I'm trying to track down a family that owned a historic house in my
community in 1995. They stayed only about a year. I've had no luck
finding them on-line and the folks who bought the house from them are
gone, too (dead or disenfranchised i.e. not likely to care about my
research). A member at the local historical society suggested asking
the post office for a record of a forwarding address.

I tried that recently, hoping to discover periods when the house stood
empty. As best I can recall, I was told that, in the past, only the
letter carrier had forwarding info for homes in his or her route. Post
offices seldom hang onto such info for long.

True?

I was also told that, more recently, forwarding is centralized. Info is
sent to a large regional facility and NOT kept at local post offices.

True? Starting when?

Thanks if you can help.

RW