How and where do you research your historic house or building in the metro Atlanta area?  Detailed research into the history of a historic house or building involves more than determining its construction date and its style.  It is important to know something about the neighborhood and era in which it was built, and for whom it was built. What was the owner's role in the community?  What was his or her occupation?  Was the house built for a prominent family, or a working class household?  Was it built for speculation?  Was a trained architect involved or was the design purchased from a mail order house?  What social events took place there?  In order to do an appropriate restoration it is important to know how the house looked originally.  This handout is designed to help you find the answers to many of these questions about your own property.

I. AGE

For the majority of historic properties in the metro Atlanta area, determining the exact age of the structure will be difficult.  Some of the sources that will be helpful are:

A. Deeds (Land History)

Deeds are land records that should be traced from the current owner backwards, from the known to the unknown.  They include the name of the owner, the location of the property, sale price, and the date the property changed hands.  Arrangement is chronological, in the order of entry. Normally they are indexed, but the indices are alphabetical by the name of the seller (grantor), listed in a "direct index" and the name of the buyer(grantee) listed in a another index called the "reverse index".

A sale or change of ownership is a good sign that a new structure might have been built subsequent to the filing of the original deed, but only if this date correlates with the presumed building date of the structure.  A large jump in the sale price is also an indicator of a new structure (or of an addition).

Deeds can be found in the office of the Clerk of the Superior Court, in the county where the land is located.  Most pre-1900 deeds have been microfilmed by the Georgia Archives and the microfilm can be found there. Cobb County deeds are not yet available on microfilm.  Deeds for Campbell and Milton Counties, which merged with Fulton County in 1932, can be found in the Fulton County Courthouse.

Title searches can be found at the Atlanta Historical Society /Atlanta History Center (AHC) that include the history of a property as taken from the deed records. These have been donated by law firms and are found in the manuscripts under the names "Walter McElreath," "Hugh P. Luttrell," and "Mitchell and Mitchell", which includes many plats for suburbs from the 1890's.

Table 1:  Dates of Existing Deed/land Records for Counties Within the Metro Atlanta Area:

County:  Creation Date:  Existing Deeds:

 Campbell (1)  1828    1828-1932, merged
 Cherokee  1830    1830 to present
 Clayton  1858    1858 to present
 Cobb   1832    1864 to present
 DeKalb  1822    1842 to present
 Douglas  1870    1870 to present
 Fayette  1821    1821 to present
 Fulton   1853    1853 to present
 Gwinnett  1818    1871 to present
 Henry   1821    1821 to present
 Milton  (1)  1857    1864-1932, merged
 Paulding  1832    1848 ? to present
 Rockdale  1870    1870 to present

(1) Deeds for Campbell and Milton Counties, which merged with Fulton in 1932, are found in the Fulton County Courthouse.

B. Tax Digests (City and County)

Tax records in Georgia are called digests, and are maintained at both the city and county level.  A county tax digest contains the name of the owner of the property, a brief description of the property (commonly just the acreage) and a value for the property.  It does not list buildings, and indicates the existence of a building only if it is within the city limits.  Modern tax cards or computer printouts of city tax information usually include a suggested building date for the property.  This is a clue, since the date may have been obtained from earlier records within the tax office. Those dates cannot necessarily be verified and serve only as a clue; commonly they are totally incorrect.

County tax digests were created yearly in each county.  Each digest or tax book is divided (as is the county) into subdivisions called militia districts (G.M.D.'s). Within each district, since the 1950's, taxpayers are listed in roughly alphabetical order; they are not arranged by street address or land designation.  Thus one must know the owner of the property in order to locate the appropriate entry. City property also appears in the county tax digest.

Again, a jump in the value of a property is considered evidence that some new building was constructed or added to since the previous digest.  A similar interpretation can be made of the value appearing in the category "household furnishings." Rural property was evaluated only by acreage, without reference to the number or age of buildings.

There are normally only two locations for county tax digests, the county courthouse and the Georgia Department of Archives and History (Archives), unless the digests have been placed on deposit with a local historical society.

To locate an existing digest dated prior to 1870, one should check at the Archives, where all known pre-1870 digests are on microfilm. They also have on deposit original digests from the early 1870's to the present for every Georgia county. These may duplicate those held by the county, but the Archives set is complete.  Existing city tax records are held at City Hall unless they have been transferred to a local historical society.

