1. Make a house identity sheet
Record the current street address, parcel number, municipality, county, and any historic address or building name already known. Photograph the front, sides, rear, and visible details with permission. Keep a separate list of claims you want to investigate, such as a construction year, architect, former business, or notable resident. A listing description is a lead to investigate; it is not the source that closes the question.
2. Look for an existing survey
Check the local preservation office and Michigan SHPO research resources. If the building is within a registered district, search the district file as well as the street address. The National Register database and research explains where nomination files, photographs, and maps can be found. Read the individual resource entry and the district narrative together: one describes the building, while the other explains its setting.
3. Follow the building and its occupants separately
Ask the local library, archives, assessor, register of deeds, and building department what records survive. Deeds can help follow ownership; directories can help follow occupancy; permits and assessment files can help investigate construction and alterations. These timelines often overlap without being identical. An owner might not have lived there, and the first date you find a person at an address is not necessarily the year the house was built.
4. Compare maps and photographs
Look for historic fire-insurance maps, plats, city atlases, aerial photographs, and street images in local collections. Compare more than one date. Mark the footprint, additions, outbuildings, and surrounding uses that appear to change. Check the map legend before interpreting colors or symbols, and account for street renaming or renumbering before concluding that a building disappeared.
5. Build a source log
For every useful record, save the collection name, item title, date, page or image number, repository, web link if available, and the date you consulted it. In a second column, write what the record actually supports. In a third, write your interpretation. This small separation makes the final history easier to check and prevents an appealing guess from quietly becoming a fact.
6. Write the story with room for corrections
Organize the final account around a few supported changes: construction, occupancy, major alterations, and the building’s role in its surroundings. Use an approximate date when that is what the evidence supports. Preserve conflicting dates in your notes and explain which source you relied on. Invite former residents to contribute memories, then identify recollections as recollections until documents corroborate them. Before publishing someone else’s photograph, establish permission or a suitable reuse basis.
Your next steps
Use this checklist to organize your next conversation or site visit.
