Seattle: New building history guide

If Seattle, Washington is important in your research, there's a new Seattle Building History Guide that may assist you.

The information was detailed in the Seattle Public Library's Shelf Talk blog.

Now, Seattle history detectives are armed with a new arsenal, a comprehensive compilation of Seattle history resources created by our own Special Collections Department. The new Seattle Building History Guide annotates a wealth of Seattle history research tools and places them in a broader context than ever before. We'll be rolling it out on May 19th at the Third Place Books History Cafe. Afterwards, the guide will be available from our website.

If you only recognize the term "cadastral records" from Polish research, know that similar surveys were done in the early days of Seattle; as well as topographical charts from 1879 and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from 1893.

Other resources noted:

-- King County Property viewer for building research.

-- There's also information on obituaries, census records, marriage licenses, birth records and more, along with information on Seattle Parks Department , HistoryLink.org, Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection .

Readers can download the Guide as a PDF file with hyperlinks, or print it. The blog post recommended two books as well: Native Seattle: histories from the Crossing Over Place by Coll Thrush; and House Histories: A Guide to the Genealogy of Your Home by Sally Light.

Check the library site today for the new resource.