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So, you've moved into a new home and want to find out a bit more about what sort of people lived there in the past - or maybe you just want to know what other buildings existed on the plot in the past.

You might have accidentally moved into Amityville and feel a dark presence - possibly making you think there might have been a murder in your bedroom once. That's frequently an enquiry according to Sheila Reed, who's the Public Service Manager at the Bury branch of the Record Office:

"It's then a case of going back through all the previous owners. That's the time-consuming bit - collecting that information from all the different records.

"It is definitely becoming more popular. There was a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ series a while ago called House Detectives and that started people thinking that tracing property was something interesting to do."

The Record Office is able to help us research the social history of the building, but it says we'd need an architectural historian if we wanted to get the structure dated by reference to its brickwork, beams roofing etc.

Sheila said one strand of research is by people who know their home was formerly a pub, chapel, mill or public buildings: "It's really the 1950's, when the Town & Country Planning Act came in, that you actually get plans drawn up for houses.

"Prior to that, it's very much tracing what was on the land before your house. Was there a map that shows something there? Was it your house? Was it an earlier building? Was it just a field?

"My own house was field before it was built about 35 years ago. So I can't go back for buildings on the land, but I can look at who owned that piece of land."

Previous tenants

Most of us probably wonder who lived in our houses before us. The Record Office can't tell us how clean they were, but they could unearth some surprising facts.

Publicly available censuses go back to 1901, but the oldest surviving ones go back to 1841 - so you would need the help of the SRO to research anything between these dates. For pre-1841 research you'll need to look at all sorts of other documents with your fingers crossed.

"There are markings on the census which tell us whether there was one family or two or three or even four living there," said Sheila.

"In Suffolk, if you're looking for example at farm labourers' cottages, you might find that four separate houses could have been pulled into one large building or sometimes a large house could have been divided up. The history can be quite complex."

Feudal history

The SRO says a lot of land in the county was owned by a Lord Of The Manor. Buying a property wasn't done by conveyancing using solicitors, it was done through the manor court. The record of ownership was the court book rather than the modern Land Registry.

Sheila said: "That historic way of owning property was abolished in the 1930's, so that the Lord Of The Manor no longer controlled the land.

"It was a government policy to break the power of the Lords Of The Manor. This was when owning a [country] estate becomes a really expensive hobby rather than a fruitful occupation.

"Inheritance tax came in as well. You actually did have a feudal system right up until then where the squire or the church owned everything."

Getting started

The Record Office needs visitors to provide as much information as possible. In terms of looking at maps, the road system could be completely different if you go back centuries, so it's important that we note the position of stand-out neighbouring features such as churches or rivers.

It can also be time-consuming searching through the records, but Sheila said it's not as daunting as it might seem at first: "It's not difficult. You've just got to be very systematic.

"We have one chap comes in and does an hour's work on his property history and then he might come back two or three weeks later and do a bit more. There are very few properties where someone's already done research on it and very few families have had their family tree done, so coming in for 10 minutes probably won't get you very far."

One of Sheila's favourite revelations was while carrying out research on the Mill House in Monks Eleigh near Sudbury: "We got back to the 1400's and we found that it was owned by the monks of Canterbury.

"It was given to them in the 900's by a man who had his life saved in a battle and he'd offered up his property to the monks and then rented it back off them.

"We're not sure if the village gets its name this way. It might just be coincidence because other property was owned by the monks of Ely whereas this was definitely the monks of Canterbury.

"We can normally get back into the 1700's fairly successfully. It depends then what records survive from earlier eras."

Another success story comes from Lavenham: "We've done a history of a pub there and we found out it was called Shillings. We found wills in Lavenham in the 1400's mentioning a family called Shillings and although we can't tie them down to the pub using the records, that looks quite promising.

"It's still a public house nowadays - it's The Cock."

Across the county, the three records offices (Bury, Ipswich, Lowestoft) deal with around 9000 enquiries a year. Around 20 percent are about property history. Two years ago it would have been around 12 percent.

What's on

Suffolk Record Office regularly gives talks about family and property research. They also hold workshops which last about two hours. Visit the Suffolk Record Office website for more details.

On Saturday 20 September 2008, the SRO is taking part in the Kirton House History Day near Felixstowe. It runs 11am-4pm with Sheila Reed giving a talk at 11.30am. Admission is Β£2 for adults and it's free for children.

The Suffolk Record Office is run by Suffolk County Council.