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History of your house

Researching your Brisbane home: a brief guide  

City Archivist, Brisbane City Council Archives  

This guide aims to provide advice on researching houses within the Brisbane City Council area focusing on resources from the City Archives. It can also assist with dating houses for development applications. 

Information is divided into time periods reflecting record availability and character housing dates associated with Brisbane City Plan. 

If you are new to house history research, it is recommended you start with this video by Queensland State Library.

 

How do I start? 

If you have a “Queensland” style home, try looking at different house styles and dates through the following: 

  • A brief overview of common housing styles can be found here. 

 

How I can I quickly determine whether my house was constructed before or after 1946 for heritage and character housing determinations, insurance, or other purposes? 

  • Please see heritage and character determination on Council's website for further information.

  • Use the Brisbane City Plan 2014 tool to search for your property. The heritage overlay will advise whether your property is in a heritage zone. You can also view a May 1946 aerial image of a property with the current property boundaries overlaid. Once you have searched for a property, the 2021 aerial will default as the retrieved map. On the right-hand side of the screen, choose “Aerial 1946” from the Base maps option.  

  • You can also use the Queensland Government’s  QImagery site to search and view a wider range of aerial dates.

 

Researching a constructed pre-1925 property 

Prior to October 1925, responsibility for building approvals within the greater Brisbane area was shared by different local authorities. Please see this map for boundaries. 

The only existing local authority building registers for the Brisbane area in this period are: 

  • the pre-1925 Building Registers held by Brisbane City Archives, which cover suburbs of Brisbane City, Fortitude Valley, Newstead New Farm, Spring Hill and parts of Kangaroo Point, Woolloongabba and Petrie Terrace. Refer to map linked above. These registers date from 1904. Some registers have indexes by street, and it recommended you search these first when they are available. 

  • An early Wynnum building register for the period 1919-1926 exists for the Wynnum Town Council Area and is held by Queensland State Archives. Transcript can be viewed here 

  • The detail plans and 1910 contour survey map may be useful for searching houses in this period.  If you house is outside the date of these and our early maps you may have to rely on historic title, post office directories and Trove newspaper sources.

 

Researching a property constructed between 1925-1946 

  • City Archives holds building registers covering the Brisbane City Council area from October 1925 (note that there are some small gaps). These are arranged chronologically in years and have street references.  Most years are indexed by Street and Owner's name, and it recommended you search these first when they are available.  

 

Tips: 

  • These records need to match the owner’s name at that time to confirm a build date. It is recommended you do an historic titles search to determine the name of owners of the property when the house was constructed. Note: historic titles are State records, not Council, and available to purchase via Titles Queensland. You must know the current street address of the property. Assistance with historic title searches can be via the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying online enquiry form.   

  • You may get an indication of when the house was constructed by the presence of an additional “Bill of Mortgage” stamp on the historic title records. Often people purchased the land and then took a mortgage out over the property to build the house.  

  • Detail plans and survey field books are useful for determining the date of construction, but the date the Detail Plan was produced will vary depending on when the suburb was surveyed.

  • The survey field books held at the City Archives note modifications and any updates when the field surveys were updated. Building survey work was undertaken between 1911-1974 with the inner suburbs generally being earlier. These can only be viewed in person at City Archives.

  • Use Post Office directories or electoral rolls at the State Library of Queensland to try and locate owner residing at that address. City Archives also holds a set of Post Office Directories on DVD that you are welcome to come in and view. Generally, these databases do not have street numbers, but houses can be located between street intersections.   

  • Our collections include a number of historic maps dating from the 1880s that show existing buildings or property owners.  While primarily produced for drainage or infrastructure purposes many plans record existing property owners or buildings and can be a useful tool in dating early houses. These can be found via a street name search. Most focus on the inner suburbs. 

  • Rate Ledgers can also be used for post 1940 construction as entries will state whether land was ‘improved” (i.e., have dwelling) or vacant (VL). These can only be viewed in person at City Archives. 

 

Researching a property constructed after 1946 

  • From November 1945 all building applications were recorded on individual property cards (i.e. Building Cards) which are held by the City Archives. These record new dwellings as well as extensions and alterations. You must visit us to obtain a copy of the card, but please call us first so we can confirm if your property has one at all. 

  • If the property required special registration as a multiple dwelling or business this application and approval will also be noted on the card.  

  • From May 1982 all building application and approval information is recorded in Council’s property databases. See the Building Approvals page on Council's website for further information.

Other Resources 

  • TROVE – newspaper database and images from the National Library of Australia