C. City Directories

An Atlanta city directory was first published in 1859.  After 1870 Atlanta directories were published annually.  A few Georgia cities had earlier ones.

From the earliest editions, directories list the name of an individual, occupation or place of work, and usually home address.  Businesses had separate entries and occupations were grouped in the back of the directory in a classified business section.  Entries are alphabetical by person or business name, so to make use of early city directories it is necessary to know the name of the owner or occupant of the structure.  Later (after 1877 in Atlanta), they include cross-reference list of buildings by house and street number.

To determine the date of construction, one strategy is to determine the earliest appearance of the owner you suspect built the structure at an address that matches that of the property under study.  Depending on the time lapse between directories, this could help pin down the proposed date of construction.  After 1877 the Atlanta directory can be used to determine the earliest appearance of a house or building at a given address.               

WARNING: Many cities have renumbered their houses and business. The 1892 and 1926 Atlanta directories give both old and new house numbers because they were renumbered in those years. The original number will be useful in a building permit search.

Georgia city directories are hard to find.  The only complete bibliography is being prepared for publication this year in Georgia Genealogical Research by the Georgia Genealogical Society, P.0. Box 54575, Atlanta, Georgia 30308-0575. Metro Atlanta directories are commonly found at the Atlanta Public Library (APL), the Atlanta Historical Society/Atlanta History Center (AHC), the Dekalb Historical Society (DHS), and other local libraries.  Other  metro area towns may be included in Atlanta directories. 

D. Maps     

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps were published for most urban areas as well as for some small towns.  They are most useful maps for this type of research.  A building's appearance includes its building materials, number of stories, major outbuildings, porches, neighboring buildings, approximate size, exterior form, current use, etc.  The maps are arranged by town.

Some smaller towns may only have a single-page map; Atlanta's maps published from 1885 to the 1950s contain many pages of maps for each year.   Sanborn maps include house numbers and business names, but not owners' names.  Sanborn maps are now available on-line at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/sanborn.  Other good sources for the maps are in the University of Georgia's Science Library map collection, and in the Decatur, Georgia public library.  They are also available on microfilm at Georgia State University, and at the Atlanta History Center, both in Atlanta.  The AHC has two street guides that were published to be used with the 1928 and 1959 maps.  A list of all Sanborn Maps known to exist is published in Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress:  Plans of North American Cities and Towns Produced by the Sanborn Map Company (1981).  

Plat Maps are created normally when a property is sold and are filed in the county courthouse at the same time the deed is recorded.  They are especially important when researching the history of a neighborhood, as plats were required for each neighborhood created as a subdivision.  Plats are commonly available for individual properties as well; by the 1920's they were required for every piece of property sold.  Some families still retain plats to rural property and should always be asked if one exists in family papers.  County courthouses maintain plat books; some counties have plats indexed by district and lot number.  In the Fulton County Courthouse, the first several volumes of deed indices have a separate index to plats listed under the letter "p." Other counties have other systems.     

Adair Realty Company Plat Books, dating from the 1860's to recent years, are available at AHC.  The majority are for the period from 1880 to 1910. AHC also has neighborhood plats in the Visual Arts Catalog and in the Mitchell and Mitchell Title Searches Collection.     

Many other maps may show the existence of a structure at a given time. AHC can give guidance on any area within present-day Atlanta and Decatur, as can DHS for Decatur.  AHC also maintains 19th Century City Atlases, some of which show specific buildings, and maps showing Civil War activities in the metro-Atlanta area.               

