Finding The Original Owners

1930 US Federal Census for our new/old home

Being a lover of history and a genealogist, one of the first things I wanted to do once we bought our new/old house was to find out who the original owners were. What kind of occupation did the owner have, how big was the family who lived there, how old were they, you know, personal stuff to give the house a story. We knew from the sales listing that the house was built in 1922 so the family who lived there would have first appeared in the 1930 Federal Census.

The logical approach to this endeavor would have been to go down to the Norfolk Courthouse and research the deeds to the house in backward order.  Start with the folks we are buying from and work back to 1922. (I still plan to do that one day) It is about a 45 minute drive to the courhouse and parking can be difficult downtown.  So ... practical trumped logical and one Sunday afternoon while browsing one of my favorite sites, ancestry.com, I just started a search for our new address in the City of Nofolk Censuses.  It took a very long time because I did not know the number of the ward or the enumeration district so I scrolled through pages and pages of census forms.  Eventually I stumbled onto some listings for our street and our address!  Here is what I found:

 

This is them! The first family to live in our house was Tentress. No, that doesn't sound right but that's what it looks like?  Being a Hampton Roads native with family roots all over this area, the light bulb went off!  The family name is Fentress. There was William K. and Louise G. Fentress with children William K., Jr. and Louise G. and also the sister of William K., Sr., Lillie Fentress lived there.

 

Reading across the line, William K. Fentress was head of household, owned the property and it's value was $10,000! Wow! The "R" means that the Fentress's, metropolitan family that they were, owned a radio in 1930.  They did not live on a farm, Mr. Fentress was 50 years old at the time and when he got married he was 30.

 

The children were 16 and 10 in 1930 so when they moved into their new house in 1922 they were 8 and 2. Awwww!

 

 

 

Continuing across the line, Mr. William K Fentress was a Chief Clerk and he was in the Rental Insurance business.  Sure beats the occupation of his neighbor who was a fertilizer broker! A what? Anyway, the "No" near the end of the line means that Mr. Fentress was not a veteran.

 

 

Mission: Learn more about the Fentress family