Zeroing in on the House's Construction Date, Part 2 (Andrew F. Gutekunst)

This is Part 2 of a short series focusing in on my house's assumed construction date between 1922 and 1924. For an overview given in Part 1, see here. 
This article will focus on the real estate transactions of local North Glenside flooring contractor Andrew F. Gutekunst, one candidate out of three possibilities who had my home built. The goal of this exercise is to provide additional and specific context around my home's origin in order to hopefully narrow that construction date even further.

What I knew before this focused exercise, based on some fairly basic chain of title research for my property, is that Andrew F. Gutekunst owned the property from November 1923 to October 1924. He bought the property for $650 and sold it at the end of that short span for $5,500. However, he simultaneously leveraged the property for a $3,800 mortgage upon purchasing it, suggesting that the increase in value within a year is not as dramatic as it seems at first glance.

As described in Part 1, further searches of deed and mortgage indexes for Gutekunst related to properties in Abington Township yielded the following:

• Grantee on eight (8) deed between 1923 and 1928, plus two more in the 1940's
• Grantor on six (6) deeds in 1923 and 1924, plus three more from 1930-1947
• Mortgagor on eight (8) mortgages from 1921 to 1924

How This Information Was Analyzed

A more detailed breakdown and summary of these transactions is included in the following table:

This table organizes all of Gutekunst's recorded transactions by current address. The reason for this is simple-- the 22 recorded documents were the result of transactions involving only nine (9) current properties as they exist today. This allows me to examine when Andrew Gutekunst acquired each property, for how long he owned it, and whether or not he mortgaged each property.

Next, I ventured to specifically locate each property on three maps: a current Google Maps satellite image, a 1927 historical atlas map, and a 1937 historical atlas map. By using the legal description of each property as spelled out in the deeds, I can pinpoint the exact property as it exists today on Google Maps. Then, I can find the same property on the two atlas maps. Why did I choose these two years? If you'll notice in the table above, Gutekunst was most active in the specific years of 1923 and 1924. By locating the lots on maps in 1927 and 1937 (the two closest dates available), I can get a good sense of whether or not Gutekunst may have built houses on these properties or whether he was simply making a short-term investment as values increased in the neighborhood. Note that there is also a 1916 map for my area, but it depicts the neighborhood as it existed before it was largely subdivided around 1920, so none of these lots would have had houses on them in that year.

There are two properties on Cricket Avenue, adjacent properties no less, where Gutekunst came into ownership in the 1940's. Although I will describe them below since they do complete the picture of Gutekunst's local real estate dealings, these are less relevant to the task at hand due to the timeframe. One was actually his own residence, previously owned by his father, Frederick William Gutekunst. 

Some quick, general observations based on the table I've constructed. First, nearly all of these properties are within the block closest to the main arterial road of Jenkintown Road. The exception is very close to Limeklin Pike (at 257-263 Maple Ave), the arterial road at the south end of the neighborhood. Maps show that the earliest development occurred closest to these two roads, and Gutekunst's affinity was no exception. Second, Gutekunst appears to have purchased 3 lots directly from Reginald Ferguson, the originator of the Ferguson's North Glenside subdivision. With one exception (that same 257-263 Maple Ave), Gutekunst dealt entirely in land within this subdivision. It seems clear that this man was delving into something new to him, and perhaps he gained a greater comfort level by keeping his investments very close to home. He was age 25 in 1921 at the time of his first purchase. Now, onto the properties:

657 Jackson Avenue

This is Gutekunst's first investment, acquiring the lot directly from Ferguson in September 1921. Although the financial consideration of his purchase is not fully disclosed in the deed, Gutekunst did mortgage the property to a man named Sigurd Larsen in exchange for $2,500 within days of his land acquisition. Larsen may have been a long-time associate (it appears they may have worked at the same company as machinists as of 1917), as A.F. Gutekunst would later buy a different plot of land directly from Mr. Larsen in the 1940's. He further took out an additional $1,000 mortgage with a Building and Loan corporation a year later in 1922. There is a curious set of deed transactions on this property in June of 1923, with Gutekunst conveying the land to a Ms. Edith S. Mattson, a real estate stenographer of nearby Rockledge, then receiving it back from her one day later. Gutekunst ultimately sold the property to Frederick Locher for an undisclosed sum in July 1924.

Did Andrew Gutekunst build the home we see here today in the picture above? The amounts listed in each transaction are of little real help to us as they remain as murky as several other transactions involving $1 consideration amounts, plus with a few mortgages to boot. However, the house does exist on both the 1927 and 1937 maps. But, I was able to make a key discovery in the form of a newspaper advertisement in the Philadelphia Inquirer from May 7, 1922:

Bingo! This is absolutely a match for this property-- the house that exists on this land today fits well with the description given in the ad: an 8-room "semi-bungalow" (bigger than a typical bungalow, often two stories). The lot described in the property deeds is exactly 60x129, matching the ad. The use of the word "cheap" is interesting. This ad confirms to me that this house was completed by May 1922. The only reason I can't definitively peg this "new" home as having been built during Gutekunst's ownership is that he bought it only 8 months prior to taking out this ad. He easily could have bought it as a brand new house already and well within his rights continued to claim it as a new house in selling it. Given his $2,500 mortgage of the property upon his purchase, I'm guessing that's exactly what he did, taking it slow in the real estate game for his first property.

628 Maple Avenue

A.F. Gutekunst acquired this property in June 1923, right around the time when the mysterious transactions for the Jackson Ave house appear with Ms. Mattson. He acquired a separate double-wide lot on Maple Ave near Limekiln Pike this same month (see below). As for this lot at 628 Maple, Gutekunst again acquired it directly from Reginald Ferguson, and this time he had a partner. This partner was a Mr. William Brosz, a carpenter!!!

Did Gutekunst and Brosz work together to build this house in 1923? Well, they owned the lot less than 3 months. It doesn't seem like enough time even with a skilled carpenter on board. But maybe... maybe plans were in the works prior to buying from Ferguson and who knows, maybe they even had a deal worked out with Ferguson to start early (I think I'm reaching). Gutekunst obtained a mortgage on this property as well, for $2,500, and the partnership sold it in September of that year to a Nelson Mathis for an undisclosed amount. Mr. Mathis took out a $4,500 mortgage immediately, so a short-term bump in value of $2,000 may have been achieved here. The house does show up on both the 1927 and 1937 maps.

Look at the photo above of the house as it exists today. It has clearly been modified to a great extent over its life-- a second story has been added, and the front porch has been enclosed. But if you take away those two things, I see ALOT of similarities to my own house on Central Avenue-- the hipped roof over the front porch, the width of the house, and the existence of a projecting bay on the first floor left side of the house. It's just something to keep in mind... another "maybe" here.

257-263 Maple Avenue

Gutekunst and Brosz had a busy summer in 1923, as they also together acquired this double-wide lot further to the southwest on Maple Ave, near Limekiln Pike and outside of Ferguson's subdivision. This time, they bought from a Samuel Thompson, and the consideration amount is actually provided in the deed this time, for $1,550. However, another deed shows up shortly thereafter granting Brosz's half-share entirely to Gutekunst for slightly more than half the original investment-- $800. It's hard to know what happened here that caused Andrew Gutekunst to buy out his partner's half-- maybe they had a falling out, or maybe Brosz only wanted to build and not take on the risk of ownership/investment. Coupled with the previous property above, we have a partnership between Gutekunst and a carpenter that lasted, on record at least, only 3 months.

