Tracing the History of a Property

Establishing a clear and complete history of a property from its original construction to the present day is a key requirement for the Historic Plaque Program. This requires finding the chain of title (the sequence of owners and the dates of title transfers) and the dates of any significant changes to the property or its use. At the time of the first Historic Plaque awards in 2014, Joe Cornish, an architectural historian, former President of the Belmont Historical Society, and one of the leaders in establishing the Historic Plaque Program, gave a talk about how to trace the history of Belmont property. That comprehensive overview and tutorial is available as a 23-minute video that you can view. The video is available through the courtesy of the Belmont Media Center. You may view that video by clicking here. More information about some of the resources discussed in the video follows.

Massachusetts Historical Commission. The Massachusetts Historical Commission was established by the state legislature in 1963 to identify, evaluate, and protect important historical and archaeological assets of the Commonwealth. One of the important resources that the Commission created is the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS), an online searchable database of information on historic properties and areas in the Commonwealth that is available at http://mhc-macris.net/

MACRIS is a good place to begin research on a Belmont property since it currently includes 735 Belmont properties and structures for which historical research has already been done. (Not all of the 735 Belmont properties in the database are private residences; some are town buildings and institutional facilities.) To see a static summary report of those 735 properties (sorted by street), click here. Eleven of the Belmont properties that have already been awarded a Historic Plaque are included in the MACRIS database; click here to see a slideshow of those properties with the photographs that are part of the MACRIS records. Each of the properties in the MACRIS database has a unique Inventory Number (BLM.XXX). Some (but not all) of the MACRIS records include a report (“Form B”) that gives detailed information about the history of the property. Click here to see the “Form B” report for BLM.120, the Widow Brown Cottage which has a Belmont Historic Plaque. If your property is included in the printout report of 735 Belmont properties, go to the online MACRIS database to find out what information is already available on your property.

If a property is included in the MACRIS database with a Form B report (indicated by the “INV” marker in the online MACRIS search results), that is all that is needed for the Historic Plaque application. Otherwise, you will need to establish a chain of title that is typically done through the Registry of Deeds.

Massachusetts Land Records. The Massachusetts Registry of Deeds has an online system (masslandrecords.com) that permits electronic searches of deeds. Belmont is included in the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds that is accessible at www.masslandrecords.com/MiddlesexSouth. The home page of that website provides some useful information on how to use the masslandrecords.com database and the various types of searches that can be made. The most effective search procedure is to use the Registry book and page numbers for the deed history of the property of interest. The book and page number for the current deed is usually stamped on the deed itself. It is also included on the quarterly real estate tax bill that the property owner receives from the town. With that as a starting point, you can work your way back to the deed of the previous owner and the date that it was transferred. Continue the sequential search until the previous deed was for the land with no building on it. Click here to see an example of a chain of title for a property. The essential elements are (a) the date of each change of ownership, (b) the names of the parties to the ownership transfer, and (c) the Registry book and page number with the record of the deed transfer.

Unfortunately, the masslandrecords.com online database only goes back to 1900. For earlier history, you will need to visit the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds office at 208 Cambridge Street in Cambridge (telephone 617-679-6300) that is open from 8:00a.m. to 3:45p.m. on weekdays and continue the search the old-fashioned way – by using the physical Registry record books.

Other Sources. There are several publications about Belmont that may be helpful in researching specific property. They are described on our Publications page. The most useful book may be Belmont: The Architecture and Development of The Town of Homes. This book is the report of the 1982 architectural and historic survey of Belmont conducted by a team from Boston University under the sponsorship of the Belmont Historic District Commission. Unfortunately, that book is out of print, but copies of it and the other books mentioned are available for review and research in the Belmont Historical Society’s collection in the Claflin Room of the Belmont Public Library.