Online Courses
Owning a historic property is both a privilege and a responsibility. These introductory courses provide homeowners with the knowledge, tools, and confidence needed to understand, maintain, and thoughtfully steward historic homes, farms, and cultural landscapes.
Our love of old houses.
Every property has a story waiting to be uncovered. Learn how to research ownership history, interpret architectural features, investigate historic landscapes, and create a lasting archive for future generations.
Our Course Offerings
Each course is taken online with the option of downloadable guidebooks to print and save.
Researching Your Historic House
A Six-Module Online Course for Historic Homeowners, Preservation Enthusiasts, and Stewardship-Minded Buyers
Course Description
Every historic house has a story waiting to be uncovered. Researching Your Historic House provides homeowners with the skills, tools, and confidence to investigate the history of their property, understand its architectural evolution, identify significant features, and preserve its legacy for future generations. Through practical lessons, guided exercises, and downloadable worksheets, students will learn how to transform scattered clues into a meaningful narrative about their home's past.
By the end of the course, participants will have assembled a foundational house history, developed a preservation-focused understanding of their property, and created a research portfolio that can support future restoration, stewardship, or National Register efforts.
How to Trace Property Ownership
A Three-Module Online Course for Historic Homeowners, Genealogists, Local Historians, and Preservation Enthusiasts
Course Description
This course provides a step-by-step approach to identifying and documenting property ownership through deeds, land records, tax records, probate files, maps, and historical documents. Students will learn how to follow a property's chain of title backward through time, interpret legal descriptions, navigate courthouse records, and connect ownership records with the people who lived on the land.
By the end of the course, participants will have developed a documented ownership timeline for a property of their choosing and gained the skills needed to continue independent property research.
Writing a House History
A Three-Module Online Course for Historic Homeowners, Preservationists, and Local Historians
Course Description
Research is only the beginning of understanding a historic home. The true value of research emerges when documents, photographs, architectural evidence, and personal stories are woven together into a coherent narrative that explains how a house evolved over time and why it matters.
Writing a House History teaches students how to organize historical evidence, evaluate significance, and craft an engaging and well-documented history of a home or historic property. Through guided exercises and practical writing instruction, participants will learn how to move beyond timelines and records to create a meaningful story that can inform preservation efforts, educate future owners, and preserve community heritage.
By the end of the course, students will complete a house history suitable for personal archives, preservation projects, historic designation applications, or family legacy documentation.