Using material available at Melbourne Library Service
Tracing the history of your house need not be a daunting experience.

The following is suggested as an initial approach to the task.

Don't expect to complete this in an afternoon! You'll be doing your own primary research, which will be fascinating, engrossing and sometimes frustrating. It may also be time-consuming, but you'll find the process is a rewarding one.

Start by doing a little background reading, then use primary sources such as Council rate books and postal directories to discover the story of your house. Remember that making systematic notes as you go will save time in the long run.

On the web
Ian Evan's World of Old Houses - a guide to caring for and restoring your old house.

Published Material
All of the following books are available through our catalogue - enter the title into the main search box and click GO or press the enter button on your keyboard.

Books to get you started
Be aware that some of the books listed are available only for reference within libraries. Books which are available for loan can be sent to any of our libraries for you to pick up.

• Des Regan and Kate Press (1990) How to trace the history of your house Penguin, Ringwood.
• Graeme Davison and Chris McConville (ed)(1991) A heritage handbook Allen & Unwin, North Sydney - Chapter 14 "How to research the history of a house" by Carlotta Kellaway, uses Richmond buildings as case studies.
• Robin Jackson (2001) Researching your house in Richmond Robin Jackson, Burnley, Vic.

Books to help you estimate the age of your house

• Mark Vines, Geoff Outhred and John Leigh (1996) Identification of housing styles and faults RMIT, Melbourne.
• Laurie Burchell (1991) Recognising house styles 1880s - 1990s City of Coburg, Coburg
• Maisy Stapleton and Ian Stapleton (1996) Australian house styles Flannel Flower Press, Yeronga.

Council Conservation Studies and Heritage Reviews
The City of Melbourne has commissioned heritage studies since the early 1980s and now has an invaluable collection of heritage information for more than 8000 places within the municipality, which is available online.

The Council has the heritage data for all suburbs within the City of Melbourne. The i-Heritage database provides a wide range of details on individual buildings including:

• building grading;
• architectural style;
• heritage status;
• notable features;
• statements of significance;
• historical information;
• builder;
• photograph of current building

This heritage information has been transcribed from the original Conservation Studies and is useful for property owners, occupiers, architects, students and others who have an interest in heritage places. View the database  

Primary Source Material
The two major primary sources we have in our libraries are Post Office directories, and Council rate books. These are available at North Melbourne library. These books have been copied on to microfiche and can be read on machines in the libraries. If you've never used microfiche or film before, don't worry - the machine is basically a form of slide viewer, and staff are happy to show you how it works.

Post Office Directories
These were equivalent to present-day phone books, with the advantage that they have a sequence of addresses, as well as names. They are useful for finding who lived at your address, and building up a picture of the street.

The major (though not sole) publisher of post office directories was Sands and MacDougall, so you'll often hear them referred to as 'Sands and MacDougall directories'. North Melbourne and East Melbourne libraries hold microfiche copies of the Victorian directories, with a date range from 1839 to 1974.

The first rule for working with this kind of source material is to go backwards from what you know. For example, if you know for certain a house existed in 1940, go backwards from there. Aim to find out when a house first appears on a particular site. To ascertain the location, you may need to piece together information such as the neighbors or landmarks etc, as street numbers are not always given, and the numbering may have changed. Street names themselves change too, which can cause confusion.

Council Rate Books
These books were used to record Council rates collection. They include information about the owner and the occupier of a property, brief description (such as 'wood house 3 rooms' or 'vacant land'), and the valuation.

The rate books are set out by ward, then by street. Maps are available for checking the ward, as boundaries and names have changed over the years. There is usually a street index at the beginning of each ward listing, which will tell you what page to look for. (If for any reason you don't already know the address of the property, you'll need to check this in the postal directories first.)

As mentioned before, it is a good idea to start with what you definitely know, and work backwards. For example if you think your four-roomed brick house was built c. 1915 - 1920, start in say 1930, then work backwards to find the first reference which matches your house. You may find that the record for 1916 reads "house brick 4 rms", the record for 1915 reads "house wood 3 rms" (and if you go back even further, the record for 1870 reads "vacant land"). You can then be fairly certain that your house was built c. 1915-16. It can be a good idea to note the valuations for each year you check, as variations could indicate alterations to the building.

If there are no street numbers at all, you'll need to do some educated guess work. Your house may be the fourth property after an intersection for example, which is something you can follow back, especially if you build up a picture of who lived in the house in question, and the neighbouring houses and landmarks. Do remember that the sizes of blocks of land may change over the years. Inner-city areas were often sub-divided, and what one year may have been a single rateable property, may become three properties in a subsequent year.