'Visiting' old addresses, ancestral locations etc. via Street View

[7igerby7he7ail]

I have just been on a nation wide 'tour' via G****e Street View, looking up old addresses and locations. Some are still standing, others like the place of my birth is now covered by a T***o supermarket.

Anybody else done this?

[Rishile]

I certainly intend to.  As part of the website I am building I want to put at least one picture on each person's page of where they lived.  If I can't find the actual house now I intend to put a picture of whatever is there now. 

Rishile

[HeatherLynne]

Oh yes!  I've spent many an hour virtually wandering round streets where my ancestors lived    Do be aware though that street numbering has sometimes changed over the years, so what might look like the right place could be totally the wrong end of the street!

Another thing to bear in mind is that even quite a grand house in Chelsea that belonged to my family for two generations wasn't solely occupied by my folk, a floor or two would be let out, presumably to help with upkeep costs.

I also use it to get an idea of how far they travelled on each move or how far they had to travel to work etc.  It's a fascinating resource   

Heather

[7igerby7he7ail]

Yes I am aware of the possibility of numbers changing or even street names changing. I try and research the possible changes before I search on Street View.

I Find things of 'interest' sometimes
The  hat shop which my great grandmother ran is now a tattoo parlour.

My grandparents farm in the middle of a town, when in the 19th century it was on the edge.

I have yet to search my wife's ancestral streets.

[candleflame]

I went to visit a village where one of my lot were born and couldn't find the street but asked at a post office and was told that the street had changed name 3 times in its lifetime but was still there so I was able to take a photo of it which was brilliant.

[Ringrose]

I looked at the house that I was brought up in near the National Archives in Kew and saw a porter loo in the garden.Obviously great changes were taking place.I wrote to the owners who very kindly sent me pictures of what they were doing to my childhood home.They had extended into the loft lovely fireplaces had been taken out.I was a little sad but one must move forward.
Ringrose

[mrs.tenacious]

I've spent a good few hours on Streetview looking up ancestral addresses, including 'revisiting' some of my own previous residences, and those of my grandparents.  A real nostalgia trip in those cases!

[LizzieW]

Yes I've done it, but mainly looking at houses we've lived in during our married life.  The ones my parents and grandparents lived in around Manchester have long since been knocked down, although there are some photos on the Manchester Council photograph site from way back showing the streets they lived in.  One was obviously right on the edge of the country in the early 1900s, the area is now totally built up.

I've also visited old addresses in person, and sad to say even if the street is still there, most of the addresses I was looking for have long gone.  I did find one in Yarmouth, Norfolk that my g.gran lived in in 1866 - her first child was born there - and when I saw it I was surprised at the size of the house, until I realised like Heather, that she had probably only lived in a part of the house, or even just one room.

Lizzie

Modified - Oops, I didn't mean that Heather only lived in one room, just that like Heather I had realised .....

[giraffe]

I have a photo of my great-grandmother's little corner shop in Wolverhampton, taken around 1916 (dated via Kelly's Directory for the area, plus sons' marriage certificates). Street view shows the building is still there, still a shop, but with one of those awful steel roller shutters down, so must have been 'out of hours'. I plan to go in the flesh one day, during opening hours, and take another photo! (Perhaps with me in the doorway )
giraffe