As I have said the first thing you need in researching a house is a legal description of the property. In the case of the house I am currently researching, so far I have not been able to obtain that. I have the property owner’s name, and the fact that the family “thinks” the house was built during the civil war. That gives us a window of 1861-1865. And remember that family lore may not be accurate. Adding to the confusion of this case is that there are numerous families with the same last name as the one I am researching living in the same township. One of them even has the first name Bernard, and my house was built by John Bernard who sometimes went by Bernard. Looking at an 1878 map of St. Louis County, I see many references to Bernard’s. I looked in the index of St. Louis deeds, and without knowing the year that John purchased the property, it is an overwhelming task to review the films. For each year I would have to look at every last name which begins with “H” (the surname I am looking for) as they are not in alphabetical order except for the first letter of the last name. I reviewed census records, but because the family lived in a rural area no street or house number are listed on the census. I did find some wonderful old photos of the farm in a book on the history of Hazelwood. This Saturday I am going to a workshop on house research, so I hope to find some additional resources for researching a house of this time period.
