Home Research Seminar with Robert Cangelosi

Saturday, June 28th | In Person (Jazz Museum), Live on Zoom and Recorded | 10am – 12:30pm

Tickets: $35, Members $25 (In person or zoom same price)

Friends of the Cabildo will host “Researching Your New Orleans Property” Seminar with  Robert J. Cangelosi, Jr., an Adjunct Lecturer at the Tulane University School of Architecture, and he will present an in-depth program on historic home research.

If walls could talk, you would know everything you wanted to know about your property, like who previously owned it, those who slept in it, how old it is, and what secrets it holds. Cangelosi, president of Koch and Wilson Architects, will outline how to develop the history of your property, using primary sources rather than oral traditions and secondary sources, which often are incorrect. Preparation of a “chain of title,” the essential first step in developing a history, will be discussed. The chain document the ownership of a property, which in theory, can be taken back to the early 1700s, during the French Colonial period. The “chain of title” relates to the property, not the improvements, and rarely will the chain alone indicate when improvements were made. Like history detectives, determining when improvements were done involves research into various records, including census, tax, water, building permits, contracts, city directories, newspapers, and more. This program will explain how these records can be used and where to find them.

The architectural style of the improvements can also help date a property. A concise architectural history of New Orleans will be included to help identify the architectural style of your property.