No prior owners. New neighborhood. My address STILL doesn't exist in databases, and I have been here for 1.5 years. Don't even know how to start looking for a non-address, plot-of-land kind of thing.
Good profile there!
If your state records deeds like here in PA, you should be able to trace back the ownership through public records. It takes some time in the county courthouse in what we call the Register of Deeds office. I went through this a couple of years ago when trying to document ownership of a property adjacent to ours. I'll try to remember how it worked. . .
Assuming a similar system as ours, when you bought your property, the previous owner of the property was listed on your deed. In addition to the name of the previous owner, your deed should give the location at which the previous owner's deed was registered. It's listed in terms of book and page number. At the courthouse, you should be able to request microfiche or a deed book corresponding to the identifying numbers. In this way, you can look up your previous owner's deed. On that deed will be the next link back in the chain of ownership - previous owner and book/page number of HIS deed. In this fashion, you can trace back the ownership of the property.
It can get tricky for several reasons. First, property boundaries can change through subdivision, adjacent land acquisition or eminent domain actions. You'll need to read the descriptions carefully. Second, sometimes the old deeds are hard to read because they're handwritten and faded. Third, there can be gaps in the information.
I encountered a gap because a portion of the adjacent property was seized for road widening in 1963. Apparently the state compensated the property owners, knocked down the house, and used most of the land, but never actually changed the title. The land did not show a change of ownership, and yet the county and township records show no owner and no tax liability. The land appears for all practical purposes to have no owner. We were able to piece it together because my husband remembered the name of a childhood playmate who lived there. It can be a puzzle, but also very interesting.
As Naptowne says, go to the courthouse. Go to the County Clerk's office and ask to see the deed records. They'll either be on micofilm or the original books. Find your name entry (grantee) and whom you bought it from (grantor). Then taking the person/developer you bought it from, trace it back to whom he bought it from and so on back in time. Also, go to the plat records (maps of the county) and see what land grant your property came from to help see who the original landowners might have been. Also, check the local library for a county history book which will tell you about the people who once owned the land. Perhaps you'll find that at one time there was a house on your lot or a hanging in that big tree out back.
If it weren't for the 3 year old asking who that was, I'd say you should first look at shadows and passing cars. But that's creepy.