the ownership will cause new entries on the title e.g. change of mortgager/s or mortgagee/s

- Getting all the titles for a property means you can compile a list of all the owners for Rates research

Titles – how to use

- Select ‘Titles & Property Certificates’- (Register / Login)- Go through the steps as prompted

Titles – current title- Get a ‘register search statement’- Register search statement result shows

all previous transactions on the title

- E.g. transfers (Crown, freehold), mortgages & subdivisions

Titles – entire title history- For titles back to original transfer from Crown- Go through the steps on each parent title- Parent titles are titles that are superseded

Titles – cancelled title- Get ‘cancelled title search’

- But how far back might you have to go….?

- SEE Parish plan first grantee information

TroubleshootingIf someone has a current title:- The second page has parent information

at the top e.g. volume 5353 folio 474  

Old / general law- A small number of titles have not been

transferred to Torrens system- There will be no parent volume or folio- Pay a research agent to obtain history

Rates- Goldfields Research Centre

www.ncgrl.vic.gov.au - Rates database 1856 – c.1901- Search options: surname, address, year- ‘Exact’ or ‘like’ options

- Bendigo Regional Archives Centrewww.brac.vic.gov.au

- Rates books 1856 – 1970s- Refer to BRAC Guide 4- Look at entries written over 100 years

ago!

Rates – resource info

- Created by the council / shire by the Rates assessor

- Rates are based on the value of structures, to raise revenue for council services

- The value reflects the use & construction history on a piece of land

- Any changes to a structure / use of the property will be reflected in the ‘Net Annual Value’, or NAV

- NAV can also fluctuate due to local economic circumstances, for e.g. 1890s Depression

Rates database – how to use- ‘Like’ search yields more results- Names were spelt a variety of ways

until post WWII - use misspellings on names & shortenings eg. ‘Adam’ for ‘Adams’

- Use combination searches - name with street or year

- Streets in mining areas would have started as gullies or creeks, so they’ll have a different name originally

- Street numbering began in 1906- Can search on ‘The Crown’

Rates records – how to use

- Stable identifier is the name – SEE Titles

- If in doubt, identify property by confirming neighbours – SEE Parish Plans

- Ideally, can trace back to ‘vacant land’- NAVs for this region:- £2 - £4 tent, hut or other temporary

structure- £6 - £8 miner’s cottage- £10 - £16 brick house- £18 + mansion or commercial business

Rates records – how to use (cont)- Slight increase in NAV can be an

addition or alteration, e.g. extra rooms, verandah

- Dramatic increases tend to be a new structure, e.g. demolition & rebuild

- Newspaper sources will reveal if a fire or other disaster is part of this history

- Identify first instance of the property with the name & then use rate number to quickly locate in next & following years

- Rates assessor can reverse walking pattern – go back to name searching & / or use neighbour identification

Wills & Probate

- Public Records Office of Victoriawww.prov.vic.gov.au

Wills & Probate – resource info

- Created by Registrar of Probates, Supreme Court

- Recorded transfer of goods & chattels after death

- Administered this transfer when deceased was intestate, i.e. died without a will

- Records all assets & effects that the deceased possessed or was indebted for at time of death

- Access to digitised copies 1841 – 1925- Online index for 1926 – 2009

Wills & Probate – how to use

- Follow the steps on PROV How To Guide 29 http://prov.vic.gov.au/howtoguide-29

- (more resource info also available in PROV Guide 29 http://prov.vic.gov.au/provguide-29)

- Go to Wills & Probate page at http://prov.vic.gov.au/research/wills-and-probate

- & click to search Online index at http://prov.vic.gov.au/index_search?searchid=54

Wills & Probate – example

- William C Vahland, died 21 July 1915

- VPRS 28 Probate& Admin Files P3unit 559, p.11extract

Photos- State Library of Victoria

www.slv.vic.gov.au- Airspy collection: C20th aerials of

Victoria

Heritage studiesCity of Greater Bendigowww.bendigo.vic.gov.au/Residents_and_Services/Heritage/Heritage_studies-Citations for places with heritage overlays

…& there you have it – a very fast

tour of resources for doing ‘who’s been living at your house’