Table 2: Sanborn Maps of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area

 Avondale Estates (1959)                        
 Brookhaven (1928)                        
 Buckhead (1928)                        
 Chattahoochee (1928) Whittier Mills, Bolton Road Area
 Clairmont Park (1928) Decatur, intersection of Scott Blvd. & Clairmont Rd
 College Park (1928)                        
 Decatur (1928)                        
 Druid Hills (1928)                        
 East Atlanta (1959), area surrounded by Memorial Dr., Moreland Ave, Greenleaf Rd
 East Point (1928)                        
 Hapeville (1928)                        
 Inman Yards (1928), Marietta Blvd., near Perry Homes
 Kirkwood (1928)                        
 Lakewood (1928), Southeastern Fairgrounds site
 Lakewood Heights (1928) east of the fairgrounds, Capitol Ave.W; Sawtell on S & E       
 Oakhurst (1928) Decatur area, S. of College Ave., N. of Boulevard, Oakview Rd.
 South Atlanta (1959), Jonesboro Road area, north of Lakewood Heights (see above)

 Acworth (1930)    
 Austell (1925)    
 Buford (1921, 1931)    
 Canton (1921, 1930)    
 College Park (1911, afterwards in Atlanta)    
 Conyers (1884, 1895, 1901, 1909, 1921)    
 Dallas (1895, 1900, 1905, 1911, 1923)    
 Decatur (1911, afterwards in Atlanta)    
 Douglasville (1895, 1900, 1905, 1911, 1923)    
 East Point ( 1911, afterwards in Atlanta)    
 Fairburn (1892, 1903, 1909, 1921, 1929)    
 Fayetteville (1923)    
 Hampton (1890, 1895, 1900, 1905, 1911, 1923)    
 Hapeville (1911, afterwards in Atlanta)    
 Jonesboro (1890, 1895, 1900, 1905, 1911, 1923)    
 Lawrenceville ( 1924)    
 Lithonia (1895, 1901, 1909, 1923)    
 Marietta ( 1885, 1890, 1895, 1900, 1905, 1923)    
 McDonough (1905, 1911, 1923)    
 Palmetto (1885, 1890, 1900, 1909, 1924)    
 Roswell (1924)    
 Stone Mountain (1924)    
 Suwanee (1923) in Gwinnett County      

In 1927-29, the City of Atlanta, in conjunction with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, published a series of more than 50 topographical maps similar to the U. S. Geological Survey topo maps published today. The 1927-29 series covers much of central Atlanta and vicinity.  Because of the scale (1"=200'), these maps are detailed enough to indicate shapes of houses and buildings. A complete set is housed at AHC. Many of the U.S.G.S. topo maps show locations of structures, although a complete set of these for the metro Atlanta area is not known to exist in any library in the city. Best places: AHC and the Georgia Archives.     

Panoramic or Bird's Eye View "Maps" are another useful type of graphic record from the late 19th-century which contain an aerial view of a town, showing houses, buildings, etc. A discussion of how these came about and a national inventory can be found in Views and Viewmakers of Urban America, by John W. Reps (Univ. of Missouri, 1984). A number of these early "aerial" photographs (which actually predate the airplane) show the Atlanta area (1871, 1892, 1919) and can be found at AHC. 

E. Building Permits     

Building permits contain the date a building was started, and, rarely, the day it was completed.  They give the name of the builder and commonly the architect, cost, address, construction materials, etc. Atlanta, permits are arranged alphabetically by street name, and then within the street by street/house number. One should take into account the 1926 renumbering. The new street numbers have not been annotated to the building permits; therefore the old number must be known and ideally the original owner so the address can be verified.

Permits are the most exact records of a structure's actual construction date, since the date of issuance of the permit is always on the document. The specific date can sometimes lead one to an article about the building in the newspaper.

Building permits are usually only available for big cities, and in this study, only Atlanta is known to have files of early permits.  These date back to 1897 (?) and are currently being microfilmed by the City of Atlanta.  There is also a Log Book located in the City Building Permit Office where permits were recorded. It is often easier to check it than the actual permits.  Once completed, the microfilm of the permits will be available at AHC and some other locations.  Some building permits were published in the newspapers in Atlanta and other cities, but the columns have not been collected or studied.  Permits cannot always be located for all buildings. 

F. Miscellaneous Sources     

Newspaper articles. Since the 1880's, most newspapers (especially in small towns) have carried columns devoted to local news.  Newspapers in larger cities had columns devoted to activities in surrounding towns. These columns commonly contained building news, especially about houses.  Local news columns might also indicate the names of the builders of the house or at least a clue as to the contractors of the period.  There are no indices for any metro Atlanta newspapers until the 20th century.  Even then these indices are not likely to index building news, except for major public buildings.  After about 1915, newspapers carried more building news. During the 1920's and 1930's the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal contained a "Real Estate page' devoted to building news; other community newspapers probably did as well.  After discovering the specific building date, you should definitely check the most appropriate newspaper for a possible mention of the project, an architect's rendering, or a photograph.     