As for the houses that sit on these two now-separate lots today, I'm somewhat baffled. At first, you might imagine my excitement upon seeing nearly identical houses which I knew were owned and possibly built by the same person(s) in Gutekunst/Brosz. However, the house you see on the left, #263, appears on both the 1927 and 1937 maps, whereas #257 on the right appears only in 1937. Andrew Gutekunst mortgaged these properties heavily, in total to the amount of $25,000 through four separate mortgages over the next year, before selling the property to a local business, Glenside Lumber and Coal Company, in November 1924, for a total of $5,400.

I can't quite fathom the possibility that these two houses were built very far apart chronologically as suggested by the 1927 map-- they just look too similar. The theory I am running with, for now, is that Glenside Lumber and Coal Co. erected the houses, starting with #263 and completing it in time for the first atlas map (likely by 1926), with the neighboring house following shortly thereafter, maybe within a year or so after the map publisher finished their survey. All told, I believe that Andrew Gutekunst did not play a part in building these houses, although the incredible amount he borrowed via mortgage of the property is a huge mystery here. He must have improved the property in some way.

502 Central Avenue

My house is within walking distance of all these other Gutekunst-held properties. Andrew Gutekunst came into ownership in November 1923, and it was a sole venture after absolving his ownership ties with carpenter William Brosz. He acquired the property from local real estate broker Harry Renninger for $650 and simultaneously mortgaged it for $3,800. Owning the property for approximately one year, he unloaded it in October 1924 to Anna Coogan for the amount of $5,500.

Did Andrew F. Gutekunst, or someone working for him, build this house during his ownership? If you've been reading this blog to any extent, you know that this is among the foremost unknowns I hope to solve. As I've described previously, the house appears on both the 1927 and 1937 atlas maps, and I feel very confident that it was constructed at the very latest by the end of Gutekunst's sale to Ms. Coogan in October 1924.

647 Jackson Avenue

This property, acquired in May 1924, is located directly adjacent to A.F. Gutekunst's first investment property, which he sold a few months after acquiring this one. Again a sole venture in terms of ownership, it is another which was conveyed directly from Reginald Ferguson, the subdivision's creator.

A bit curiously, a house is shown on the 1927 map but NOT the 1937 map-- I had to check multiple times to be sure I was looking at the same property on both maps. Was an existing house demolished sometime after 1927? Maybe. Perhaps it was a mistake by the atlas map surveyor.

No matter, for now. Mr. Gutekunst, it seems clear, did not erect the house which sits on the property today. Having obtained the property for an disclosed sum, he conveyed it to Glenside Coal and Lumber for $400 on the same day he sold the company his properties at 257-263 Maple. Was November 24, 1924 a day that Andrew Gutekunst, to a large extent, gave up his dabbling in the real estate game? This day, where he offloaded three properties to the same buyer, was his final transaction recorded for several more years.

626 Penn Avenue

In July 1928, Andrew Gutekunst re-entered the marketplace, having acquired an empty lot on Penn Avenue at the west end of the neighborhood. He owned it for less than two months. The true market value is not recorded on either end of his ownership, and it appears that no house existed on this property until the 1950's.

621-631 Cricket Avenue

The house at 621 Cricket Ave (on the right in the photo below) is another outlier to the 1923-24 transactions, as it served as Andrew Gutekunst's personal residence. His father, Frederick William Gutekunst, who like Andrew was listed as a flooring contractor/finisher in several records, was the owner until he conveyed it to Andrew and his wife Olga in 1941. The father did not pass away until 1953, but he was 71 years old at the time of this transaction. It appears that this home had remained in the Gutekunst family until very recently, just last year 2015. It was built prior to 1927.

The house to the left, #631, was likely built in the 1950's, and not by Andrew Gutekunst. He acquired the land in 1946 for the amount of $390 from Sigured Larsen and sold it less than a year later for $600. Both amounts are suggestive of a vacant lot, and no house is shown on the 1927 or 1937 maps. Perhaps Andrew, although having largely given up real estate, happened upon an opportunity to purchase the lot neighboring his and took it.

Observations and Analysis

Below is a much simplified version of the table shown at the beginning of this post:

I did what I set out to do here, which was to get as full a picture as possible of Andrew F. Gutekunst's personal dealings in local real estate. Further, I would contend that I can at the very least draw a reasonable conclusion that he likely did NOT build or have my house built during his ownership of the property. Instead, I am continuing with the theory that at which I arrived after my initial mortgage document analysis-- that the house was probably already there in November 1923.

The simplified table here shows that five (5) houses had been built on properties he owned in time for the 1927 atlas map. His now-discovered business association with the carpenter William Brosz in 1923, within the midst of Gutekunst's whirlwind of the same year, leads me to believe that he did build at least one house with this partner. The apparent dissolution of that ownership partnership, coupled with the fact that I just don't see a huge jump in value over his investment on most of these properties, leads me to infer that A.F. Gutekunst intended to build more houses than he actually did. Until I see more evidence that could suggest the contrary, I believe that my house is a case of him acquiring a recently built home in the rapidly-developing neighborhood and flipping it after a short time for a profit.

Coming soon, I'll do a similar examination of properties in this neighborhood bought and sold by Philadelphia carpenter Jayson Stover in Part 3.

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Zeroing in on the House's Construction Date, Part 1

This is Part 1 of a series of posts focusing in on my house's assumed construction date within the years 1922-1924.

Short of locating an original building permit, a record of one, or some other primary document providing definitive proof, nailing down the construction date of an older house down to the exact year can be quite elusive. For my house, after I completed a chain of title chart based on recorded property deeds, I noted a jump in sales price from $650 in November 1923 to $5,500 less than a year later in October 1924. Such an increase could indicate that the house was constructed within that time frame during Andrew F. Gutekunst's ownership-- $650 is more in line with what an empty lot would have cost in this area at that time, whereas a price tag of a few thousand dollars is in line with what a single-family house would have cost. However, one must be careful with taking this at face value-- several of the deeds in the property's history recorded a consideration amount of only $1, meaning the actual market value is unrecorded.

Mortgage documents associated with the exact same property can be consulted to shed further light on the value, especially in these cases of "$1" transactions. Andrew Gutekunst, although he paid $650 (that we know of) directly to Harry Renninger in November 1923, he also simultaneously took out a mortgage on the property in the amount of $3,800. Whether he used part of these proceeds to compensate Renninger more properly, or used them for some other purpose, is not known, but the fact remains that the property was used as collateral to take out that mortgage-- the subject property is legally described in the mortgage document on record. This is highly suggestive that the property is "worth" at least $3,800 in November 1923, and that the house may have been built prior to that date.

