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Supercalifragilisticexpi-Bungalowcious!

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Dawn from Bungalowcious has done it again (and no, I’m not referring to her kitchen, although it IS gorgeous and you should absolutely go look at her photos if you haven’t already!) 

Dawn has a gift for house genealogy and has very kindly put her skills to work for us, digging up lots of fascinating historical information about our home. On a recent trip to Portland’s Cental Library, she was able to discover the following: Click to continue »

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More House Genealogy and Some Freaky Coincidences

Sunday, December 7th, 2008
Burgan's Fine Furniture of Spokane

Burgan's Fine Furniture of Spokane

A great big thanks to Dan – an architect and self-proclaimed “avid genealogist” – who read the recent post on our home’s genealogy and provided us with the following fascinating information about our house:

Based on Census enumerations before the 1910 Portland Census and Illinois State records, the occupant in your home in 1910 was Edwin S Burgan, b. April 1849, his wife Emma E Hefeley, b. August, 1849, m. November 16, 1876 in Vermilion County, Illinois. In 1880, Edwin and family are living in Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois, where Edwin is shown to be a Bookkeeper. In 1900, Edwin and family are found in Pullman, Washington, where he identified as a Merchant. In 1880 and 1900, Edwin and family also had a house servant.

Edwin and family moved from Portland to Spokane where in 1915 he and his son, Jesse W. Burgan (not James as enumerated in 1910 Census) opened Burgan’s Furniture which operated until this last April when the company sold their building (originally built in 1920).

Weirdly, there are some crazy parallels between Edwin and Emma and ourselves. Like us, Edwin and Emma had a November wedding anniversary. In fact, their anniversary was just two days before ours. Like us, they moved to Washington State from Illinois, and like us, they moved to Portland (and into this very house!) from Washington.

Edwin and Emma are listed as having a house servant in both 1880 and 1900. Does this mean we’ll be getting a housekeeper soon, because THAT would make me very, very happy!

Thanks again Dan and Dawn for discovering (uncovering?) our home’s past!

Posted in General Posts | 7 Responses »

Our house’s genealogy

Friday, December 5th, 2008

I imagine many of our fellow Houseblogs.net members are familiar with the blog Bungalowicious. For those of you who aren’t, much like Bungalow Insanity, it follows a Portland, Oregon couple’s adventures in remodeling a bungalow.

Recently, the author of Bungalowcious – Dawn – made an offer we couldn’t refuse. Dawn, as her blog’s regular readers already know, has quite a talent for house geneaology, and she very kindly offered to find out what she could about our house. This is something that we’ve been interested in for a long time, but have never had the time to pursue (and if I’m being honest, really had no idea how to do.)

We’ve been wanting to give Dawn credit for doing this, but it’s taken us a month to do it. (Sorry Dawn!) That should give you an idea of why we (at least speaking for myself) were not able to accomplish this ourselves!

If you are curious about the history of our house, or the process of discovering it, keep reading. Hopefully Dawn doesn’t mind us plugging her! We were just so surprised and impressed by this… Click to continue »

Posted in General Posts | 8 Responses »