TIP OF THE WEEK –

1937-1972 Property Record Cards

If you are doing genealogical research of ancestors in the Puget Sound area, check out the kind of records available to you at the Puget Sound Regional Branch of the Washington State Archives in Bellevue, WA.  From King, Kitsap, and Pierce counties, there are dozens of different kinds of records available; some quite unique.

One of the most popular record sets is the King County 1937-1972 property record cards for historical house photographs and property records.

The Puget Sound Regional Branch is open Wednesday through Friday, and by appointment only. They do welcome voice mail and email requests, and that may be all you need. They will send, or email, the documents they located for you. The records accompanying the photograph will include some ownership information, generally back to 1937, sometimes further back.  If you would like earlier information, it might be possible to schedule a time for you to view the earlier tax records.

They cannot look up records with only a street address. You will need the property tax ID number, or a legal description. Once I had no tax id to give them as the 1900 house and its address no longer exists (at some point in time it was replaced by a condo development), but I gave them a tax id of a house that I determined to be near by the old house, and the property legal description I found in the old Sanborn Insurance Maps at the downtown Seattle Public Library. They were able to find me photographs and pages of information on the original 1900 house.

You may contact Puget Sound Regional Branch Archives by voice mail at (425) 564-3940, or by email at PSBranchArchives@sos.wa.gov

Their website is :
https://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/archives_puget.aspx