Further clouding the issue is the fact that Harry Renninger bought the property the year prior in December 1922 from Jayson Stover, whom I know was a carpenter by trade. Stover had only owned the property for about 7 months, since May 1922. A shortened timeline presents the basic facts:

• May to December 1922: Jayson Stover, a carpenter who probably would have been capable of building a home in such a time period, owns the property.
• December 1922: Harry Renninger, a real estate broker who conducted many, many transactions, buys the property. The recorded consideration amount is $465, more suggestive of an empty lot value. No mortgage document is associated with this transaction, but note that Renninger may have had the means to compensate Stover a higher unrecorded amount without the use of a mortgage instrument.
• November 1923: Andrew F. Gutekunst, a flooring contractor, buys the property, officially for $650, while simultaneously using the property as collateral for a $3,800 mortgage.
• October 1924: Gutekunst sells the property to Anna Coogan for an official amount of $5,500. I feel very confident that the house was built prior to this date.

These facts give me enough reason to keep the dates from May 1922 to October 1924 as candidates for the actual construction date of the house. This is a relatively satisfactory range (2 year, 5 months), but it spans three different owners. I want to know WHO built this house, and if I can, narrow the WHEN down to a specific year.

So How Can We Narrow This Down Further?

One method is to locate other property deeds and mortgages for these three men-- Jayson Stover, Harry Renninger, and Andrew Gutekunst-- which are unrelated to my specific property. How many other properties were they buying in this general time frame and does it give me any further relevant insight into my own house?? This research will certainly give us more contextual information to consider. Renninger, as I've noted, bought and sold real estate for a living, and was associated with several real estate businesses. Index searches at the Recorder of Deeds yield over 150 documents involving him by name as one of the parties. It's too overwhelming to start with Renninger, so we'll focus on Stover and Gutekunst for now.

Both seem to have been somewhat active in local real estate investment, yet only for relatively brief periods of time in Abington. Limiting my search for Jayson Stover to transactions involving only property in Abington Township yielded the following results:

• Grantee on three (3) deeds in 1922, plus one in 1951
• Grantor on five (5) deeds between 1919 and 1922, plus one in 1952
• Mortgagor on five (5) mortgages in 1922

As a side note, Stover was very active in Hatboro, Horsham, and Upper Moreland to the north, during the 1940's and 1950's when he lived in that area.

And now for Andrew F. Gutekunst:

• Grantee on eight (8) deed between 1923 and 1928, plus two more in the 1940's
• Grantor on six (6) deeds in 1923 and 1924, plus three more from 1930-1947
• Mortgagor on eight (8) mortgages from 1921 to 1924

These are just from index searches-- there certainly are likely at least a few more that are not indexed quite correctly and might turn up once we look closer at each of these documents.

Observations and Next Steps

It's interesting that both of these men seem to have been dabbling in real estate. Jayson Stover, the carpenter, was in and out of Abington rather quickly, gone by the end of 1922 when he sold my property to Renninger. He was a Philadelphia resident at the time, and perhaps had always been quite active there. At first glance it appears that Stover held properties for short periods of time-- perhaps building homes quickly and moving on?

Andrew Gutekunst was a resident of North Glenside and was most actively acquiring property in 1923, the year in which he also acquired my property. He disposed of these properties more gradually over time and lived within walking distance of the properties he held. He was also a skilled tradesman, a flooring contractor, and perhaps was engaged in improving these properties to the point of building houses, albeit at a slower pace that Stover would have.

Something in my gut tells me that if I investigate each of these local properties where Stover and Gutekunst dipped their toes, I'll get closer to my answer. I plan to take this deeper dive by examining the legal descriptions listed in the recorded documents and locating the properties on Google Maps. If I can determine how often or how rarely each man left behind a house when they disposed of a property, it may serve as an important clue in bolstering the case for either as the builder of my own house.

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Interview with Berks County Recorder of Deeds-- Fred Sheeler

Back in September, I shared the online search and image viewing capabilities for documents at the website of the Berks County Recorder of Deeds (a county adjacent to my own). In my article, I noted the strides Recorder Fred Sheeler has taken in making these documents so accessible, in my view above and beyond what you see in many other counties. Recently, Mr. Sheeler afforded me the opportunity to ask him some further questions about his accomplishments and his recording process. Hopefully, under new leadership with newly-elected Recorder Ms. Jeanne Sorg in my home county of Montgomery, I may see some similar types of improvements in the coming years. My Q&A with Mr. Sheeler is below, and his bio page is linked here. The interview has been edited some for clarity.

You've been Recorder since 2008 and were just re-elected to a third term. What would you consider to be your major accomplishments in those 7 years?

My primary objective that I had to run, and got accomplished pretty quick, was eliminating any sort of a backlog in our current recording volume. We did that very fast by tweaking the existing computer system that was here to the best extent that we could, and simplifying alot of procedural work that bogged things down. Then, to be ensured that we could keep that up and then do it even better, that's where we installed the complete new software platform... functionality on the website, alot more functionality on our recording side.

So, really I look at it as two things-- keeping up with the new, existing volume and making it as easily searchable as possible, and as fast going to record as possible; and, preserving and making available all the old historic documents. There's a fine line-- some counties have said "we're too busy with just keeping up with new stuff, we're not concerned with the old stuff... it's not important. If people need it, let them come in here and go through it." Well, I think you can do both and we've been doing both. We now have seldom any backlog at all-- right now, there is one document in our electronic recording queue (about 80% of all new documents come through electronically) so you say, basically that's caught up... and as far as paper documents, that box is empty. So, right now there is nothing waiting to be recorded. That's where, for our staff members, there's nothing new to record, so they go into backfile indexing (old documents which were never indexed into a computer system). Right now, we are working with deeds, so we're indexing and verifying deeds that were recorded in 1931. The old computerized system had only indexed documents from 1982 forward (deeds before that you had to use the actual index books), and so now we've indexed into the system over 50 years of deeds.

So catching up on, and eliminating, the current recording backlog allows you the freedom to spend time on these indexing projects. How much of a backlog was there when you came in?

When I got here, it was roughly about a 2-1/2 week backlog. Now, that was after the prior Recorder was ordered by the court to catch up-- she was actually up to six months behind at one time. When it gets six months behind, things don't get recorded in the proper order. Anything in the backlog is held in a vault, and at that time the vault was so packed with six months of documents, you couldn't reach the document that came in first because it was buried in the back of the vault... The problem of a backlog was compounded because you couldn't record things "first in, first out" as you are supposed to. Now we do everything in the order its received. Electronic recording makes everything very simple, it stays in the correct order in the queue once something is submitted in the e-recording queue. With paper documents (only about 20% of received documents), it physically comes into the office at a certain time-- the staff if able to consult the e-recording queue and continue to work on those which remain in the queue up until the electronic queue meets up with the time when the paper document came in. So everything is kept in as correct an order as possible.

What would be some of the difficulties or challenges other Recorders might face in implementing the dual goals of recording current documents as well as indexing older documents?

Well, maybe the limitations on their computer system. If they have any of the major systems out there, they can do this kind of stuff too. One of the older systems, a user might have to pay a subscription fee to search for a certain amount of time, so that makes it harder... it could be monetary things: your staffing comes under the control of (county) commissioners. The Recorders have alot of autonomy, but if the commissioners say you can't hire somebody, you can be stuck. I haven't had problems with that, since I had a pretty large staff when I got here. Here, we've generally not filled positions when people come up for retirement. We went from 24 staff members down to 10 staff members.

