SCC Assessor's Photos
These photos were taken mostly in the 1950's-early 1970's and were
originally attached to the Property Assessment Form created by the Santa Clara
County Assessor's Office. Before Prop 13, these forms were used to
determine a property's assessed value.
Most photos, taken from the street, show the front of the property. Some
properties have additional photos of other buildings or structures. The
photos are only of single family homes or duplexes. No commercial housing
(apartments, condos, commercial buildings, etc) are included.
This collection currently contains about 10,000 photos. Unfortunately, this
is only a (small) percentage of homes that existed in 1970.
To determine if there is a chance that your property is included in the collection,
find your Assessor Property Number (APN), using the using the "Simple Address Search" at the
Santa Clara County Assessor's office.
Begin to enter your property address in the search box, and then select the correct
address that is provided. Agree to the terms of the site and press search. The
APN is returned in the format xxx-xx-xxx, which represents the book-page-parcel
identifier of your property. Write down this number.
Return to the Assessor Photo Index . Using the first two numbers in the APN
(book-page) check in the index to see if any photos exist in the collection
for this book and page. If the book-page is not listed, there are no photos.
Other entries may be:
- One – one photo only from the book-page
- Small – 2-10 photos from the book-page
- Medium – 10-25 photos from the book-page
- Large – more than 25 photos from the book-page
There are a small number of San Jose photos filed by street name. Check the end of
this listing for these.
If there’s a possibility of a photo, you can make an appointment to visit the Santa
Clara County Archives and look through the photos.
If you are unable to get to the Archives, for a small fee, you can
request researchers from the Santa Clara County Historical and Genealogical Society>
look for you.
Index last updated:
Index to the Santa Clara County Assessor's Photos