Hearsay. Interview the neighbors of your property and ask when they think the building was constructed.  Try to find a previous owner or a member of his family to interview; one of these people may have a good idea as to when the building was built.  Hearsay is not always reliable, but it may provide traceable clues.     

Architectural analysis. Try to analyze logically when the house appears to have been built.  Identification of the original owner suggests an era. Using this knowledge in conjunction with an architectural styles guidebook can help you interpret features of the house:  floorplan, overall arrangement, porch, columns, roof shape, window arrangement, etc.  You should also observe the way in which these features were crafted.  Are they handmade or machine-made?  Many books can assist you; one recent book is A Field Guide to American Houses, by Virginia and Lee McAlester (New York: Alfred A.  Knopf, 1984).  Easy-to-use style guides are published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Association for State and Local History.  Also, see John J.  G.  Blumenson, Identifying American Architecture (Nashville: AASLH, 1977).    

Unpublished material, including manuscripts, family or business papers, letters, etc.  When interviewing the previous owner's family, this is the type of material you should ask about.  Perhaps a piece of stationery will carry a business logo or an illustration of the building. If the family was prominent, check at an archives or historical society to whom the family or business papers might have been donated.      

Telephone directories could be helpful to establish the year an individual moved into a house, or at least when a telephone was installed. AHC has the best Atlanta collection.   Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library also has a good collection, ready reference in Special Collections.   

Neighborhood newsletters. Although these date back only to the late 1960's in Atlanta, they can be a useful source.  Many include interviews with older or former residents and other research about the neighborhood. AHC has the best Atlanta collection.      

Vertical file/subject file.  This is how librarians refer to loose newspapers clippings or other items on a particular subject. Check those at AHC and APL.  At AHC check the following categories:  homes (alphabetical), apartments (by name of apartment building), neighborhoods (alphabetical), as well as the personality files if the owner was prominent.  Before beginning research, know the name of the owners/occupants of the property and the correct street address.  At APL there are card catalogs in the Special Collections Department covering different Atlanta topics.  APL also has the only state-wide card catalog index to biographical sketches of prominent Georgians.      

Cornerstones are found primarily on public buildings, churches, schools, lodges, etc. Instead of, or in addition to, a cornerstone, there might be a plaque inside the building.  Remember that the date on the cornerstone is the date the stone was laid and thus when construction began rather that when it was completed.  Private homes seldom have cornerstones.      

Building committee minutes are important for community buildings such as churches, schools and lodges.  Minutes should include the date construction was begun and finished, and the architect's name.      

City Records for Defunct Towns.  AHC has records of several formerly incorporated areas now absorbed into Atlanta:  Edgewood, Kirkwood, Oakland City and West End.      

Census. The U.S. census has been taken every ten years since 1790. The most commonly used schedules, or portions, are the population schedules, including the slave schedules for 1850 and 1860.  The schedules for agriculture, manufacturing and industry, and social statistics (all 1850-1880) are useful in house research.  Beginning in 1850, the census records data on everyone in a household, his age, occupation, and the value of his property.  In the 1880 Census, a listing of city residents by residential street name and number was begun indicating that a house was present. Census records can be found at AHC, the Georgia Archives, APL and other public libraries in metro Atlanta, and at the National Archives, Southeast Region.         

The slave schedules for 1860 list the number of slave cabins on each plantation.  The agricultural census gives the number of acres on each farm and a listing of farm products and amounts.  The manufacturing census lists such businesses as factories, grist mills, etc., and their products. The social statistic census schedule gives community information - data on schools, churches, libraries, etc. - although it does not name the specific institutions.      

Photographs can document the existence of a house or building at a certain time or event, such as a natural event (fire, snow, flood) or a family event (marriage, death, visit by Uncle Ted, christening, etc.). The date could be determined by the age of a person within the family photograph standing against the structure.  Do not just ask for "old pictures of the house," but look at any family photographs during the time the family lived in the house.      