A new Recorder coming in must make sure they are doing e-recording. It saves you the amount of time you would need to do these other things. There's no paper shuffling, no check handling, it's just click, click. Make sure you have a computer system that's automated enough that indexing comes with it. There's so many fewer steps. Correcting mistakes is simple as well. It makes it go so much faster that it allows your staff the ability to do these other projects yourself. Now, you might have to pay for microfilm conversion, but every single county in Pennsylvania has a fund called the Record Improvement Fund. This is set up by law-- we get to collect $3 per document that is recorded (we average 50,000 documents a year, so about $150,000), which can go into this fund. That can cover alot. Even in smaller counties, they don't record as much, but they also don't have as many documents to archive. With very low volumes like that you might even be able to scan your documents in-house.

Recorder of Deeds is an elected position in most counties-- what are some of the political issues for a position like this? Does it really boil down to the fundamental differences of scope and size of government?

You know, I think, some people try to run that way. My last opponent tried to say "he's for big government, he's a liberal..." I kept repeating: I've cut our expenses over $2 million a year. Our staff is down from 24 to 10. Now, I was a little worried due to it being an off election cycle. You only have more dedicated voters come out in some elections and you can get concerned that it can be more of a party line vote if your turnout is low. But for me, I won 55% to 45%, so people knew the office was so bad before, they don't hear any complaints now. We have good outreach, letting people know how we do things, I do seminars for local clubs, maybe about 6 times a year. Historical societies really enjoy hearing about the old documents.

Your website has a link to "Curious Historic Documents" which is not live yet. What sorts of things do you have planned for that?

We have slave manumissions, releases of slavery. There is also an account from the 1700's of an Indian attack, I believe it may have been the French and Indian War, and it was filed so that a soldier who was injured with a musket ball through his hand could collect a pension from the county commissioners. It describes the whole attack and what happened to him. There's one that's an account of a bar fight in the borough of Hamburg, in the 1770's or 1780's. This man had the unfortunate circumstance of having the lower part of his left ear bitten off by this other guy. And back then if you were a felon, they cut the bottom of your left ear off to mark you as a felon. So he had this document, signed by the guy who bit him, recorded in our office so that if he would come to a place where he was unacquainted, then he could prove he wasn't a felon. We also have paternity settlements from the 1800's, and also things like documentation of the burial of radioactive materials. I have it all planned out just haven't been able to get it up yet.

How often do people come in seeking out information, or for help, about their own house?

All the time. It's either on the web, or they'll call us, they might get stuck. People all over the country looking for information on people who lived here generations ago. I've been sort of impressed with how many older individuals have gotten so adept at using the computer and are on our website. We even have people come in, from time to time, that think their house is haunted. One was even highlighted on Animal Planet once, with a house where the animals got freaked out. The people living there had the impression of the name Sarah, so we were able to trace it back and sure enough there was a Sarah who had lived there at that time. And I think they were able to go back further and find death records for her and everything. But yeah, people just want to know, especially if they have an old house, they come in to find out and search. Unfortunately, I think some people do their research on our website and don't quite know what they are looking at-- we actually have much less research questions than we had before, with everything online now. But people love it, alot of them are just doing this research on their own.

Many thanks again to Fred for his time in answering these questions and to making more historic documents accessible and available to the public!

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Attention All Recorders of Deeds-- Be Like Berks County!

Early on, I outlined how you can access online databases at some your local county government offices to help kick-start your house research, before heading there in person. Although I cautioned against assuming that all of your research questions can be answered online, there is one county nearby that has made incredible headway in the online frontier.

Welcome to the County of Berks

Although I do not live in Berks County, PA, a large percentage of my ancestry is rooted there, and the city of Reading, the county seat, is only about 70-80 minutes from my house. My grandmother grew up there. Thus, I've become familiar with searching records there, and I have to say that this county is doing alot of great things in terms of making records accessible to their constituency, researchers alike, and the public at large. The county's Register of Wills has some great searchable indexes for birth, marriage, and death records. Although that office's actual records are not available online (yet), they make it very easy for one to do alot of prep time ahead of visiting their office in person, by giving you all of that index information- the dates, volumes, and page numbers right there online. That makes it incredibly easy to get right to finding the actual records you need once you are there in person (or just as easy to request them by mail). The Register of Wills even gives a bit of his own personal genealogy on his bio page!

Deeds Online Galore!

But let's get back to houses, shall we? Berks County takes it to the next level over at the Recorder of Deeds office. The current Recorder, Fred Sheeler, has been leading his staff since 2008 in an incredible effort of records digitization. According to their website, essentially the entire collection of deeds recorded in the county since its founding in 1752 has been digitally scanned and is available for residents and researchers to access online. Although not all of the images are indexed by name and searchable as of yet, it appears to me that a great number are. The Recorder's office states that their goal is to have all of their documents back to 1752 indexed by name and searchable, making it even easier for researchers to find what they are looking for.
(Update: Fred Sheeler provided this clarification to me regarding online searchability: "All the documents are searchable just not by the modern name search capability.  All older documents that we have not fully indexed are still searchable by our online electronic version of our index books.  When you are on the search site just choose Index Books as the search criteria,  you enter the party’s last name and the first initial of their given name and all the index books will display.  You can choose from the deed grantor and grantee indexes or the miscellaneous or mortgage indexes.  They are actually better than a regular modern name search since the index books group similar sounding names together so if you had an ancestor with the name Snyder and it formerly was spelled as Snider you would still come across it."
Thanks Fred for the clarification: this is useful to know and sounds similar to the way I search for deeds in person at the computer station at Montgomery County, whereas Berks has it online. Although a fully indexed database is often easier to use for those unfamiliar with these record types, researchers should be familiar with searching records using index books as well, as it is not difficult and can yield persons of the same surname, who could possibly be related, or with similar spellings as Mr. Sheeler suggests.)

Also available are mortgage documents and even subdivision plans. Yes, I repeat, these document images are all online! If you live in Berks County, the process of chaining the title for your house history research could be complete within an hour or so without even going to the county offices. The images can be printed or saved for $1 per page. (Update: Sheeler informs me that images are 50 cents per page, plus $1 when using a credit card in order to cover processing fees. Below, I was looking at a 2-page document, which would be ($0.50 x 2) + $1 = $2.00). Note that, as of now, the image viewing capabilities are based on the outdated Java platform and only seems to work on Internet Explorer (for me at least), but supposedly this drawback is known and is actively being updated to an HTML platform.

