Your house had a life before you
House Atlas searches old maps, newspapers, census records, directories and photographs for the people and stories tied to one address, then turns what it finds into a beautifully illustrated book.
Now researching homes across Connecticut.
Begin with your address
Enter your street address. We’ll tell you right away whether House Atlas can research it.
Our index already holds historic records for more than 50,000 Connecticut homes, and any Connecticut house can be researched.
See inside a House Atlas
Not a database printout. Not a list of owners.A researched and illustrated story of one place.
Pages from a finished House Atlas: 399 Central Avenue, a house in New Haven’s Westville neighborhood · 40 pages · 9 chapters
Tap any page to look closer.
What your House Atlas might find
Depending on what survives in the historical record, House Atlas may uncover…
Owners, families, tenants, workers: the people whose lives passed through the house.
When it appeared, how the property changed, and clues still visible in the building today.
The roads, farms, trolleys and businesses that shaped the place around it.
Census households, city directories, deeds, newspaper stories and historical maps.
Old photographs, paintings, postcards and aerials: glimpses of what your surroundings once looked like.
Sometimes the record leaves a mystery. We tell you what we know, and what the house still keeps to itself.
No two books hold the same things. Each one follows wherever its own house leads.
How it works
See whether House Atlas currently covers your property.
Share a few details and, if you’d like, current or family photographs.
House Atlas researches the property and the people connected to it.
Receive your finished, illustrated House Atlas.
Check your address this morning. You may be reading its history by dinner.
History doesn’t always have to take months. For many early-adopter homes, the digital House Atlas can be ready the same day.
Some houses take longer, when their records need more digging. Printed books take a little longer too.
Early adopters
$100The digital edition, only while a handful of early-adopter spots last. Add a printed book for $50.
Once those spots are filled, the early-adopter price ends: $299 for the digital edition, plus $100 to add a printed book.
I’m opening only a handful of early-adopter spots at $100 for the digital edition, with a printed book for $50 more. When they’re filled, the early-adopter price ends and a House Atlas will be $299.
You’ll receive the full House Atlas: the same researched, illustrated history, not a stripped-down test version.
In return, I’ll ask you to tell me what surprised you, what mattered to you, and what could be better.
— Dan
Check my houseQuestions
A researched and illustrated biography of one home: the house itself, the people who lived there, and the place around it, told as a story and designed as a book.
Public historical records and archives: census records, newspapers, maps and atlases, city directories, deeds, historic surveys, photographs, paintings and other collections that touch your address.
How much survives varies from house to house. That’s one reason we start with an address check, and we’ll be honest with you about what the record holds.
No. Older houses often leave deeper trails, but House Atlas is about the history of a place, not whether a building has an official historic designation. Even a newer house stands on land with a past.
While the handful of early-adopter spots last, it’s $100 for the digital edition and $50 more for a printed book. Once they’re filled, a House Atlas will be $299 for the digital edition, and $100 more to add a printed book.
For many early-adopter homes, the digital House Atlas is ready the same day. Difficult records or unusual properties take longer, and a printed book takes longer to print and deliver.
Yes. A House Atlas can be prepared for someone other than the person commissioning it: a new homeowner, a parent, or anyone who loves a particular house.
We say so, plainly. Part of the pleasure of historical research is knowing exactly where the surviving record ends, and every House Atlas closes with the questions the house still holds.
No. The research draws on public historical archives, but your book and anything you send us (your address, photographs, family stories) stay private and are never shown publicly without your permission.
Not ready yet? Leave your email and we’ll keep you posted as House Atlas opens more widely.