First thing's first, what's provenance? In an archival sense, provenance describes who created and/or owned a collection. Oftentimes archival collections will consist of a person's name followed by a word like "Papers" or "Collection." For example, the Alexander Hamilton Papers would typically refer to a collection of papers created or used by Alexander Hamilton. What binds this collection together is not the subject, but the collection's provenance (i.e., who created the collection).
When you search for a book or article, one often performs a subject search. "I want resources on the Spokane Tribe of Indians," for example. When searching for documents in archival collections, it's often more effective to think in terms of provenance. Questions like:
reflect a strategy where one is thinking about WHO would have created relevant information instead of thinking about what a collection is about. The direct reason is because, as mentioned earlier, archival collections are defined more by who created them than what they are about. The secondary reason is because a single collection (a single document, even) can be useful in researching a multitude of different topics. For instance, a collection of records on the Great Northern Railway contain information on the development of towns along its many routes, homesteading, labor relations, Asian Americans who worked on its lines, as well as the company itself. It is often difficult to predict the varied uses a collection may support particularly as different topics and methods come in and out of vogue.
If you are performing research on a building, you will want to think about what kinds of records would have been created about it. For most buildings that currently exist in the United States, the land upon which it sits would have been surveyed and platted. These records would have been and still are used by planning offices. Because of the enduring value of these records, they are likely on file in a government archives at a municipal, county, or state-level. Depending upon when a structure was built, there would have been a permitting process that would have required schematics to ensure that the structure was up-to-code. Since knowing the structure of a building is important for any improvements made to it, it is very possible that drawings may also be one file. Assuming the property is taxed, than an assessment file would also exist detailing facts like ownership and improvements, in addition to the assessed value of the property. Knowing that such records would have existed, can be very helpful in beginning your search process.
Another step in the process is figuring what institution might hold relevant records. See the page titled Types of Archival Institutions for more information about that.
The following is a list of online databases that provide access to archival finding aids. For other lists of resources, guides from Cornell University and University of Michigan may be particularly helpful.
ArchivesGrid is an attempt to provide a single database to help access collections at most college and university archives and other special collections with a particular strength in Canada and North America. While this resource can be very helpful, it may be superseded by the North American Finding Aids Network (NAFAN) in the next few years.
National Archives catalog (United States)
The National Archives catalog provides access to collection descriptions and digital objects from the United States National Archives. Descriptions are provided at different levels as indicated by the left-hand navigation menu. Due to the immense amount of records managed by the National Archives, many records may only be described at the series level.
Archives West provides access to finding aids describing collections in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Most of the collections included are from manuscript collections at college and universities, libraries, and historical societies.
Online Archive of California (OAC)
The OAC provides access to finding aids from several archives in California. The OAC also provides access to digital collections, including a large collection of digital objects about the World War II detainment of Japanese Americans.
Historical records produced by governmental bodies and agencies in Washington state are held by the Washington State Archives. descriptions of those collections may be found through their catalog. Digital records may be found through the Washington State Digital Archive.