Public Outreach

Sheeler is clearly interested in the public actually being able to use and understand these public records. The office now puts out a periodic e-newsletter to provide updates to Berks residents on its efforts to streamline the deed recording process, bringing it into the 21st century while maintaining the integrity and security required of this governmental recording process. Sheeler also makes himself available to give instructional lectures to local groups on how to access and use these databases. Last month, I received the latest newsletter and was extremely interested to learn of this 5-minute video, produced by the Recorder's office, discussing the evolution of deed recording in the county:

I Digress (By Trying It Myself)

With all of this great information out there, although it did not benefit my personal house history directly, I had to try some of this out to enhance my personal genealogy research. I accessed the online database, and did a general search for my great-great-grandfather, Henry F. Snyder. There were 61 hits in the search for "Henry Snyder", 5 of which I could immediately tell were my ancestor. I knew because they were associated with property in Reading, where Henry lived, included his known middle initial "F", and also listed his wife, my great-great-grandmother Maggie. I went to one of the document images:

Screenshot of a scanned document image for a property deed, involving my great-great grandparents Henry F. and Maggie Snyder as the grantors.

In this particular deed, I learn that Henry and Maggie Snyder, in 1946, were conveying their 2-1/2 story brick house to a Ms. Edna Long, for the consideration amount of $1 (clue to check for a corresponding mortgage!). The address of the house was 736 Thorn Street, in Reading, and the deed further states that this is the same premises which Henry acquired in 1922 from Michael and Elizabeth Hill. Sure enough, my great-great-grandparents are listed at this same address in both the 1930 and 1940 censuses.

Clip from the 1940 US Census schedule, showing Henry and Margaret Snyder. The address number "736" is listed in the first column, with the street name "Thorn St" listed in the margin.

I was curious to see if I could get a Google Maps Street View of this house, assuming the house still exists. It does, but unfortunately, it looks like the Google car hasn't made it to this street (I was surprised!). Next time I find myself in Reading, I'll have to try to take a swing by.

Google Maps image. The brick dwelling at 736 Thorn St appears to still exist, but the Street View car hasn't captured an image of it as of yet.

Other Recorders on Notice!

I personally think that what Mr. Sheeler has done with the historic records at the Berks County Recorder of Deeds is incredibly commendable in terms of government accessibility and transparency, as well as in the preservation of important legal and historic documents. This is by no means a political website, but in many areas, the Recorder of Deeds is an elected position. If the county where your home is located isn't working to digitize documents, find out if there are plans to do so in the future from your current Recorder. The reality is that something like this takes years to execute, and often budget constraints make such efforts difficult. However making your voice heard as a local constituent can go a long way towards the effort of bringing records preservation into the 21st Century. Perhaps there would even be an opportunity to volunteer. Tell them to learn from Berks County!

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Past Ownership and the House's Chain of Title- Part 3 (Adding Mortgages to the Mix)

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series which analyzes the chain of title completed by gathering old property deeds for our subject house. Parts 1 & 2 constructed a preliminary narrative for the house's ownership history, by analyzing old property deeds and adding biographical information gleaned from census and other records (Part 1 examined 1920-1924, while Part 2 covered 1925-present).

Here, Part 3 will add a new layer to the analysis by gathering historical mortgage records from the county's Recorder of Deeds office.

Mortgage Records Basics

I have yet to delve into the details of county mortgage records, as I have with property deeds, so here are a few basics. You are with little doubt familiar with the term "mortgage" as a debt or loan entered into by the purchaser or owner of real estate, using the property itself as the collateral for the loan. Since a mortgage is essentially a lien or claim on the property by the mortgagee, a record for it is created and housed in the same government office as property deeds. Somewhere, a lawyer is cringing at my explanation.

Here, I will attempt to shed some light on a few of the gaps or mysteries remaining after the collection of property deeds. So what information can be found in the county mortgage documents? At first glance, and even upon closer reading, they appear very similar to the deed documents already collected and provide much of the same information-- names of parties involved; legal description of the property; references to earlier deeds and survey documents. You may also find further detail about structures on the property in a mortgage record.

The mortgage record begins in an almost identical fashion as the property deed documents.

Mortgages also add a key piece of information: the amount of money obtained in the loan. In my earlier lists of the title chain for the property, you've probably noticed that a number of the transactions listed only $1 as the consideration amount. Certainly, that was not the sale price of the property. However, a $1 consideration amount can be a clue that the grantee (buyer) may have taken out a mortgage in order to buy the property. Here is the previously shown list, with only deed information shown:

With the mortgage amount added to the consideration amount listed in the deed, we now have a dollar figure which is likely much closer to the market value of the home at the time. Two cautions here, to prevent you from taking this "adjusted" value as gospel: First, the history of residential mortgage lending suggests that there may still be a missing component, as during the early 20th century an individual could not fully fund a house purchase with a mortgage alone. Even through a second, simultaneous mortgage, one still needed to put at least 20% down on a home, and more often mortgage loans were for 50% or less of the home's value. Secondly, although it is the most common use of mortgage proceeds, owners do use mortgages to fund ventures such as renovations or a personal business. Yet, if the mortgage was recorded on or very close to the date of the deed, involving the same individuals buying the property, then it is very likely that said particular mortgage was used to fund the real estate purchase. We can still add these mortgages to further inform our understanding.

Adding Mortgage Amounts to the Title Chain

The first step here was to search the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds mortgage database for pertinent mortgage records. This was done by searching the mortgagor index for each of the property owners on my title chain list (in person, at the office's self-service computer stations; the online database available from the comfort of my house does not provide complete information or allow you to view document images).

Notes from searching in the Mortgagor Index

As an example, Andrew F. Gutekunst is listed as the mortgagor on 18 mortgage records in Montgomery County alone, with 8 occurring in the 1920's involving property in Abington Township, and the remaining 10 occurring in the 1950's (some involving Abington properties, some elsewhere). Although it is not a bad idea to examine all of these mortgage documents to gain a greater sense of Gutekunst's collective real estate dealings, at the present we are mostly concerned with those mortgages pertaining to the subject house only. Since Mr. Gutekunst owned this property from November 10, 1923 to October 2, 1924, we are likely to find some more information in the mortgages under his name within or around those dates. It just so happens that Andrew Gutekunst took out a $3,800 mortgage loan executed on the same date as the purchase on November 10, 1923. I can now place this amount in a separate column on the title chain spreadsheet for this transaction, and add it to the consideration amount listed on the deed ($650) for a total "adjusted value" of $4,450.

For my particular property, I was able to find the following mortgages recorded on or around the same date as the property deed. Locating the property description on the mortgage records confirm that each mortgage bound this property as the collateral:

November 10, 1923: Andrew F. Gutekunst ($3,800)
October 2, 1924: Francis J. & Anna L. Coogan ($4,500)
July 14, 1927: Eugene A. & Mary B. Stout ($3,800)
July 14, 1927: Eugene A. & Mary B. Stout ($1,200)
October 17, 1932: John J. & Catherine Cantlin ($1,000)

I can now update the chain of title chart to reflect these as part of the "adjusted" price in the transaction:

Further Analysis

Although Frederick & Bertha Brandes, as well as Jayson Stover, did obtain mortgages in the early 1920's for properties in Abington, none of them relate to our subject property, nor do they correspond with their respective dates of ownership. The $1 consideration amount listed in each of their transaction maintains some missing detail, further evidenced by the use of the clause "and other valuable consideration" in the deed. We may never know what the other consideration was. As alluded to in Part 1, there may have been some land being swapped here.

