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Applicants researching the history of buildings in Fairfax County,
Virginia will find these procedures useful. These preliminary steps
assist in preparing an Individual Property Nomination form. Not all
suggestions apply to every site.
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Determine the structure's Fairfax County Tax Map (FCTM)
reference number. This number is a necessary part of your
application. Access the Department of Taxation's Web
site. Click on the "view my property"
link. Click on the Property Search tab. Click on the
"search by address" link. Type your property's address
in the blanks provided. The resulting page of information
includes a parcel ID, which is the Tax Map reference number.
You do not need a FCTM reference number for research purposes;
this is only if you are nominating a building to the Inventory
of Historic Sites.
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Ascertain if there are any family names associated with the
property, especially for those structures constructed prior to
the twentieth century. Knowing these names will greatly assist
you in your research.
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Visit Fairfax County
Circuit Court Historical Records to determine the
history of ownership of the property. The Historical Records
department is located in Room 315 of the Fairfax County
Courthouse in Fairfax and is open from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00
p.m. Monday through Friday. A staff member is on duty to answer
your questions, but you need to do your own research. Once at
Historical Records:
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Look in the Grantee Index under the
owner's name. (The grantee is the buyer; the grantor is the
seller). To save yourself some work, search under the
earliest known owner of the property. The Grantee Index
will tell you what Deed Book (or
Will Book) to reference, as well as the
page number and date. Keep this information for
documentation purposes!
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Go to the correct Deed Book and read the deed carefully.
At some point it may say, "…and being the same parcel
of land…" This will point you to a previous Deed Book
or Will Book reference. Follow this trail as far back in
time as you can. If you do not find an "and being"
sentence, you will need to go back to the Index. When you
are reading the deeds and/or wills, be sure to check the
acreage, boundaries, mention of buildings, and names
(including daughters' married names). This can often tell
you how a property changed hands. Some deeds include plats
of the property.
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Now you have your owners' names. Move on to the
Land Tax Books, which are organized
geographically. (i.e. A building in the southeast part of
the county will be in a different Land Tax Book than one in
the northern part of the county.) In some years, the books
are also organized by race. Land taxes are recorded under
the owners' names. These names are in alphabetical order,
but they are not alphabetical under each letter. So all the
As are listed together but they're not in alphabetical
order. A series like "…Ashford, Azay, Adams,
Abbogatz…" is common. Here's what you'll find:
Owner
How property held
Acreage
Location
Bearing and miles from courthouse
Values added on account of bldgs
How property held: This usually says
"in fee," meaning that the owner has clear title to
the property. Sometimes it says "life," which
generally means that a widow holds her husband's property
until her death, when it passes on to one of their
children. Property can also be held in trust for someone
else.
Acreage: Number of acres. As you look at
the Land Tax Books for different years, keep track of the
acreage. Oftentimes parcels are divided off and sold from
the original tract.
Bearing and miles from courthouse: This
tells you where your building was in relation to the
courthouse. Remember, miles were determined by the existing
roads, not "as the crow flies." It helps to know
what roads were where. Again, verify that you're looking at
the correct entry. If the listed building is north of the
courthouse and your building is south of the courthouse,
you're not in the right place. Keep in mind that the
Fairfax Courthouse moved several times. From 1742 – 1752 it
was in the Tysons area, from 1752 – 1800 it was in
Alexandria. It has been at its current site since April 21,
1800.
Values added on account of bldgs: This
indicates changes in the status of the property. The value
of the property may have increased because a new building
was added, or it may decrease because a building was
destroyed. Records prior to 1820 do not have this category,
but if a property owner's place of residence is given as
Fairfax County and he only owns one parcel of land, then he
most likely lived on that land, in some structure. It may
be the structure you are looking for. However, if in a
later year, say 1845, you find that that parcel does not
have any improvements on it and $500 improvements show up
in 1847, you can be reasonably sure that the house you are
researching was built in 1846. Keep in mind that just
because a building stood on the site in 1847, it may not
necessarily be the same building that is there today. Check
tax records in some later years as well. In several cases,
a building burned down and was rebuilt.
