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JCHS Mission:
Through collections, research, exhibits and programs, we bring people together to share, learn and be inspired by Jefferson County arts and heritage.
JCHS Mission:
Through collections, research, exhibits and programs, we bring people together to share, learn and be inspired by Jefferson County arts and heritage.
Looking for information about your home or a property in Jefferson County? We have put together a list of resources to help you start your research.
If you are researching a home or property in the historic district in Port Townsend, you can use the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation’s WISAARD portal. This portal also holds information about historic properties throughout Washington State. The Washington Information System for Architectural and Archaeological Records Data (WISAARD) is an award-winning online GIS map tool for locating designated historical sites which are listed on the state and national register. Information includes images of the property, a short summary description about the significance of each resource and a link to the nomination and/or inventory form. If the place has been surveyed by a previous researcher or preservationist (such as a home in the historic district), the notes would be located there. Check out our short video on how to use this tool.
WISAARD-fundamentals from Jefferson Curator on Vimeo.
More than 1,000 properties were surveyed by the Jefferson County Historical Society and are included in this database. Much more information, including photographs and maps, is available at the Research Center.
You can also search the JCHS online collection. We have tagged the photographs and records with street names where possible. We recommend searching by street name rather than a specific address because if an adjacent house or area has a photo, it may have images of your house in the periphery or background! General search terms like “aerial”, “uptown,” “downtown”, “waterfront” or by town are also a great place to start. There is a video on our Online Collection page that can help you learn and navigate that site. Due to resource constraints, we are not able to digitize all JCHS records and collections, but we have tried to prioritize photographs and visual research materials.
There are some historic parcel maps available online, but unfortunately none from the JCHS collection are digitized. You may have some luck on the Washington Secretary of State Archives. The Washington Secretary of State Archives are also your best resource for the territorial census and information related to our region before and after it officially became a state (1889). It also has several maps and other records you may find helpful in your research.
The Library of Congress (LOC) is another helpful online resource. The LOC has digitized the Sanborn Insurance maps from the turn of the 19th/20th century, which are very helpful in understanding the use of different buildings and what they were made from. The Port Townsend Sanborn Insurance maps are available on the LOC website, or you can learn more about Sanborn Insurance maps as a resource.
A young historian in our community has recommended this list of resources as a great place to start digging further! This list from Home Advisor outlines several further resources you might review when researching your property, like census records, family records, maps, and so much more. We recommend looking at these resources as part of your research. It is a really great set of tools. A big “Thank You” to Amelia for sending this our way!
We have many resources about local properties available at our Research Center, including parcel maps, newspapers, and many early documents related to property transfer in Jefferson County. If our center is closed (such as for COVID-19), you can send an email with the specific address to research@jchsmuseum.com and our Archivist will let you know if we have something on file. Due to the pandemic, we are only able to respond to a few requests each week so it may take quite a while to receive a response. We are not able to perform in-depth research currently.
One excellent place to start is with our “Vertical Files.” The Vertical Files are collections of copied information about a property. If a researcher has used our collection to look more closely at a property in the past, it probably has a vertical file!
One additional major resource at our Research Center are old tax accessor books. We have the oldest ones for the county, but more modern accessor rolls are likely housed with the Washington Secretary of State. The older books in our collection can be very challenging to reference due to their size and the limited amount of information in each book. If all other avenues fail, you may set up a research appointment to look at these ledgers. They are very large and heavy, so we ask that you set up an appointment in advance to make sure we have someone on hand who can physically lift them.
We hope this helps you on your journey and in your research!
Jefferson County Historical Society
540 Water Street
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-385-1003