Jumping ahead to Andrew Gutekunst's purchase of the property in November 1923, we can now see that since he obtained a $3,800 mortgage in conjunction with the purchase itself, the property likely had a value of at least $4,450. This puts the theory set forth in Part 1 that there was no home here at this time into question, as $4,450 is much more in line with the value of a property with a house than one without. We must now consider the likelihood that either Harry Renninger or Jayson Stover before him had the house built. Although the language in the mortgage document is not definitive as to what structures exist, the fact that the lending institution (Glenside Trust Company) stipulated that fire insurance must be maintained on the property is a strong hint that the house did indeed exist. One's research must always be open to re-evaluation of previous assumptions based on new facts. Instead of a 1924 construction date, I now believe that either 1922 or 1923 is the correct year.

Clause in Andrew Gutekunst's mortgage, requiring him to carry fire insurance on the property.

Francis and Anna Coogan took out a mortgage of $4,500 simultaneous to their $5,500 purchase of the house in October 1924, giving us an "adjusted value" of $10,000. This seems high to me for a modest bungalow at this time, even with real estate values rising throughout the 1920's. I am not taking too much stock in this $10,000 adjusted figure, as I will need to investigate further the Coogans having gone through a foreclosure of this property within months of acquiring the home. My initial speculation is that perhaps they paid cash for the house ($4,500) and simultaneously lived in it while also leveraging its value to gain funds for another purpose. It is not immediately clear. However, the mortgage document tells us that Harry Renninger may have again had some involvement, as the mortgage loan was obtained from his Remlu Building and Loan Association.

Eugene & Mary Stout obtained two separate mortgages, totalling $5,000, upon their purchase of the home in 1927. One, for $1,200, was to good ol' Harry Renninger, the previous owner. The second, for $3,800, was to the Remlu Building & Loan Association, the owner of the house immediately after the Stouts, and being a corporation of which Harry Renninger was a director. So, this is interesting, and in fact the second mortgage involving Renninger as the named mortgagee even defers to the Remlu B&LA mortgage as the primary lien:

Certification in the Stout's mortgage to Harry Renninger, which states that the Stouts first mortgage to the Remlu Building and Loan Association takes precedence.

I am again speculating here: Since the Stouts conveyed the property to Remlu B&LA less than two years later for $1, in 1929, yet continued living in the house until at least 1930, I am theorizing that the Stouts were unable to meet their mortgage payment terms, yet were able to perhaps come to some agreement with Remlu to exchange title to the property willingly in order to avoid eviction. It is interesting to note that this property transfer occurred on October 9, 1929-- less than three weeks before the stock market collapse known as "Black Tuesday". Although the crash had not yet occurred, this conveyance did occur during the roughly month-long period of warning signs leading up to the impending crash.

After the Remlu Building and Loan Association held the property during the initial Depression years, as we've already seen the John and Catherine Cantlin came along in 1932 and may have rented the house for a time prior to buying. They obtained a mortgage loan from Remlu for $1,000 in conjunction with the sale, giving us an adjusted market value of the house of at least $2,400. We have a strong indication here that the home has lost essentially half of its pre-crash value by this time, which is in step with the historical trends during the Depression.

Final Thoughts and Next Steps

Although it may appear that the inroduction of mortgage records has provided less clarity and more questions, in reality this only demonstrates that deductions based on prices determined from the property deeds alone cannot be fully trusted. The next document can always provide a further clue, and even though I have now adjusted my construction date estimate (to 1922-1923), it remains just a theory until further evidence hopefully provides definitive proof in the future.

Note that I left open the possibility that either Harry Renninger or Jayson Stover built the house during one of their ownership periods. I did not present the mortgage history of Harry Renninger here, because his involvement in multiple real estate companies makes it a bit unclear as of this time whether his transactions for this property were personal or professional. A search for him in the mortgagor index does reveal about 30 mortgages related to Abington Township, all between 1926-28. The laborious process of breezing through all 30 has not yet been completed, but since he purchased the house for the second time in 1925, after the likely construction date, any mortgages which happen to be related to this house do not necessarily tell us anything about the home's change in value. Still, I will not be sure until this task is done. Furthermore, other institutions named in these various deeds and mortgages had officers with the last name Renninger, who may have been relatives. The Renninger name is all over this property, and fairly, this community, during the late 1920's and early 1930's.

One thing is clear: I need to find out ALOT more about our pal Harry Renninger.

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Past Ownership and the House's Chain of Title - Part 2 (Post-Construction)

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series which analyzes the chain of title completed by gathering old property deeds for our subject house. It will examine the time period from 1924 to present-day, representing what I believe to be the full time period since the house was constructed.

Part 1 covered 1920-1924, the time period after the Ferguson's North Glenside subdivision was created, but before the house was built. Part 3 will segue into the use of mortgage documents and how they can enhance the deed research already completed.

1924 to 1932 (Before the Cantlins)

Picking up where we left off in Part 1, you'll recall that I have theorized that the house was constructed sometime during the ownership of local hardwood flooring contractor Andrew F. Gutekunst, between Nov 11, 1923 and Oct 2, 1924. Although I have as of yet been unable to piece together any biographical information for this couple, the house's first owner/occupants may have been Mr. and Mrs. Francis and Anna Coogan, as they purchased the house from Gutekunst for $5,500. They must have been local residents already prior to the transaction, however, as they are listed as being from North Glenside in the documentation. Nonetheless, the Coogans' tenure on the property was not long. By February 1925, the Sheriff of Montgomery County had seized the property, likely due to the Coogans being unable to meet the terms of the mortgage, and placed it up for auction at a sheriff's sale.

The new owner? A familiar face-- Harry Renninger, a local real estate proprietor who was heavily involved in community organizations in Glenside, and who owned this property for most of 1923. The price listed on the Deed Poll recorded in May of 1925? Five Hundred Dollars-- or, $150 less than he sold it for less than two years prior. Quite a bargain for the astute businessman.

Harry Renninger, owner of the property on multiple occasions

This time, Harry did own the property for some time. He and his second wife, Mildred, owned the house for over two more years, although likely never lived there as they held their primary residence on Harrison Ave, on the Cheltenham side of Glenside. On July 14, 1927, they sold it to Eugene Stout, a 53-year-old electrical engineer moving out to Glenside from Philadelphia, and his wife Mary. As mentioned previously, the Stouts had two twin teenage daughters as well as a son living with them at the house at the time of the 1930 census. However, the Stouts were renting the house in 1930, and did not own it. What happened? Well, the deeds tell us that Eugene Stout conveyed the property to the Remlu Building and Loan Association, a mortgage investment corporation directed by none other than Harry Renninger, on October 9, 1929. While deeds alone do not tell us the full story, some arrangement must have occurred in which the Stouts no longer held title to the home but were allowed to remain there as rental tenants.

1932 to Present

That is, until sometime shortly before October 17, 1932, when a couple in their late 20's, John J. and Catherine Cantlin bought the home from the Remlu B&LA. This particular deed actually tells us the address of the grantees (the Cantlins), which is 402 Central Avenue in Ardlsey-- the subject house. This listed fact leads me to believe that the Cantlins may have been renting the house prior to actually purchasing it. Although the Remlu Building and Loan owned the house for three years, they rented it to a former owner in Eugene Stout as well as a future owner in the Cantlins. There certainly may have been other tenants in between.

