Public History: Doing a House History: Step 7: Additional Information

Indiana Department of Natural Resources:  National & State Registers - Application Process
The nomination form to be used in this assignment is the first form in the Application process or can be downloaded at this link.

National Register Bulletin:  Researching a Historic Property

Indiana Landmarks

Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD)
Search for information on properties registered in state and national registers of historic places.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Preservation Directory

Once you have the names of people who owned and/or lived in the house you are researching, you can try to find out more about them from a variety of sources.  

• If they were "prominent citizens,"check the turn-of-the-century county histories that featured biographies of  the movers and shakers of the time; also ask the Elkhart County Historical Museum staff if they have any manuscript collections of relevance.
   
• If they were laborers, search the local newspaper for information about the companies they worked for; also ask the Elkhart County Historical Museum staff if they have any vertical files about or records created by the companies.
   
• If they were Mennonites, ask the Mennonite Church USA Archives staff for assistance in finding manuscripts or congregational / conference records about them.
   
• Search the CRIMP Index (an index of Elkhart County records from 1830 to 1920) for the names of people who lived in the house.  If you find anybody in the index, consult with staff at the Elkhart County Historical Museum regarding the location of the actual records.
   
• If your research reveals that a house has remained in one family for a long time, and the owners reside in the house, you might knock on the door, introduce yourself and your project, and ask whether they have any historic photographs or information that might complement your research.

Additional online resources 

Records available without subscription at FamilySearch.org:  Birth, Baptism, Christenings, Marriage, Death, Census, Residence, Immigration and Naturalization, Military, Probate 

Elkhart County Recorder's site - Click on "View Recorded Information (name search) Search for recorded documents by a person's name and view the text information" This might be helpful in conjunction with the searches you are doing at the Microfilm archives, or it might be unnecessary since you are doing that. 

The 1915 Standard Atlas of Elkhart County

You should contextualize this information by consulting monographs about Goshen's history and/or Goshen's historical newspapers. The sources listed below are available at the Goshen Public Library and the Elkhart County Historical Museum.

Monographs

Bicentennial Year Stories. Julie Handgen, Janice Rasley, and Steve Bowers.  Goshen, Ind.: Goshen News, 1976.

Goshen: 1831-1981. Goshen, Ind.: News Printing Company, [1981].

Goshen: The Next 10 Years, 1981-1991. Goshen, Ind.: News Printing, [1992].

History of Elkhart County, Indiana : Together with Sketches of its Cities.... Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1881. oogle books 
Internet Archive

Illustrated historical atlas of Elkhart Co., Indiana. Higgins, Belden & Company. Chicago, 1874.

Pictorial and Biographical Memoirs of Elkhart and St. Joseph Counties, Indiana.... Chicago : Goodspeed Brothers, 1893.

A Standard History of Elkhart County, Indiana: An Authentic Narrative of the Past.....  Chicago: The American Historical Society, 1916.

A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Elkhart County, Indiana.  Anthony Deahl, ed. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1905.

Newspapers:

This is not an exhaustive list, but rather a simplified list of the major Goshen newspapers available on microfilm at the Goshen Public Library.  Titles through 1940 may be found at the Elkhart County Historical Museum as well.  Bring cash with you so that you can pay for copies of microfilm, if desired.

Other Resources

Pioneer History of Elkhart County, Indiana With Sketches and Stories

Past Perfect / The Indiana Album

Indiana Memory Digital Collections, Hosted by the Indiana State Library

Hoosier State Chronicles - contains digitized newspaper titles from across Indiana