Gazetteers.  Although earlier gazetteers exist, those that are helpful in documenting historic buildings are those that were published in Georgia from the mid-1870's to about 1915.  Gazetteers include valuable details about small communities.  The information is arranged in alphabetical order by name of community, and within each entry is a list of businesses or owners of businesses.  The entries resemble a mini city directory.  They do not list street addresses but give lots of useful statistical data on the community:  population, rail connections, churches, banks, etc. They do not list all citizens, just ones in key businesses, or, in small towns, all businesses.      

For a complete list of pre-1900 Georgia gazetteers, contact the Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources (SHPO).      

Posters and broadsides were published for some neighborhoods and subdivisions by the developer to advertise the beginning of the project. They commonly show the plat or layout of the proposed neighborhood and were often reprinted in the newspapers. Ask in a neighborhood for these, as they are quite rare and there is no known collection of them.      

Dun and Bradstreet. The R.G.Dun Co. issued annual credit lists, which are as useful as gazetteers and city directories. AHC has only one volume, #201 for July, 1918, entitled:  The Mercantile Agency, Reference Book: Merchants, Manufacturers and Traders.  This volume would be especially useful in dealing with small communities that had no city directory. A complete set is at the Library of Congress.      

Atlanta Board of Realtors. These files of real estate appraisals and photographs dating from the 1920s to the 1970s have been donated to AHC. When available, they should prove valuable to researchers.       

II. ARCHITECT 

Knowing a building's architect is considered important because, as in other fields, the works of one individual or firm may be more valuable or better designed than those of another.  Many house designs were taken from architects' pattern books or mail order catalogs, such as Sears and Roebuck's, while others were built using designs found in popular national magazines, both of which are discussed below.      

Knowing the architect enables one to seek out other structures or plans designed by the same architect in order to re-use the original plans or to study the techniques or materials used in a similar design. Following are some sources for determining the identity of the architect, in addition to the sources discussed above. 

A.  Architectural advertisements, architect's catalogs, pattern books, mail order catalogs and builder's guides     

Rarely, advertisements for major building products list buildings (e.g.), Ludowici Tile Co. advertisement that listed fifty buildings which used that product, and names the architects. There is no systematic way to find such ads.  Some architects published catalogs of their existing works, or a modern book may have been published of their works.  Some architects published pattern books, giving many designs from which a potential customer could choose.  One Atlanta-based architect who published a number of pattern books was Leila Ross Wilburn, Atlanta's best-known designer of bungalows.  AHC has several of her scrapbooks and three published pattern books, as well as a few books and portfolios of other architects.     

Mail order catalogs were those that not only offered plans and specifications for sale, but all the ingredients as well.  In other words, you could order an entire house (plans, instructions, and precut materials) to be delivered to your lot.

For a good article on the subject, see David M. Schwartz, "When home sweet home was just a mailbox away," Smithsonian November, 1985, 90_101 and by the same author, "Houses That Came in the Mail", The Saturday Evening Post, May/June 1986, 52-55, 95-96. A book on the subject, Houses By Mail (1986), is available from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A builder's guide was a book that offered for sale specific elements for a house: doors, windows, molding, mantels, ornamentation, etc.      

A good source that discusses many of these types of publications in Michael A. Tomlan, "Popular and Professional American Architectural Literature in the late Nineteenth Century," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1983). 

B. Architectural Plans of defunct architectural  firms or deceased architects are extremely rare.  The only repository currently collecting plans of Atlanta-based architects in AHC, which maintains an Architectural Drawings Catalog.  Some major firms are still in business and could be contacted directly (e.g., Robert & Co. and Henry Howard Smith for Francis P. Smith and Pringle & Smith), as they retain most of their original plans. A list of the location of any known plans of early Atlanta architects is available from AHC. 

C. Architects and Builders in Georgia Project 

This is a collection of biographical information on architects known to have worked in Georgia prior to 1940.  Some files contain only a small amount of information, while others are quite extensive. The files contain no cross-reference of buildings by location, and no actual plans or drawings.  Most of the information is unprocessed and is on file with the SHPO. 

