Archival sources offer a wealth of discoveries for anyone interested in who previously owned their farm or house, what their home looked like in the past, or what stood on the site before. You can find information about property and building owners, building plans and detailed descriptions of buildings.

In the fonds of real estate offices there are extensive records of legal transactions involving properties and their owners. Altogether there are eight fonds: Kuressaare Real Estate Office (Kuressaare kinnistusamet, EAA 5164), Narva Real Estate Office (Narva kinnistusamet, EAA 3187), Pärnu Real Estate Office (Pärnu kinnistusamet, EAA 4614), Rakvere Real Estate Office (Rakvere kinnistusamet, EAA 4187), Tallinn Real Estate Office (Tallinna kinnistusamet, EAA 2840), Tartu Real Estate Office (Tartu kinnistusamet, EAA 2381), Viljandi Real Estate Office (Viljandi kinnistusamet, EAA 3760) and Võru Real Estate Office (Võru kinnistusamet, EAA 3416). The real estate registers held in these fonds provide the best overview (they are missing from the Kuressaare Real Estate Office fond). A useful guide to the records of real estate offices is the booklet compiled by Vello Naaber «Kinnistusametite materjalid Eesti NSV Riiklikus Ajaloo Keskarhiivis» Tartu, 1975.

Information about properties in Tallinn, Haapsalu and Lihula and about Estonian manors is available in the Real Estate Register.

Descriptions of buildings can be found in the fonds of magistrates (town councils) (evaluation or taxation files from different years), insurance companies (insurance policies and insurance contracts) and loan offices. Especially numerous real estate loan files may be found in the fonds of the Estonian Mortgage Bank (Eesti Hüpoteegipank, EAA 2110).

The Register of real estate insured by the Estonian Mutual Fire-Insurance Company provides an overview of the policies held in the Estonian Mutual Insurance Society (Eesti vastastikune tulekindlustuse selts, EAA 3761).

Information about the location of buildings is also offered by different maps.

Earlier building designs can be found in the fonds of the Estonian Gubernia Building and Road Commission (Eestimaa kubermanguvalitsuse ehitus- ja teedekomisjon, EAA 33), Livonian Gubernia Building Department (Liivimaa kubermangu ehitusosakond, EAA 298) and Estonian Gubernia Draft Chamber (Eestimaa kubermangu joonestuskoda, EAA 46). Many building designs of Tartu and Pärnu have also been preserved (in the fonds EAA 3569 — Pärnu Town Council, EAA 2623 — Tartu Town Council).

Buildings in Tartu — descriptions of plans and the plans themselves can be seen in the database of Tartu projects.

Plans of buildings that were compiled and approved in the period between the two world wars are held primarily at the National Archives in Tallinn, in the fonds of several institutions involved in construction. Plans may be found also among the documents of town and county councils’ building departments.

Different plans from 1952−1993, both of residential and commercial buildings, are in the fonds of RPI Eesti Projekt (EAA 5294) and Projekteerimise Instituudi «EKE Projekt» Tartu osakond (EAA 5364).

Building register files held in Tartu, Rakvere and Valga contain extensive information about buildings and their owners. These files have access restrictions.

The list above is not exhaustive. Individual building plans can be found in many other fonds.

When searching for information at the National Archives in Tallinn, consult the same sources described in the local history section. Loan files kept in the fonds of Rural Credit Bank of Estonia (Eesti Maapank, ERA 3653) may serve as an example.

Cadastral registry and land use planning office of the ministry of agriculture (Põllutööministeeriumi Katastri ja Maakorralduse Osakond, ERA 62) — lists of taxable lands and land classification files of farmlands that are sorted by districts, rural communes and manors (there are about 117 000 land classification files, but very few for farms in Tartu district), land readjustment files.

Map collections of Cadastral registry and land use planning office of the ministry of agriculture (Põllutööministeeriumi Katastri ja Maakorralduse Osakonna kaardikogu, ERA T-3) — a schematic grid map of Estonia at a scale of 1:10000, compiled in the late 1930s and early 1940s, does not cover most of Saaremaa parts of Valga and Petseri districts, or the towns; in addition there are plans of farmlands and manors all over Estonia. The latter are sorted by districts and communes.

State forest board of the ministry of agriculture (Põllutööministeeriumi Riigimetsade Valitsus, ERA 63) – files on farms leased by the state in all districts (ca 80 000): lease contracts and descriptions of the leased property. If the leaseholder purchased the farm, the file usually ends with a sale and purchase contract and a loan agreement. Further information is available in the loan file held in the fonds of the Rural Credit Bank of Estonia. Fond ERA 63 is organised by districts, communes and manors.

Settlement office (Asundusamet, ERA 1650); Land offices of districts or land readjustment committees have all been involved in land readjustment (in all 11 fonds). Unfortunately, complete records have not survived for every district. In these fonds you can find land readjustment files both for individual farms and larger land readjustment areas (one whole village, a former manor), applications for land, land readjustment plans, minutes and resolutions of committee meetings.

In the fonds of the Ministry of Education (Haridusministeerium, ERA 1108, inventory 13) there are plans of school buildings, blueprints and notifications, arranged by district. Plans of buildings and building sites situated in towns and boroughs are held in the respective town council’s fonds.

