Reconstructing History

Lon Jackson said:
What sources have people identified to trace ownership and location of a particular car/pickup back through its history?
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You will find this nearly impossible to do. Most states don't keep records very long - certainly not 80 +/- years.
Unless there is a documented history that came with the vehicle, your search will most likely (99.9999999%) futile.
 
I have two old fords ,both from NZ,these have ownership papers from new, so I can see owned them from when and where.
Lawrie
 
in minnesota, if a vehicle has not been licensed in 7 years it gets dumped out of the system. so even if you own it, you must have some papers on it or you dont show up in the computer. i would assume most states are similar
 
The initial question suggests that perhaps each state with a title system and those states with a registration system felt the need to incur the expense to transfer mile-high mountains of old hard copies on to a modern search-friendly document retrieval system. Of the 48 states in existence at the time, the odds of even one of them having done so are even longer than Michael suggests.
 
cas3 said:
in minnesota, if a vehicle has not been licensed in 7 years it gets dumped out of the system. so even if you own it, you must have some papers on it or you dont show up in the computer. i would assume most states are similar
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With this "new" computer system here and how that has turned out. Even if you are licensed it might not show up... :)
 
Also part of the problem is the new privacy laws.

PS: When I bought my truck in 1999 I was told by the state of MN that they dump past history after 10 years of not being currently licensed but retained the current owners title. I had no transfer problem with the old, small title card I received from the seller.
 
I traced a Model A I once owned back to the current owner by contacting local car clubs in the area where I sold it. The car had been sold again but I found the person I sold it to who in turn put me in contact with the current owner. I had hoped the car was still as I had sold it but over the years as would be expected, it had been restored and at that point held no sentimental value to me so I passed on it even though it was for sale. There is a chance you can tract a car down but it may take some work.
 
The issue of previous owners is further clouded by privacy laws, most states are reluctant to give out previous owners information. The previous owner of my car fortunately had the history back to the original owner and that information came with the car.
 
Privacy laws are probably the biggest obstacle to tracing ownership. Unfortunately people may want information on vehicles for nefarious reasons. Sadly crime is a fact of life and keeping criminals from getting certain information is one way to protect people.
 
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