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Personal Property Tax books can
also be a great source of information. This gives you the
number of slaves, horses, clocks, carriages, etc owned by
each individual. The books for 1815 are especially
detailed. In that year, houses worth more than $500 are
noted. Also included are mills, ice houses, furniture,
portraits, silver, watches, clocks, etc. These tax records
also include licenses granted to doctors, lawyers, store
merchants, and inn keepers. You can get a sense of the
lifestyle of the family you are researching. Note that some
of the books are separated by race, one book for blacks,
another for whites. The Circuit Court Historical Records
Department has personal property taxes through 1919. Later
years are not available. The Library of Virginia has
personal property tax books after 1930 for only the years
ending in 0 or 5. All the others have been discarded due to
the lack of information recorded in the more recent
versions.
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Check historical maps of Fairfax County to
see if your property is included. The Virginia Room at the
Fairfax Library has many of these maps. Of particular use is a
book by Richard W. Stephenson entitled The Cartography of
Northern Virginia: Facsimile Reproductions of Maps Dating from
1608 to 1915. Some of these maps indicate locations of
dwellings and the names of their owners. If you know that
Charlie Abbogatz owned your house sometime in the nineteenth
century, and you find his name on G.M. Hopkins' 1879 map, the
house may very well have been constructed prior to 1879. Be
sure to verify that the location you have found on the map is
the same as the location of your current structure. Some people
owned multiple pieces of property, so you need to be positive
that you are looking at the correct one. Roads, churches,
rivers, creeks, and other landmarks make this fairly easy to
do. You still can't be positive about the date. Just because
Charlie Abbogatz's house is on the map does not mean that is
the same house currently on the site.
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Sanborn Insurance Maps are a great resource
if your structure is/was in a town or city. These maps show
buildings and owners and how structures stood on the lots. The
earliest date to around 1885, and run into the 1960s. The
Library of Congress has a complete collection of Sanborn Maps,
as does the Library of Virginia, and the Alderman Library at
the University of Virginia.
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Mutual Assurance Society files are also
invaluable. These insurance policies are an extremely detailed
source of information on the plan, building material,
dimensions, and lot location. It also gives the replacement
value of the building at the time the policy was written.
Sometimes there is a sketch of the building's primary
elevation. These policies run from 1796 – 1838 and are
generally for larger, more upscale homes. You can find these at
the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the Library
of Virginia, both in Richmond, and at the Alderman Library at
the University of Virginia.
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Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)
began identifying notable structures in 1933 and continues to
do so. More than 37,000 historic sites and structures have been
surveyed. These files are stored at the Library of Congress and
administered by the National Park Service, but you can access
some of them on-line. This national treasure consists of
measured and interpretive drawings, large-format black and
white and color photographs, written historical and descriptive
data, and original field notes. Check the
National Park Service Web site to see if your structure
is listed. The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) is
available on the same Web site. However, keep in mind that many
of the HABS/HAER records were not written by professional
historians. It has been my experience that many contain
incorrect information, based on oral tradition instead of
documented fact. Take some of the information in these with a
grain of salt (Washington probably did not sleep there), but
use them as a starting point for your archival research.
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The Virginia Historical Inventory was
compiled by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
People traveled around the commonwealth, collecting information
on historic structures and sites. You can find these records at
the Library of Virginia and the Alderman Library at the
University of Virginia. The Library of Virginia now has this
information on their Web site.
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Finally, check any local histories you can find. The
Virginia
Room at the Fairfax Library has an excellent
collection of local historical information. Their Web site will
give you some indication as to what you may find there. Look at
newspapers, family histories, census reports, old photographs,
neighborhood histories, maps, journals, travel diaries, etc.
The information found here can flesh out the "story" of
your building, giving you a better idea of how it functioned in
society, how its owners lived, and so forth.
Good luck and have fun!
PLEASE BE SURE TO DOCUMENT EXACTLY WHERE YOU FOUND YOUR
INFORMATION.
If you would like a more detailed guide to historic research,
please visit the Virginia Department
of Historic Resources Web site, which contains a 20-page
document entitled “Researching Your Historic Virginia
Property.”
If you would prefer to hire a professional to conduct research for
you, both the Virginia Department of Historic Resources
(804-367-2323) and the Maryland Historic Trust (410-514-7600)
maintain consultants directories listing professionals in this
field.
Adapted from Margaret T. Peters, Assistant Historian, VHLC, July
1982.
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