Table 3:  Architects in Atlanta 

Bodin, Daniel; of firm Frazier and Bodin; Residences Designed by Frazier and Bodin Architects (1930s) AHC 

_______________     Tuxedo Park and Valley Road (193Os)   AHC  

Brown, A. Ten Eyck; Ten Eyck Brown Architectural Catalog (1924)  AHC 

Bruce, A.C.;   Bruce & Morgan Architects (Bruce & Morgan) (1883) AHC 

Denny, Willis F.; Two Portfolios  AHC (VAC) 

Downing, Walter T.; Domestic Architecture (1895) AHC 

Wilburn, Leila Ross;  Three pattern books (1920s) AHC (Mss)     

Those more recent publications that give a career assessment of some other Atlanta-based architects include: 

Crook, Lewis E. Jr./ Lewis Edmund Crook, Jr. Architect, 1898-1967  (1984) by William R. Mitchell, Jr. 

Means, James   The Houses of James Means (1979) by Mrs. John R. Efird. 
 (New one in works, 2001 publication date is expected, by William R. Mitchell, Jr.)

Reid, J. Neel  Architecture of Neel Reid in Georgia (1973) by James Grady  (See new one by William R. Mitchell, Jr., on career of Neel Reid)

Shutze, Philip T. (add book by Betty Dowling here)

D. Trade Magazines/Periodicals      

From the late 19th century to the 1930's there was a proliferation of magazines devoted to architecture and related trades (brick, concrete, engineering, etc.). Some publications listing Georgia buildings are listed below. Public buildings are generally noted, private residences less often. Entries generally give the cost, approximate date of construction, and architect's name.  Many contain good advertisements and illustrations of products.      

Southern Architect and Building News, 1889-1932 (no complete set exists). AHC has 1889-1892, 1890's, 1920's-1932. Emory and APL have 1926-32.

The Industrial Index 1906-1950's - Bradley Library., Columbus, GA,  main location, some at Columbus College and UGA.     

The Manufacturer's Record, 1882-1960's. GSU has complete set.     

The City Builder, 1916-1940's AHC has full set and an index.     

Dixie Contractor (1926- ) Decatur, GA. No known reference set.    

Dodge Report/Dodge Bulletin (1891- ) No known reference set.

E. Popular Magazines      

Many still-published national magazines are a great sources of data about styles, building materials, etc., for the early 20th century. Many libraries have early issues worth a check.

 Examples:      

 House Beautiful, 1896-present     
 Ladies' Home Journal, 1883-present     
 House and Garden, 1901-present     
 Better Homes and Gardens, 1922-present 

F. Architectural Magazines      

National architectural associations, such as the American Institute of Architects, and other professional associations publish their own periodicals. Following are some of the titles available in the Architecture Library in the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech:      

 American Architect
 American Architect and Building News
 Architect and Engineer
 Architectural Forum (Brickbuilder)
 Architectural Record

The Georgia Tech Library also has the Carnegie Study of Architecture of the South 1927-1943 (photographs by Francis Benjamin Johnson) and the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) on microfiche.  On microfilm are 128 reels of American architectural books, a copy of the catalog of the Avery Memorial Architectural Library at Columbia University, copies of the HABS measured drawings, and numerous other architectural books.       

III. PICTORIAL DATA

A. Photographs      

Local historical societies commonly maintain photographic collections, as well as copies of photographic books.  The Georgia Archives has for many years copied photographs from around the state through its "Vanishing Georgia" photographic project, and this collection is partially indexed. AHC has large, indexed collection on Atlanta. The local public library may also maintain a collection. Remember not to center your request on your specific building as a similar or neighboring structure may help in efforts to document a specific feature or style.     

Family photographs are also valuable.      

AHC has the Gay BoIling Shepperson Collection of photographs taken in Georgia during the 1930s during the first half of the WPA era.  These include schools, jails, and other civic buildings, and improvements to existing buildings.      

The Georgia State University Special Collections/Archives has recently acquired the collections of several Atlanta photographers and should also be consulted.                       

Recently, there has been a proliferation of photohistories, including many metro Atlanta communities:  Dekalb County, Roswell, and Gwinnett County, to name but a few.  One should always check for this type of new publication. 

