How to Research the History of a Kirksville House

There usually is not one perfect database containing the true construction date, every owner and every alteration to an old Kirksville house.

House history is reconstruction.

The strongest result comes from several independent records agreeing with one another.

Start with the modern parcel

Use the Adair County Assessor's property search and GIS to record:

• current address;
• parcel or PIN;
• legal description;
• owner;
• assessed building information;
• lot and block where available.

Treat an assessor "year built" as a lead.

Administrative building dates can be approximate.

Build the deed chain

Adair County provides online land-record searching through the Recorder.

Deeds can establish:

• grantor and grantee;
• ownership transfers;
• legal descriptions;
• lot and block.

Ownership does not automatically identify who lived in the building or who constructed it.

A landowner might rent the property or own it as an investment.

Use city directories for occupants

Truman State University's digitized Kirksville directories can identify:

• residents;
• addresses;
• occupations;
• businesses;
• street information.

This helps answer "who lived here?" separately from "who owned it?"

For that distinction in detail, see How to Find Who Lived at a Kirksville Address 100 Years Ago.

Use Sanborn maps to see the building change

Sanborn fire-insurance maps can show:

• footprint;
• construction material;
• number of stories;
• porch or addition;
• outbuildings;
• building use;
• street numbers.

If an earlier map shows a vacant lot and a later map shows the house, the construction occurred somewhere between those dates.

That is a range, not automatically an exact year.

For map-reading technique, see How to Read a Kirksville Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.

Check census records

Census records can connect the address or neighborhood with:

• household members;
• occupations;
• family relationships;
• ownership or rental status in some years.

Addresses are not equally precise in every census.

Use them as part of the timeline, not as an isolated answer.

Search newspapers

Newspapers may contain evidence of:

• construction;
• contractor or architect;
• sale;
• fire;
• remodeling;
• social events;
• death or probate.

A construction announcement can sometimes provide the missing exact date that maps only bracket.

Check local preservation and archival collections

Kirksville's Historic Preservation Commission links several surveys and planning documents that may already describe a property or neighborhood.

The Adair County Historical Society and Truman Special Collections also hold local records, photographs and manuscripts.

Document the physical building

Photograph and record:

• foundation;
• siding;
• roof;
• windows;
• porch;
• additions.

Physical evidence is useful.

Do not assign an exact construction date or architectural style solely from appearance.

Build a timeline instead of chasing one "built year"

A practical table is:

Year	Source	Owner	Occupant	Building evidence	Address	Notes

When records conflict, keep the conflict visible.

The most defensible house history is the one that explains where the evidence agrees, where it disagrees and how certain each conclusion really is.