Sources
Indiana County Courthouse Research
Tax Assessment Office. We asked employees for the oldest record that they had and for the newest. The Tax Assessment only had records that went back to the 1960s (at least for our building). The most recent records told us who the current owners are, their address, and specifications about the property.
Older Tax Records in Basement. After employees in the Tax Assessment Office informed us that older tax records for our building were located in the basement, we continued our research there. We were able to find records that pertained to our building but, due to time restrictions, we were not able to find all the records. If other researchers were to do this, they may possibly discover more precisely when the building was built.
Deeds Office. Most of our time was dedicated to the Deeds Office. Here we discovered all the deeds for the building, which told us who owned the building and for how long. Moreover, we discovered through the deeds what the professions were for several of the owners. We found the deeds by searching through the Courthouse’s online database and by manually looking the deeds up in the Deeds Office.
We also located the Wills of several of the owners, which gave us more background information on the building. We found the Wills by looking them up and finding the physical copies in the Courthouse.
2. IUP Library Databases
Newspapers: By accessing old Indiana newspapers through the IUP Library Databases, we found additional information. For example, we were able to find A. W. Taylor’s advertisements for his law office located in our building and his obituary.
LibGuide: Dr. McDevitt helped us set up our LibGuide for our building, which will help future researchers with similar projects. It contains information about our building, how we conducted our research, and our final presentation on our building.
3. Indiana County Historical Society:
We also went to the Historical Society to see if they had any information on our building. Unfortunately, they did not seem to have any additional information regarding our building. We did not have the opportunity to access Ancestry.com at the Historical Society. Future researchers should take advantage of this because it could help gather additional background information on both the building and the owners.
Group Members
Antonella Mastroianni
Samantha Stossel