Researching the History of a Home
Old houses are a treasure (as are old commercial buildings, industrial buildings, churches and meeting halls and anywhere folks have gathered for decades or even centuries…)
Have you ever wanted to research the history of a home you are living in now, the childhood home “up North”, or even an historic home you’ve come across in your wanderings through our county or state? Have we got a list for you!
A friendly librarian, Carol Briggs, has been enjoying our Historical Society blog and Facebook posts and sent this resource to us as a little thank-you gift.
Although the guide is on a commercial site, it looks very comprehensive. We’ve run across some of the links here, but many are new to us, and possibly to you! Thank you Carol for the thank-you!
The Historical Society of Sarasota County 
2929 Bahia Vista St built by my grandfather, A. E. Scarborough in 1925. Declared historic by city of Sarasota; still in the family!
And we are so happy you’ve preserved it, Sue!
I love to paint old Sarasota buildings! And I like to print out some history about the building and tape it to the back of the painting, so I’ll be looking into your resource. But what in the world can I do when the address has been altered? I want to paint the building they just had to remove at Selby Gardens. It was on the corner of Mound and S. Palm — 811 or 823 S. Palm? Anyway, Selby Gardens uses that address for their whole campus. So how do I look up that one 2-story white colonial with green trim?
Probably county tax records. Perhaps the Sanborn maps, which should be available at Historical Resources?