General Chat

My daughter has bought a cottage in Norfolk and I would like to try and find list of previous tenants back to 1871
I have no names so can’t find it through Census
Any ideas to point me in the right direction would appreciated

Have you looked at the deeds as that would give you names of previous owners?

You can search the census by address, which will give you the names. You could also try the 1939 register and electoral rolls, from 2002 backwards.

Andys mum, I was going to suggest that but what site can you search by address as I always forget?

Tenants or owners ?

Possibly -
From google - "how do I finds a list of previous homeowners for my property"

You may be able to find out who owned the property before the current owner from a historical title register. It can also be useful if you're trying to find out how old a property is -

https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-register

Florence & comper - find my past.

Is it a rural cottage? It could have been let to farm workers. Very difficult to find tenants Between census if you can’t access the ER.

A tithe map might give you some clues as to who could later be the landlords

Added: I’ve been thinking on this. The older census will sometimes only give a street name or, especially for small villages, the name of the village. So you can’t work out individual properties.
So maybe check out local papers and local records offices. A few places keep a collection of old parish newsletters.

Thank you for your help ,will try this approach

I had a similar problem trying to find who had lived in our old Cornish cottage as there weren't any house names to help. I managed to work out which was ours by counting cottages from the very old pub and the blacksmiths forge so that may be a possibility, or buildings such as the church or school?
Our local records office was very helpful too.

An old map may help, to determine other buildings in the village at the time, and ay give you a name for the cottage at the time.

It may also be useful to see if there are any books on the history of the village.
I'd suggest the local library or second hand bookshop for this, so you can actually look through the book to check which villages are covered.

I haven't tried to find out the history of a building, but one side of my family lived on Middleton Moor, in Suffolk for generations.
I found a book 'Seven Centuries on Middleton Moor Suffolk', and this book writes about the cottages, and their occupants in detail!