Now that you have gathered names, dates, property descriptions and sums of money, you are ready to proceed with the rest of the research. There are, however, a few pitfalls of deed research to be aware of:

1. Deeds trace property, not houses. You may trace the property back to the founding of Wilmington, but it does not mean that a house was there. Often the legal terms such as, tenements and herediments thereon, can be found in the deed. This only means that if there are buildings on the property they are included in the transaction. It does not mean that buildings are definitely there.
2. You may have a long list of property owners, but that does not mean that they lived on the property. Many houses were built as rental property.
3. Some people owned so much property that they take up many pages in the grantor/grantee indices. Sometimes you run into trustees' names, usually lawyers, who handled the property for many clients. It is difficult to discern which property is yours. If the date or lot number is given in the index it will help you narrow down which deed is yours, but often they are not listed in the index.
4. Old deeds are usually handwritten and difficult to read. Prior to 1868, North Carolina practiced English common law, which is quite different from our current code system. Do not try to transfer common law terms and practices into current ones. A copy of Black's Law Dictionary will help you understand the legal terms.
5. Property is often inherited. Estate settlement can take years to resolve. Wills and estate papers can be helpful to untangle the divisions and changes in ownership.

Block Books (Register of Deeds Office)
Block Books are large books that indicate the owners in each block. They vary in dates and unfortunately some are not dated at all. Law firms, especially older ones, often have their own block books. A good example is the William B. McKoy block books which are located at the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society.

Gray's Map and Sanborn Insurance Maps (Library)
Maps that show houses are rare. There are, however, two excellent sources for Wilmington (most large cities will have the same). First is the Gray's Map, 1882, which was included in Gray's Atlas of Cities Second are the Sanborn Insurance Maps. There are two Gray's Maps. One covers the central business district of Wilmington and the other those blocks surrounding it. The maps show lots, shape of buildings and position on the lot.

The Sanborn Company of New York, recorded each house in major cities for insurance purposes. For Wilmington, maps exist for 1889, 1893, 1898, 1904, 1910, 1915, and supplements that cover 1921, 1928, 1948, and 1955. For the later years, check each page to see the date in the upper right hand corner. Each building is drawn to proportion and situated in proportion as to how it sat on the lot. Porches, windows, building materials and other architectural features are visible on the maps. The Sanborn maps are a great source for narrowing down when your house was built. For example, if your house does not appear on the 1898 map, but shows up on the 1904 map, you have narrowed down the construction date to between those years. The Sanborn Insurance Maps for North Carolina are available on NCLive, a product available in public and academic libraries. It is also available from home if you visit your local library and ask for a password.

City Directories 1861 to present (Library)
Being the largest city in NC for over 100 years, we are blessed with numerous city directories for Wilmington. They include the following years: 1861, 1865, 1867 (two directories), 1871, 1875, 1877, 1881, 1883, 1889, 1895, 1897, 1900-present day. If your house shows up in one but not in the previous one, you have narrowed down the date of construction. The city directories are also our best resource for occupation of the inhabitant(s). Following a person through the directories gives insight into their careers. They changed jobs as often as we do today. The Plaque Committee requires a complete list of the occupants of the house and prefers to use the occupation of the first owner at the time the house was constructed. This information should be recorded carefully. For example:

As valuable as they are, city directories have the following pitfalls:

1. Directories before 1883 do not list street addresses. They describe the location as, Ann between Second and Third, or Fifth between Dock and Ann. These descriptions indicate that a house was on this block, but it may not be your house. You may have to trace all other houses on the block to eliminate any other possibilities.
2. Street indices do not appear until 1915. Prior to 1915 having names is very valuable because you cannot look up the property by street address. If you know who owned the property, you can check the directory by name. If the property was rental, a check of property owners will not show up at that address. Prior to 1915 the only option is to go through the directory, page by page, looking for your address. An index of street address for the 1883 city directory, the first directory to list house numbers, has been prepared by the staff of the library.
3. Remember that the city directories are prepared about one year before they are printed. This may prove an earlier date for your house.
4. Women and children are often not listed in the early directories unless they are the sole inhabitants of the house. By the early 20th century, children are often listed if they are older and living at home.
5. Sometimes, particularly in the older directories, people are listed as living in a boarding house or hotel with no address given.

Tax Records (Library)
Tax lists for New Hanover County have survived for various years. Many have been abstracted and are available in book form at the Library. Others are on microfilm. They list owners, property and the amount of taxes paid on a piece of property. One can speculate if there was a building on the property depending on the amount of taxes paid. When checking the tax lists in the City of Wilmington, notice that the acreage given is not the number of acres owned in town, but the lot number. In earlier tax lists, the printed forms that were used specified acreage and it seems that the tax department used that space for the lot number.

Insurance Policies 1846-1857 (Library)
Insurance policies were sometimes filed in the deed books. They are not listed in the grantor/grantee index so look out for them while reading the deeds. Numerous insurance policies were found in the deed books from 1846-1857. They have been abstracted and placed into book form for easy use and can be found at the Library. They list the property owner, the location of the house on the property, the description of the house and how old the building is at the time. They often list the neighbors' houses as well.

