Finding a house number location?

Excuse my possibly off-topic post, but I'm hoping there might be a
genealogical connection.

Sites like web-search maps, streetmap.co.uk and MultiMap can cleverly find
me a road or street. But anyone know of a resource that will find a
particular house number please? Or at least, its approximate location

myths...

Some A-Zs have occasional numbers.

in a long road?

Kerry Raymond...

My MetroGuide Australia (a mapset for use with MapSource, the Garman mapping
software) certainly knows about house numbers, so I would assume similar
products for the UK would too. I can hover my mouse over the map in urban
areas and the little popup shows the house number and street name. As I run
my mouse along the street, the numbers change.

It's pretty much a case of how much data is in the electronic map. If they
just store the data for the street itself, you can only get the street. If
they store data for each house in the street, then you can get that
information, but that's a lot more information to collect and store, so you
would expect to pay more. Of course now, web-search Earth/Maps give us a lot
(but not everything) for free.

Terry Pinnell...

I'm still looking for an *online* method of actually pin-pointing a
house precisely, in the same way as Kerry's MetroGuide does. As too,
of course, do the GPS-based systems that impressed me whenever I've
taken a taxi recently here in UK. I've posted in other groups/forms,
but so far I haven't found one. I want to give a family member an
aerial photo, zoomed as close as possible, so accuracy is important.

If anyone has such a database covering Birmingham, UK, and wouldn't
mind looking up the address for me, I'd greatly appreciate an email
please.

Mike Williams...

In the UK, you can get a reasonable approximation by first using a
postcode finder.

There are several free ones around, but they tend to only allow a few
accesses per day, e.g. this one by the Post Office allows 20 lookups per
day
but instead of just listing the house number I asked for it produces a
huge list of postcodes for every property in the street, broken into
several pages.

This one is faster and produced just the single result I was looking
for, but only allows 5 lookups per day:

If you've got large numbers of addresses to postcode, then you might
have to pay for the processing.

Put the resulting UK postcode into any of those mapping applications and
you'll get a location that covers about 20 or 30 houses.

Laurence E Stephenson...

If you put the complete address into web-search maps it will show address
fairly acurately, It does here in Australia

Terry Pinnell...

Thanks all, appreciate the help.

That post code finder is new to me - looks very handy. Found the
couple for which I had no code and web-search Earth then gave me what
looks like a reasonably accurate location.

Also I learned elsewhere that Multimap also has a facility I'd not
known of. It lets you type the number, road and town (no post code
needed) and it gives what seems an accurate location.

BTW, is there some *maximum* number of houses within a specific code?
Or maybe a max distance from the point shown?

john...

"A small user Postcode identifies a group of delivery points. On average
there are 15 delivery points perPostcode, however this can vary between
1 and 100."
A postcode is not necessarily confined to a single street.

Most of the online maps, e.g. web-search, local.live.com, Multimap already
have house number locations in the database - just try putting in
several different address numbers on the same street.

Terry Pinnell...

Thanks to all for the follow-ups.

In the absence of a commercial package (like a recent Autoroute, or
MetroGuide, etc), I reckon Multimap is probably the most useful online
tool. It's not perfect though. I'm at 29A, which it locates
incorrectly about 100 yards away, while pin-pointing my neighbours at
29 and 31.

Another site that was new to me, recommended elsewhere, is
not yet sure as to its accuracy. Like its conventional paper A-Z
equivalent, it faces the challenge of recording potentially ambiguous
information, particularly for longish streets with many junctions.

myths...

Anecdotal:
Looking up addresses from postcodes through the Royal Mail site (as
secretary of an old pupils' society trying to sort out mis-transcribed
addresses), my impression is that it's a combination, designed to be
for an average amount of mail.

FWIW, when engrossed a year or so ago in some initial family history
research, I recall that certain census documents contained something
of that sort...?

myths...

Don't trust census numbering, the street may have been renumbered
since 1901, let alone earlier.

John...

I strongly recommend verifying not only street numbers but also street
names The street number of the house my maternal grandparents owned
stayed the same for over 50 years - but the street name changed
sometime around/after 1950.

John

I tend to use web-search to find an address in the street for some
business, doctor's practice etc, and then for that postcode on
Multimap etc. Doesn't always produce information, but occasionally
it's great.