Researching a haunted location.

I have seen many ghost's in my lifetime. I was thinking about sharing one of my stories and got searching on the web for some information about the location. The spirit i saw when i was 13 was a woman in a wedding dress in the woods. saw her plain as day (in the day). several years later, i met someone who told me that a woman had hanged herself in the tree outside of her house in that area before the apartments that i lived in were built. My question is, how would i go about looking into that properties history? Would I be able to access anything on the internet or would i have to go back to that location. just thought maybe somebody has had to do research and may have the answer. And i am sure having a thread like this may come in handy for many people. Thank you.

maybe there is a website of your local newspaper and maybe they got an archive. just a guess.

reply to post by icepack


yeah, thanks. that was my first thought. i went to the website but found no archive. i shall return though to look more.

It can be difficult to research the history of a property, especially if you're looking for something that could have contributed to a haunting. Try going to the courthouse and look up the old property deeds. This will give you the names of people who have owned the land. You can look at those people's wills too, gaining more perspective.

Then go to the town's main library. Most of them have old newspapers on microfilm that aren't available online. Some libraries have a searchable computer index of their microfilm where you could enter the property owner's name, street name, etc. to look for related articles. If the library doesn't have this option, you can scroll through the newspapers, looking for anything of relevance, but this is extremely tedious.

One last option is to ask some of the older neighbors of the property if they can recall anything about the property. You can gain some clues and possible dates to look at when you're researching at the library.

I think your best bet is to look at public records located at your local courthouse, like what SSPI07 said. There is a lot of information here, and at the very least you should be able to get a previous owners name, which is a great place to start. From there you can look into family histories and such. God luck on your research!

Depending on how far back it was it may be available in common Realtor records - they are required by law to inform prospective clients of any unnatural deaths or events that have occured.

On a different note - try "asking the universe" for an answer in the form of a dream; ask right before you go to bed and make the question simple, you may also want to tell yourself to remember/be aware of the answer when you wake in the morning

Thank you all for your input. I wish there was a way to search the internet by using the zip code and suicide/homicide deaths for that area. It is hard to search records when one has moved out of state.