The fonds of the statistics office of the town of Tartu (Tartu Linna Statistikabüroo, ERA 3021) contains detailed descriptions of the buildings in Tartu from 1922. Information about farmsteads is also offered by farmstead lists. Information about rural households after the Second World War is available in household books held in the Historical Archives and regional departments of the State Archives.

The motion pictures and photographs of the Film Archives offer a rare opportunity to see places and buildings as they appeared in their own time. Johannes Pääsuke — the first Estonian filmmaker — documented the counties of Tartu and Võru as early as 1912-1913. These are also the oldest film clips held in the Film Archives.

Since the 1920s several so-called sightseeing films were made of different spots in Estonia («Across Estonia with a Film Camera», «Do You Know the Country», «Ruhno», «Tallinn Harbour», «Pictures from Saku», «Lake Peipus», «Summer Resorts Are Inviting» etc.), and newsreels usually also recorded the locations where events took place. When searching in the information system of the Film Archives FIS one should enter the place name of interest in the keyword field.

The publication "Catalogue of the Eesti Kultuurfilm" and its place name index can be helpful as well.

Photos of places can be found in various collections of the Film Archives. The greatest number of photographs connected to different locations is held in the photo collection of the Society of Estonian Regional Studies of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: 4872 photographs from the end of the 19th century until 1940. Many of these were used in the miscellany «Estonia» (it was published county by county in the 1920s-1930s).

Buildings registers (in Estonian Hooneregistrid) were established by local governments in 1994 on the basis of technical inventory offices or their legal successors. The State Central Register of Buildings Registers was also established. Regional buildings registers were responsible for ensuring the validity of transactions involving buildings owned by legal entities and individuals. The State Buildings Register’s main task was to keep a record of buildings in use; it was administered by the Ministry of Economy and Communication.

According to the Building Act, the following information was entered in the register:

• information about the building, including essential technical data and information about the physical share within the meaning of the Apartment Ownership Act;
• the building’s location;
• information about persons associated with the building;
• information about the building’s owner;
• information about mortgages on buildings classified as movable property;
• information about attachments and prohibitions affecting buildings classified as movable property;
• information about cultural monuments.

The Buildings Register ceased operations on 31 December 2003, when its data and functions were transferred to the State Register of Construction Works. Records from the regional buildings registers were transferred to the National Archives in Tartu, Rakvere and Valga.

Please note that access to Buildings Register files is restricted.

In June 1939 a general agricultural census took place in Estonia «in which census will be taken of agricultural properties, manpower and the state of the branches of production» (Agricultural Census Act — RT 1938, 97, 835).

Two types of forms were completed during the agricultural census: land forms and farmstead forms. A land form was completed for every cadastral land unit, and a farmstead form for every farm (an independent economic unit of at least 1 ha used for agricultural production).

The land form described cadastral land units from a legal perspective, which did not always reflect their actual use, although a cadastral unit often corresponded to a working farm. It recorded the unit’s location (district, commune, village or manor), name and number (for example «Rootsi nr A-19») and real estate number. It also recorded the owner listed in the cadastre and, where different, the actual owner, how the land had been acquired, and the names of people using parts of it. The form also listed the parcels making up the unit, their sizes, and the division into hayfields, pasture and forest land.

The farmstead form recorded the actual use of the land. It listed the farmstead’s name and size, including land owned by the farmer and land used under a lease, service agreement or other arrangement. It then recorded land use (arable land, hayfields, pasture and forest), crops, numbers of fruit trees and berry bushes, fertiliser use, livestock, agricultural machinery and equipment, buildings and forests. The final section recorded the farmer’s family members living on and off the farm and resident farmhands; children under 8 were recorded as a total number. It also covered the farmer’s education, how they had gained agricultural experience and how long they had worked on a farm, sales of farm products, animal slaughter, grain reserves, and day or piece workers not counted earlier.

Information about farms smaller than 1 ha, for which no farmstead form was completed, was collected on smallholding forms. These recorded the smallholder’s name, numbers of fruit trees and berry bushes, the area used for gardening and the number of animals. They also asked about the smallholder’s main source of income, as the land was too small to provide a living. Towns also had many smallholdings, because houses with gardens were classified as such. A smaller number of separate forms covered agricultural machinery and fishing.

Forms from the 1939 agricultural census survive for most Estonian land units. Estonia was divided into census districts, usually three or four per municipality. Municipalities compiled lists of land units by census district and, within each district, often by village or manor. These lists recorded each unit’s size and whether it was used as several farms, including the number of farmstead forms completed. To find the correct census form, you need to know the land unit’s name and, preferably, its size and location.

The census lists of the 1939 agricultural census are preserved in the National Archives in Tallinn in the fonds of State Statistics Central Office (Riigi Statistika Keskbüroo, ERA 1831).

Databases

• AIS — Archival Information System
• Land registers
• Register of Maps in the National Archives of Estonia
• Building designs in Tartu
• Register of buildings insured by the Estonian Mutual Fire-Insurance Company

Links

• State Register of Construction Works
• Web Map Server of the Estonian Land Board
• Schematic cadastral maps from 1930–1944 in the University of Tartu Department of Geography