What s the history of your house —

‘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 1 st Crown grant PROV - Rates date, improvements BRAC, GRC - Title all owners & land over time Landata - Historic newspapers - Photos - Wills & probate Trove GRC, SLV, BHS PROV - Heritage studies - Local histories - Street directories Co. GB / GRC GRC

Other Resources - BUILDINGS - Architecture styles - Apperly et al Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture - Butler et al Bendigo & Eaglehawk Heritage Study GRC - Co. GB 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/Herita ge/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 Victoria www. 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 Landata Mining 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 1920 s, 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 - Key plan: locate parish plan for your address - Sandhurst@Bendigo - Plan 17

Parish plans – specific plan - Locate your property Section 15 B allotment 15 B - First transfer: T Davey - Date of transfer: 19. 5. 1854 - Area: 0 acres, 0 roods, 18 & 2/10 perches - Boundary: 50 x 231 x 50 x 228 - Survey putaway: S 440 M - Survey putaway area: S 53

Parish plans – a Residential Area example - Key plan: locate parish plan for your address - Sandhurst@Bendigo - Plan 11

Parish plans – specific plan - Locate the property Section K allotment 446 A - First transfer: FB Shannon - Date of transfer: 29. 6. 1978 - Area: 463 m 2 - Boundary: noted - Survey putaway: none - Residential Area 2[1]5 - File cat. : 174 - Serial: 3614

Parish plans – specific plan analysis - Key points to note - Date of transfer: 1978 - Residential Area 2[1]5 - Serial: 3614 - File cat. : 174 Conclusion: this is a Residential Area leasehold attached to a Miner’s Right

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 - Landata - www. 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

Troubleshooting If 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 Centre www. brac. vic. gov. au/Home - Rates books 1856 – 1970 s - 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. 1890 s 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 Victoria www. 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-andprobate - & 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 P 3 unit 559, p. 11 extract

Photos - State Library of Victoria www. slv. vic. gov. au - Airspy collection: C 20 th aerials of Victoria

Heritage studies City of Greater Bendigo www. bendigo. vic. gov. au/Residents_and_Servic es/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’