The Comprehensive House Story

We trace ownership and occupancy chronologically as far back as surviving records allow, uncovering as many individuals and families as possible within the scope of your chosen House Story. The level of detail available can vary from one property to another, depending on which records have survived and how fully a house and its residents were documented over time.

Please note that information on occupants and owners after the 1939 Register can be more limited, as privacy laws restrict access to more recent national records.

The first stage of every House Story is a feasibility assessment. Its purpose is to give us confidence in the depth of research available for your home and to confirm that the House Story you have chosen is the right fit. In over 90% of cases, we are able to do this within the time available for the assessment.

For some homes, however, it may only be possible at this stage to confirm a smaller House Story than the one originally chosen. In those cases, we will always recommend the level we are confident in fulfilling. Further exploratory research may still uncover enough to support a larger House Story, and where appropriate we will advise on that potential. This may involve speculative research in archive collections, further mapping of census records, or other work to identify the property more clearly in the surviving historical record.

In rarer cases, it may not be possible to confirm any level of House Story with confidence without moving beyond the feasibility assessment into further exploratory research. If that happens, we will explain the position clearly and advise on the potential value of taking that next step. If you decide not to pursue it, we will provide a full refund.

Yes. We are very happy to incorporate relevant records and research already in your possession.

Any original documents or materials you provide will still need to be reviewed, transcribed and fully referenced as part of the process. If the amount is modest, this can often be covered within the research time included in your chosen House Story. If more substantial work is required, we may recommend adding additional research time. We can advise on this either before or after booking.

The same applies to any research you have already undertaken yourself. We will need to verify, transcribe and reference it properly before it can be included, and depending on the volume and complexity, this may either fall within the included research time or require additional hours.

If you have any questions, please email us at support@pursuingthepast.co.uk.

Yes. If you decide you would like a more in-depth House Story, you can upgrade at any stage by paying the difference between the two story levels.

In around half of our house histories, we are able to identify a precise build date, although this depends very much on the age, status and surviving records of the property.

For Victorian and Edwardian houses, even where an exact date does not come to light, we can often narrow the construction period using sources such as historic maps and other contemporary records. For older properties, archive research is needed to establish a likely date range, and in some cases it may only be possible to suggest a period rather than a single year.

Details such as the architect or builder are more likely to emerge for larger or more notable houses, but as with all house history research, it depends on what records survive for your particular property.

Historical photographs are relatively rare, but always a particularly exciting discovery when they do emerge. We find them for around 5–10% of properties.

They are more likely to survive for larger or more prominent houses, but they do occasionally surface for more modest homes too. As ever, it depends on what records survive for your particular property.

Yes, wherever the evidence allows. While the main focus of our work is the social history of a house - the people who lived there, how it was used, and how it changed over time - we also include details of the building’s architecture and development whenever these emerge through the research.

Before we begin, we will ask you to share anything you already know about the property, including its age, alterations or architectural features. This can be extremely helpful in guiding the research and building a fuller understanding of the house and its history.

Our work is now focused primarily on houses built before 1920.

This is because our House Stories are designed to offer a richly documented and well-evidenced account of a property’s past. For houses built after 1920, the surviving material is often more limited, and many of the records that help us trace individual occupants remain closed for up to 100 years after birth. As a result, we are not usually able to guarantee the depth of evidence needed for one of our standard House Stories.

There may occasionally be exceptions for houses of particular architectural significance, especially where a property was well documented from the outset. If you are unsure whether your house may be suitable, you are very welcome to get in touch and we can advise.

Online records can take us a long way, and many valuable sources are available digitally, including census returns, historic maps, newspapers and directories.

That said, the fullest account of a house’s history often depends on material that is only available in local and national archives. Records such as deeds, tax records, wills and probate material, sales particulars, estate papers and manorial documents can add important depth and detail that is not accessible online.

Because of this, all of our House Stories now include both online and archive research, allowing us to build as full and well-evidenced a picture of your home’s past as possible.

Yes. We research historic homes of all periods, from the medieval era onwards. Older properties - Tudor, Stuart, and earlier - often require more time and specialist archive knowledge to piece together, as the surviving records can be more fragmentary and harder to locate.

For this reason, pre-Georgian homes typically suit our Comprehensive or Premium House Story levels, depending on the scale and complexity of the property.