Recently, I was visiting with a friend who owns a well-established music store. However, she was excited by a find she’d made earlier in the day. She discovered a piece of music stamped with a music store in that area from the 1920s and 1930s.
This was a store that was open and had since gone out of business, more than twenty years before her parents opened their store.
Her curiosity was piqued and we discussed ways to discover more about this long lost store.
Using my genealogy skills, I made some suggestions:
- Check city directories for the store. By searching through the years we can discover when the store opened and when it closed.
- Checking the archives of the library for any files or mention or picture of this organization
- Searching for the owners in census records
- Finding the owners obituary {mention might be made of when the store opened or closed}
- Searching the newspaper for information {even if it is to check out their ads} {Newspapers.com and Chronicling America are online}
- Checking deeds to discover where the store is located
- Checking old business license {if they are available}
- Search through old pictures of the area for pictures of the store front
- Speaking with the research department at the library for ideas or information
How have you searched for businesses in the past?
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