B.  Postcards      

Publication of picture postal cards began in the late 1890's but did not become widespread until the early 1900's.  The most useful era for research is 1908-1914; after 1917 quality diminished. Private homes, again are featured less frequently.  AHC, GHS, The University of Georgia and the Georgia Archives have postcard collections but there is no known complete collection of Georgia postcards. 

C.  Site Visits      

A visit to a similar building is invaluable for discovering missing details.                               

IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A. General 

Eakle, Arlene H. and Johni Cerny, eds., The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing Co. 1984.) This is more than a genealogy work, it is the best guide to researching into local records, including city, business, church, etc. 

Ellsworth, Linda, "The History of a House:  How to Trace It" Technical Leaflet 89 (Nashville, Tennessee: American Association for State and Local History, Sept., 1976). 

Mooney, Elizabeth, "The Tales That Houses Tell," Historic Preservation, February, 1985. 

Vider, Elise, "Getting to Know Your House," Historic Preservation, March- April, 1982.  

B. Atlanta City Metro Area 

Ansley Park Civic Association, Historic (typo) (Atlanta, The Association, 1982).  History of major houses in this in-town neighborhood and plat maps of the development. [add the revised 1993 update here]

Atlanta Public Library, Preservation/Restoration (the library, c. 1980) A bibliography of the library's holdings related to these topics, including research materials. 

Atlanta Urban Design Commission, Atlanta Historic Resources Workbook (Atlanta: The Commission, 1981). [add latest edition]    

Davis, Robert S.  Jr., Research in Georgia (Easley, S.C.:  The Southern Historical Press, 1981).  Although styled as a guide to the Georgia Archives, it is an extremely useful guide to the records of Georgia courthouses. 

Dorsey, James E., and Arthur Ray Rowland, A Bibliography of the Writings on Georgia History (Spartanburg:  The Reprint Co., 1978).  This list covers primarily Georgia publications from 1900 to 1970.  For later works, consult Dorsey's supplemental volume and his annual update in the Georgia Historical Quarterly. 

Dorsey, James E., Georgia Genealogy and Local History: A Bibliography (Spartanburg: The Reprint Co., 1983). Arranged by counties and a good guide to material published specifically on certain counties.  Annual updates have appeared in the GHS Quarterly and since 1989 in the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Garrett, Franklin M., Atlanta and Environs (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1954), 2 vols.  A chronological history of Atlanta from its founding to the 1940's.  A third volume, not by Garrett, contains biographical material on many prominent citizens. Yet another third volume, by Harold H. Martin, published in ____ updates the original text to ____.

McDonald, T.C., Freemasonry and its Progress in Atlanta and Fulton County, Georgia (Atlanta: The author, 1925). 

Merritt, Carole, and Carolyn Brooks, eds., Historic Black Resources (Atlanta: The Department of Natural Resources, 1985). A guide to evaluating resources, with an excellent bibliography of works on black historic resources. 

Preston, Howard L., Automobile Age of Atlanta (Athens:  The University of Georgia Press, 1979).
        
V. ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS DOCUMENT
 
AHC  Atlanta Historical Society, 3101 Andrews Dr., NW, Atlanta, 30305. 404-814-4040.    Library/Archives is open 5 days a week [correct address] 

APL  Atlanta_Fulton Public Library, 1 Margaret Mitchell Square, Atlanta, GA 30301. Open seven days a week. Special Collections has the local  materials. Peachtree Center Station on MARTA.   404-730-4636 is main info. No.

Archives, Georgia Division of Archives and History

DHS  DeKalb Historical Society, Old Courthouse on the Square, Decatur, GA 30030. Library open five days a week. Appointment advisable. 404-373-1088. Above the Decatur MARTA Station. 

GSU  W.R. Pullen Library, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. Located adjacent to Georgia State MARTA Station. Open seven days a week during regular academic term. Hours vary between terms.  Open stacks. Archives requires an appointment at 404-658-2477.

SHPO  State Historic Preservation Office.  The Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources, 34 Peachtree Street, NW; Suite 1600; Atlanta, GA  30303.  Near Five Points MARTA station.  Open weekdays only, M-F 8:30-4:00. Appointments are highly recommended due to limited staffing and space for researchers.  404-651-5911.

Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr., Historian
Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources

March 5, 2001 (revised from Nov. 1, 1986)