Schenck Diary (Library)
The Schenck Diary, kept by Nicholas W. Schenck (1830-1913), is an invaluable resource for Wilmington research. He recorded in his diary the many buildings and owners he remembered from his youth and often traces the building from one owner to the next, giving interesting tidbits about the owners. His diary includes hand drawn maps of blocks and locations of buildings. His work is concentrated in the central business district of Wilmington. Although he recorded his memoirs around 1905, his thoughts are of people, places and events as far back as 1838. A group of dedicated historians have, over the years, transcribed much of the Schenck Diary.

Photographs (Library, Cape Fear Museum, Lower Cape Fear Historical Society)
Photographs or line drawings of your building are exciting if you can find them.

Cemetery Records (Library & Local Cemeteries)
Now that you have learned about the construction of the building it is time to focus on the owners of the structure. Houses are built for people and it is the inhabitants that make the buildings come alive. Cemetery records give you the birth and death dated of the people who inhabited your house. There are many abstracts at the Library including: Oakdale Cemetery (Wilmington's largest), Bellevue Cemetery, Pine Forest Cemetery, Oak Grove Cemetery, and various smaller church and family cemeteries. Sometimes the people you are researching moved and out-of-town research must be conducted there. You may want to visit the cemetery to see if there is more information on the stone.

Newspapers and Newspaper Obituaries (Library)
Newspapers are a great source of information about houses and people. In the 1880s and 1890s, newspapers listed building permits. Often when a new house was built, a write up about the architect and a description of the building appeared in the newspaper. Unfortunately, there are few complete indices for newspapers and it is a matter of searching through each page near the date that your research has led you to believe your house was built. Newspapers also list funerals that were held in the home, deaths occurring in the home or visits from friends and relatives. The Reaves Collection, consisting of building family research, contains much of this type of information. Newspaper Obituaries are also very helpful. They give birth and death information, military service, occupation, civic work, fraternal club memberships, religious affiliation and family members. If they are immigrants from another county, state or country, this information can often be found in the obituary. If a person leaves Wilmington after living here many years, their obituary will appear in the local newspaper and will tell of their life in Wilmington and the area to which they relocated.

Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates (Register of Deeds Office)
North Carolina did not officially record births and deaths until 1913. If your occupant dies after that date their death certificates can be very helpful. Place of birth, name of spouse and cause of death are given. Marriage Certificates are much older, some dating back to the 1700s. The Plaque Committee requires information about the husband and wife if they were joint owners. If they were married more than one time, the spouse that lives in the house is the only one included on the plaque. Marriage records assist in tracking down spousal information.

Social Security Death Index (Library & Internet)
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com

Wills (Clerk of Superior Court)

Church Records (Library)
Church records are helpful in determining the birth and death dates of residents. The Library has a large selection of church records on microfilm and in book abstracts.

Family Histories (Library and Lower Cape Fear Historical Society)
Family histories provide can be helpful in finding birth and death dates, nativity, relationships and relocations.

Census Records (Library)
Census records give birth dates and occupations of residents and can often be helpful in finding construction dates. The census was taken in the city block by block. The enumerators visited each house in the block and then went on to the next block. The later censuses, 1900-1930, actually list streets by name.

Local History & Architectural History Books (Library)
Local history books can tell you much about the residents and the time and place in which they lived. Many families who built houses lived in the community for generations. They had businesses, served as civic and church leaders, were members of clubs and left their mark on the community. If you get a clue from an obituary or other source, follow up on that lead in a local history book. There are also many good books on historic architecture in Wilmington and in general. Consult the architecture books to better understand the style of the house. Understanding the architecture of your house can make your search more interesting and give insight into the residents.

Descendants and Neighbors
Many families who built these houses have lived in the Wilmington area for a long time. Seek out their descendants. The may have photographs of the house or of the people who lived there. They may be able to tell you stories about the residents or give you clues as to where to look next. Often neighbors have lived in nearby houses for generations. Talk to them about the former residents they can remember, or if they can remember if the house was altered in any way over the years.

Former Plaque Applications (Library, Historic Wilmington Foundation)
Former plaque applications can provide relationships to your house and the research has already been done for you.

Professionals
Sometimes the construction date is difficult to find, especially in early houses, and an architectural historian may be needed to inspect your house for signs of historic fabric and detail.

Putting It All Together
A historical chronology of the building and owner can be very helpful when doing research. Once you have gathered all of the information possible and made copies of all important deeds, city directory pages, obituaries, marriage certificates, cemetery information, tax lists, maps, pages from local history books, etc., you need to construct a history of the house. To do so, record each piece of information that you have gathered chronologically. By listing each event concerning the house and its occupants, you can discern when the house was built, who built it and what they did for a living. As you look through the chronology, you can tell a great deal about the social fabric of this one piece of property, the neighborhood, and the city.

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