The deed conveying the land to the Cantlins reveals that they already lived at the subject house at 402 Central Ave prior to purchasing it

And thus began the nearly 70-year ownership period of the home by the Cantlin family. Finally, this house had some stable ownership. The Cantlins, raising three children in the house, later expanded it with an addition built in either one or two phases, completed in 1946. John Cantlin, a grocer and chain store manager, passed away in 1961. By then, Catherine Cantlin was a widow in her fifties and her children were all adults. She continued to lovingly maintain her home as a duplex until her later years.

In 2001, Mrs. Cantlin was of such an advanced age (94-95) that she was unable to live alone in the house any further. Her son, Robert, and his wife took care of the business of selling the family home to a young couple that year. The following year, in 2002, Catherine Cantlin passed away, in a nursing home in Roslyn not far from her life-long home. This next young family owned the home for 13 years, performing a number of updates and re-establishing it as a single-family home. They themselves raised their own children there. Finally, in July 2014, my wife and I bought the home for the cycle to begin again anew, as we raise our children here.

Next Steps

Although this is actually a relatively short summary of what the property deed title chain has yielded us in the form of the land and home's ownership history, there are a number of directions which I have and will continue to pursue further. One step is to review recorded mortgages on file at the county Register of Deeds of all of these former owners, trying to specifically locate those which relate to this property. As you will see in Part 3 of this short series, mortgages can provide further detail into the transaction amounts involved in each sale (if a mortgage was obtained at all).

We also have now seen that one particular individual, Harry Renninger, was involved with this property multiple times and across several years. He was involved further as a board member of a corporation that owned the house for a time. Mr. Renninger having been a prominent local figure during his life, it is important to research him further. Perhaps his descendants can also be contacted, to determine if any of his former business records are still in existence.

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Extracting Clues from Property Deeds

After you have gathered a collection of property deeds related to the land on which your subject house sits, you can begin to examine the details of each individual deed for specific clues. If you have found yourself at this article and have not yet gathered any deeds for your house or land, see my article on "chaining the title" of your property here. After this process, you may have a dozen or so deeds, or you may have 1-2, depending on how many times the house and land were sold and how far you choose to go back. Each deed should be studied carefully.

There are several types of deeds, including warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, grant deeds, deed polls, and sheriff's deeds. I won't get into the legal mumbo-jumbo (although I've provided some hyperlinks within the text of this paragraph if you are interested), as you want to look for the same types of information in each. The issue of whether a grantor (seller) warranted the title or not is of little historical significance to your house history unless you also find some evidence of an ownership dispute or claims by other parties.

Using deeds for a house history research project is a bit different than for, say genealogy and family history research, as we are examining just a single piece of property in one location: examining its singular growth, splits, subdivisions, and ownership history across (presumably) many different families. However, the analysis methods are nearly the same, looking for the same types of information. More recent deeds (perhaps from 1900 on) will be typewritten, whereas earlier deeds were recorded by hand and are more difficult to read. You will be searching for names, neighbors, land descriptions, deed restrictions, and references to other documents, which we will provide examples for here.

Names

There will be many names listed in the deed, starting most importantly with the grantor(s) and grantee(s). Both will be listed within the first paragraph. Sometimes, the name of the municipality where each maintains residency will be listed. If the grantor is living in a different town or city from where the land/house is located, there is a strong likelihood that he never actually occupied the property. Throughout the document, the grantor and grantee will be referenced multiple times (when covenants of the deeds are expressed), but their names may have been replaced with the actual word "grantor" or with "said party of the first part" for the grantor/seller ("grantee" or "said party of the second part" for the grantee/buyer). Knowing where each party lived prior to the transaction can give you a clue as to where to look for census listings and other records of these people prior to their ownership, arming you with a richer sense of who they were.

As mentioned in the post on chaining the title, there may be a paragraph which summarizes the previous deed in the chain, giving you the name of another prior owner to research further. This paragraph often begins with "Being the same premises...". Further, regarding the grantor and grantee, the spouse's names are often listed which can confirm that you are researching the correct "John Smith", for example, in other records.

A legal description will always be given, as this tells the world exactly what property is being conveyed. Look at this description carefully-- it may contain the names of owners of neighboring property. Neighbors, especially in earlier deeds, should be researched further, as they could be relatives of one of the parties, or could potentially have owned the land when it was part of a larger tract. They may even be persons of local historical significance if their land had not yet been subdivided at the time. The owner of neighboring land may also be a corporation, which you can try to research and understand more about.

Finally, usually towards the end of the deed, witnesses as well as the notary are listed. While you need not research these people extensively, you should at least try to determine from census and other records if they were possible relatives of one of the parties. If either the grantor or grantee happens to be a bank or loan corporation, the names of one or more of its officers with legal authority to convey the property will be listed here towards the end. Take note of these names as well, as they may appear in other deeds related to your land, and may have been significant local figures.

Note that witness Bertha Spear Davis may be related to grantor Emma L. Spear

Dates

This may seem obvious, but dates in time are recorded and referenced in deeds. There is the date a transaction occurred, the date the deed was recorded in the appropriate county office, the date of the previous deed, as well as the date of any other referenced documents. Dates, obviously, help you place certain events into the timeline of house history.

Money, and Other Considerations

Generally, near the beginning of the deed and typically right after the grantee and grantor are identified, the consideration amount is given. This can very loosely be translated as the sale price of the transaction, but one must be careful. Actual sale prices were sometimes hidden from public record by listing a nominal amount in the deeds, followed by "and other good and valuable considerations". This may have been done for privacy reasons or to avoid a greater tax bill on the sale (the latter being more difficult these days). Also, other considerations could have been made and may even be spelled out, such as the deeding of a land in exchange for a nominal sum plus providing care and living quarters for the grantor for the remainder of his life. A consideration amount of $1 may also be a clue for you to look in the Recorder of Deeds office for a mortgage on the property around that date in the name of the grantee.

Since the consideration is only $1 between two unrelated parties, this is a clue that the grantee may have taken out a mortgage on the property.

References to Other Documents

Wills, probate records, other deeds, court proceedings, surveys, and sheriff sales are just examples of other documents which may be referenced in a deed. Any of these can be sought for further information. Although not referenced specifically, the existence of a mortgage on the property can be strongly clued by the consideration amount.

Reference to a writ of Fieri Facias in 1925-- time to visit the Court of Common Pleas!

Legal Description of Land

Refer once again to the land's legal description. As you are chaining, you want to be sure you are consistently referring to the same property. The survey which records the properties current boundaries should also be listed for you to refer back to and/or request a copy of from the county. If the deed you are examining describes the land when it had different boundaries than it does currently, you can try to chart or plot the boundaries from the older deed to understand the boundaries the larger tract once had. Historic atlas maps can be consulted in conjunction with this effort to see if it matches up. Once you've plotted the larger tract, you may be able to find the old residence of the former landowner nearby to your house, if it still exists. As street names are often used in these legal descriptions, you can compare to current streets names and see if they remain the same or if they have evolved over time.

