finding old house sites

[treasurehunter00]

Hi all, well one of our favorite ways to find old home places is to drive the country in the spring and locate them by the old glass that will shine when the sun hits it ,here in our area it is almost all farm land , most of the gound has been worked and after a lot of rain and freezing they really show up. u can tell the age by the type of glass, then try and get permission and keep a record of what u find at each place, also u can never do too much research, you all may already know this but it never hurts to tell. thanks ........... happy hunting ,jack

[RingDancer]

Hey there treasurehunter00! I never thought about looking for old glass. Me and a friend decided to hit the new park that was developed a few years back, it is not very old at all. While I was detecting I started noticing colored glass and very thick, everywhere, so I new this had to be either an old homesite or maybe a dump years ago. I found a 1912 wheat penny there. Now I keep my eyes open!

Pat

[dirty detector]

i've also heard to look for daffadills or other flowers. even if they are in a bare area you can be almost certain a house was once there. HH bernie.

[blizzard]

I look for a grove of non-native trees with no houses around, where i live the old immigrants planted European tree species which naturally never grew here.

[Boogeyman]

Make friends with your local firemen! The older guys can tell you where house have burned down years ago. One Captain told me about a house that had burned about 11 years ago. When I searched the lot, sure enough I found coins and melted blobs of metal I assume were jewlery that had gotten hot enough to melt. Funny thing, the coins were all in a wedge shaped area out from where the building slab was located. Cap solved the mystery for me. The coins were probably stored in a bedroom on that side and the firefighters blew them out the side of the building.

You can research old papers for buildings that have burned and were razed, but not yet rebuilt.

[Monk]

I find one of the best ways to find an old house or home place is to get an old county or topo map. Then compare it with a late one. The old home sites will just jump out for you. Then go and look the site over.

[Boogeyman]

I used to buy every old Topo I could lay hands on that was older than I had, lately been using Topo on the laptop, and haven't found any old topos in the collectible shops or yard sales lately. The ones I've found as of late, the owners must think they have a lost treasure map, buy the prices they are asking.

[Monk]

Boogeyman, This may help! During 1868-78 there was some outfit that printed up plat map books for each state. They took each county and
then by each township made a plat map. Showing each property lines, The names of the owners, Location of buildings, Roads, Rivers, Lakes.
I think it was called a County Atlas! You should be able to locate one in any good library for the county you find yourself in. I've found them very helpful.

[Boogeyman]

I've heard of em when I lived in California used to go check the maps and drawings the fire dept had too. The fire dept has an incredible bunch of maps, and floorplans for almost every structure in their area. Don't know how willing they'd to let you research now that everything is digitized and on MDTs in the trucks.

[cmac50]

The name of the map book showing all the structures of a town and published for Georgia counties in 1893 was 'Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps' by Sanborn-Perris Map Co. Ltd. This is a great site!