Today, I fooled around with my finding ancestral homes in San Francisco. I haven’t had much like with zillow.com or Google Maps when it comes to San Francisco. It seems that unlike Oakland either the old buildings were torn down since 1906 or the address numbers have changed making it difficult to determine if the building I’ve found is actually the same one.
I had a little bit of luck with one address: 563 Natoma Street. My Great Great Grandparents, Thomas and Margaret (Kelly) Jones lived there in the late 1880s–until Margaret died in 1889 from childbirth.
This is the house that Google Maps has at that address:
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It has the same address! The problem is that Zillow.com states that this house was built in 1906. It’s entirely possible since so much of San Francisco was destroyed in the earthquake and fire. Still, I have found that information on zillow.com needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I have found many relatives’ homes in Oakland where the built date could not possibly match the home that is there.
This teeny tiny house has been sandwiched in between two larger buildings. Was it there prior to 1906? I don’t know. I’ve never done property research as many of my ancestors/relatives didn’t own any until the 1940s or later. Those living in San Francisco prior to 1906 probably don’t have much of a record trial to follow.
It is interesting to think this little house might be where my Great Great Grandparents lived and where my Great Great Grandmother died. It would be the place where my Great Grandmother ran to the saloon to get her Father his daily mug of beer and the house that she and her sister’s snuck out of to go to the parties and dances that their father refused them to go to.
Looks like I have more research ahead of me.
