About The Address Historian
One home, researched properly, for $47.
The Address Historian writes a short, designed, fully cited history of one home in Cook County, Illinois: who built it and when, who lived in it, and what the neighborhood looked like around it. It comes as a PDF you can read, print or give to someone.
Who's behind it
The Address Historian is run in Chicago, Illinois. When you email us, a person writes back.
How a report is made
We start with the public records for your address: Chicago's building permit ledgers from 1872 to 1954, digitized by the UIC Library; Sanborn fire insurance maps from the Library of Congress; the federal census; and Cook County property records. Every fact in the report carries its source, so you can check it yourself.
We use software tools, including AI, to search and transcribe records faster; every fact is checked against its source and cited, and anything we couldn't confirm is marked unverified.
If the records for an address are too thin for a real report, we tell you, and we refund you in full. You never pay for a padded document.
What's in a report
Reports typically run about 18 to 22 pages, as a PDF. What goes in depends on what the records hold for your address: your address then and now, the original building permit if one is on file, who owned it, a historic map or image of your block, who lived there, and a list of every source and every record set we searched. See the full list or read the sample.
What we don't do
This is not a title search or legal advice. We never name the current owner, and we leave out recent sale prices. See the privacy notice and the refund policy.
Get in touch
Questions, or want to see how it works first? Read the sample report, or email [email protected].