Deed Restrictions

If there are any restrictions which the grantor is placing on the grantee's use of the land, they will be listed in the deed. Many times these restrictions were applied to subdivisions in order to avoid uses in the neighborhood which caused offensive odors. Sometimes, unusual restrictions are listed, which adds interest to the history of the property.

Absolutely no piggeries!!!

"Jackpot" Information

While any piece of information is a jackpot in the eye of the beholder, some deeds truly do contain a boatload. If a tract of land remained within the same family for many decades, passed down through generations of heirs, a deed was likely not recorded. Such conveyances took place officially through the probate process. Researching wills and probates is another, wholly useful task, but is one for us to discuss another day. Eventually, when the land was sold out of the family, a large mass of information may have come to light in the ensuing deed document. The "Being the same premises" section might just be a jackpot. Consider this example:

Here, we are presented with the following:

• The names of at least 6 previous owners of the referenced land, prior to grantor Emma Spear (Henry B. Bruner and his wife; Daniel H. Mulvaney; Isaac Knight; Bertha C. Mulvaney; Ralph L. Stone; and Julia L. Mulvaney). Many of these individuals were related to one another and those relationships are spelled out clearly.
• Clear evidence (and release) of a rental arrangement involving the property which compensated the Trustees of the Friends Meeting at Abington. The will of Isaac Knight must be consulted further to determine if the Friends held an actual ownership stake in the property, or what the exact arrangement was.
• Reference to 2 prior deeds, along with book/page numbers.
• The exact dates of death of 3 of the previous owners.
• References to 4 wills, with book/page numbers given for 3 of them.

This bonanza leaves several breadcrumbs for further research-- it is dated 1917 and references a will from 1815, so a time period of 102 years is largely outlined here. Be sure to look especially closely at deeds directly preceding the subdivision of a larger land tract. Such subdivisions often occurred within a decade after the death of a landowner, and the deed resulting from the sale of the family farm can lead to a very informative document.

Do remember that deeds reference land, not a house specifically. The mention of "all and singular buildings" or other structures as inclusions in the deed does not guarantee that a house, or even any structure, existed at that time. However, even if a particular deed is from a date prior to the existence of your subject house, knowing the full history of the land on which it sits can help tell the story of the house came to be. One should strive to photocopy and abstract, and ideally transcribe, all deeds relating to the subject property in order to extract all possible clues.

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Analyzing the House's Info Found in Online County Databases

In the last post, I located a significant amount of information for the house via two separate online county databases-- that of the county's tax assessing board and that of the county's Recorder of Deeds. Here, we will expand upon some of this information and offer up what it means to our house history research. We can also take this information and use it to search other places for even further information.

Recap- What We Found

Between the two databases, this is a summary of the NEW information we found:

• 2001 Sale Price was $110,000 (I actually first saw this on Zillow, but the county database is Zillow's source).
• This 2001 transaction, in addition to having Catherine Cantin as grantor (seller) also listed " 'M' Cantlin Atty" on the grantor side.
• The Cantlins (John J & Catherine) took ownership of the house on October 18, 1932.
• The grantor (seller) in the 1932 sale was the Remlu Building and Loan Association.
• The house was assessed at $4,500 in 1987, and re-assessed at $91,800 in 1997.
• The consideration amount for the 1932 was $1,400. 
• The previous owners (2001-14) had multiple mortgages associated with the property.

Using the above new information, let us now analyze this information and perhaps do some quick, simple additional searches.

Analyzing the 2001 Sale

The couple that sold us the house paid $110,000 in 2001 from Catherine Cantlin. From my conversations with the neighbor, I already knew that Ms Cantlin was quite old by this point (I also knew she since passed in 2002, and was born in approximately 1906-07, but I found these out using genealogical search methods I will describe at another time). But the clue of "M (first name withheld here) Cantlin Atty" listed in the index with the 2001 deed is of interest with a new person involved.

Searching for "M" Cantlin by name in the Recorder of Deeds database reveals some interesting new bits. First, a Power of Attorney document was recorded with the county on the same date as the home transaction. This power was granted by Catherine to "M" and "R" Cantlin the year prior (I've since learned that "R", now deceased, was Catherine's son, and "M" her daughter-in-law). Likely, this 2001 sale of the home was a difficult one for the family, with Ms. Cantlin clearly quite elderly and having lived here for many decades. Also found in the search results for "M" Cantlin revealed that she currently owns a house the next block over from mine-- THIS bit of information COULD prove incredibly, incredibly useful, as previous owners are perhaps the most powerful source of inormation for a house history project.

There were two additional mortgages associated with the 2001-2014 owners listed (those mortgages being recorded in 2003 and 2012). Homeowners these days tap into their home equity to make home improvements and even for other non-home related purposes. It is quite clear that these owners put a significant amount of investment into the home over their ownership, with the house jumping in price by about $100,000. These additional mortgages are lower on the priority list to explore further, as the more recent improvements to the house are pretty well and easily known. Further, all of the mortgages were satisified (paid off) so they are of no great consequence at this time. Still, they are a potential source of further information.

Analyzing the 1932 Sale

John J Cantlin and his wife Catherine Cantlin purchased the home from the Remlu Building and Loan Association for (at least) $1,400 on October 18, 1932. On the face of it, this most obviously means that the Cantlins did indeed own the house for the vast bulk of its existence. However, as we saw in our initial census research, they were not the first occupants. This 1932 deed now proves that they were not the first owners. It is important to note that the existence of a deed at a certain time does not in and of itself prove the existence of a house at the same time, however our early research has already shown us a few facts that tell us the house was built prior to 1932-- a) the house is shown on a 1927 map, and b) the Stout family is living at the house on the 1930 census.

Index information of 1932 deed when John and Catherine Cantlin acquired the house.

So, was the Remlu Building and Loan Association, a company, the owner of the home when the Stouts were renting it in 1930? Possibly. We cannot know until we collect all of the deeds for the property to find out if 1930 falls within the period of ownership of the Remlu B&LA. As explained, all of the deeds are not listed online. Since they owned the home up to October 1932, it certainly is quite possible. As we explained briefly in the last post, a Building and Loan Association is a financial institution that focuses on residential lending, and home mortgages in particular. The name "Remlu" is significant, as it showed up on our 1937 map in the name of the neighboring subdivision "Remlu Heights". This small area of North Glenside, according to the Old York Road Historical Society in their Arcadia Images of America publication about Abington, was partially developed by a man named Ulmer, and he used the reverse spelling of his surname (Ulmer -> Remlu) in his subdivision. So, the institution that sold the house to the Cantlins was certainly a local one, and further research on this company may give us further information down the road as they were likely heavily involved in the development of this immediate area. For the time being, one can search the National Information Center for some basic historical information on corporations, and searching for Remlu B&LA tells us that it existed at least as early as 1979 (certainly), in 1982 moved to Wyncote with a slight name change, and was acquired in 1988 by another institution. If we locate a current listing of the acquiring company, there is a chance we could locate some more records.

Back to the Cantlins-- they certainly will figure very prominently in our research moving forward, especially if we can locate some living descendants who may have memories of the home. Mrs Cantlin by all appearances lived in this house for 69 years, and owned it up until within about a year of her death. However, we've now established that the house has a history prior to the Cantlins, and we will seek to find it.

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