What is a Directory?
Locating Directories
City Directories
Directories and Census Records
Directories and WWI Draft Registration Districts
Directories and Death and Probate Records
Directories and Churches
Telephone Directories
County and Regional Business Directories
Professional Directories
Organizational Directories
Religious Directories
Post Off and Street Directories
What is a Directory?
A book, website, etc containing one or more alphabetical lists of the inhabitants of a locality with their addresses and possibly other information such as their occupations; Also, a similar compilation dealing with the members of a particular profession, trade, or association.
The ultimate value of a directory is that it is a source or aid to locating a person, company or organization in a given place and time. Directories may at times be referenced as registers, catalogues, annuals, yearbooks, or guides.
Locating Directories
Be aware a directory for which one wishes to locate may not exist. It may never have been published or may not have survived time.
The law that requires copyrighted material be deposited in the Library of Congress dates only from 1870. Some directories were originally published for short-term use and were disposed of when they became obsolete. In addition, libraries may gradually dispose of their directory collections due to lack of space or low demand.
Another major consequence of publication for short-term use is low-quality paper. Individual pages may deteriorate badly. A binding can always be replaced, but when segments of the printed page tear off and are swept up at the end of the day by the library custodian, they are gone forever. Microform reproduction has helped to preserve older directories, but in many cases, image reduction and poor exposure make the microfilm or microfiche copies hard to read.
Gale Research Company, of Detroit, Michigan, publishes the most comprehensive guides to existing directories. These are Directories in Print; City and State Directories in Print; and International Directories in Print. These periodic publications, which succeed the Directory of Directories first published by Information Enterprises in 1980, are available at most public and university libraries. The current editions will, however, cover only those directories in print as of their own respective dates of publication. Their chief value for genealogical research is to provide current addresses and telephone numbers of publishing companies with directory libraries and the names and addresses of organizations for which directories may have been published in the past.
Directories at Cyndis List http://www.cyndislist.com/directories/
Directories in Print https://web.archive.org/web/20150430060217/http://www.gale.cengage.com/DirectoryLibrary/available.htm
List of Some City Directories http://www.uscitydirectories.com/
City Directories
City directories are among the most important sources of information about urban areas and their inhabitants. They provide personal and professional information about a city’s residents as well as information about its business, civic, social, religious, charitable, and literary institutions. The Library of Congress has an unmatched collection of United States city and telephone directories, both current and non-current. They are available in a variety of formats–paper, microfiche, microfilm, and electronic. For more detailed information, consult Telephone and City Directories in the Library of Congress: a Finding Guide. http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/bib_guid/telephon.html
City Directories of the United States, published by Primary Source Microfilm part of Gale Group, is a large self-service collection of city directories on microfilm. More than 1200 cities, towns, and counties are represented; the years of coverage are primarily 1861 through 1960. The directories are arranged by city (not by state) in large cabinets in the Microform Reading Room. Paper copies of the guide to city directories can be found in notebooks in the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room and the Microform Reading Room. Directories for many localities include listings for other nearby communities. When ranges of years are indicated, there may be gaps of as many as five years.
US City Directories on microform http://www.loc.gov/rr/microform/uscity/
Using City Directories article http://www.family-genealogy.com/city_directories.aspx
Using City Directories article http://www.claytonlibraryfriends.org/Content-Public/Page-Edit/Page.asp?iID=125050682
Kathleen Hinckley’s City Directory article http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/skbld965.html
Don’s List of City Directories http://www.donslist.net/PGHLookups/DirM.htm
Jasia at Creative Genes Blog http://creativegene.blogspot.com/search/label/City%20Directories
Family Search Search Catalogue and Books for City Directories
Online Directories Website https://sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite/
Ancestry.com has many city directories. To access them, sign in, click on search, look for and click on Directories. You can browse or search city directories by specifying a state, city, year http://Ancestry.com
Comprehensiveness of Directories
Keep in mind why the directory was compiled. If a resident was not at home when the agent visited or the organization failed to reply to an inquiry the information may be wrong or incomplete or may not appear. Directories were created as an advertising money generator for the compiler. If a person or business was aware a cost might be involved they may hide or choose to not receive the agent.
Names may be misspelled, letters or numbers transposed. Directories usually offered a free listing but charged for bolded entries, multiple entries for business categories, banners, classified and business advertisements, etc
Pay attention to abbreviations: r might mean residence, h home, b boards, cor for corner of (two streets), col for colored, w for widow, and more. Occupations and places of employment may also be abbreviated.
Reverse Directories
Beginning in the late 19th Century, some city directories began including Reverse Directories. Basically, these were lists of addresses and who lived there. Using a reverse directory will reveal the neighbors of residents. They also are good indicators of cross streets which is useful to know when trying to locate a resident on a map. These cross street names may also be useful when street names have changed over the years.
Directories and Census Records
Censuses for most urban areas are divided into enumeration districts. These districts may sometimes be distinguished by knowing the ward of a city which may appear at may appear at the top of the census page. When a ward is known check the city directory to see if contains a description of ward boundaries.
If a street runs through several wards and a street directory is included in a city the street directory may be used to discover the ward and thus the census enumeration district
It is also common for a census to list the street address of a resident. These addresses and street directories may be used to follow a census taker as he proceeds down the block and turns a corner still visiting residences in his enumeration exercises.
Maps
If street or city directories do not provide enough information to locate a proper ward or census enumeration district, maps may well do the trick. There are basically three kinds of census maps: those created with ward or enumeration district boundaries, those without boundaries and those with boundaries added after publication.
Maps created with boundaries are the most useful. Many city directories were published with maps showing ward boundaries that can be used in conjuction with street directories. In other cases ward maps may have been published independently of city directories such as for insurance purposes.
The Library of Congress has an excellent collection of city maps showing ward boundaries. Also enumeration district maps exist for 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920 they are published on National Archives Microfilm T1224.
Military Directories
Don’s List http://www.donslist.net/PGHLookups/DirM.htm
Don’s List http://www.donslist.net/PGHLookups/DirM.htm
Directories and WWI Draft Registration Districts
WWI Draft registrations 1917-1918 encompassed registration by all men born between 1873-1900. It includes his address, full dates of birth, places of birth, marital status, number of dependents, residences and next of kin.
Knowing the address of the registrant and the address of draft boards in the city of residence one may be able to determine which draft board the registrant registered. This was important prior to WWI registrations being digitized and searchable online using name only. However, if there were more than one person of the same name and the researcher does not know enough about their ancestor to be able to distinguish him from another, being able to continue deeper research is imperative and city directories and draft records may help make the distinction.
Directories and Death and Probate Records
Because censuses were taken each ten years it is sometimes difficult to tell when someone died. They are alive in one census but not alive in the next. Searching a city directory in the in-between census years can help find the year of death. When a man died often his widow is listed the following year and he is not. Often a widow is listed as widow of Sam Smith or whomever, probate records or newspapers can be researched for probate cases files or obituaries.
Directories and Churches
When a researcher knows the religion of his ancestor, he can search the city directory for names and locations of churches of that faith. Also, when the address of the ancestor is known the researcher can make an assumption his ancestor attended the church closest to his residence. Sometimes knowing more about the ethnicity of the ancestor and the ethnicities of various churches the names of churches will be found.
If a marriage license or obituary show the name of a preacher, the preacher can be located in the directory and his church name affiliation will often be stated.
Directories of Churches, Institutions, Etc http://www.donslist.net/PGHLookups/DirM.htm
Telephone Directories
Telephone Directories at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory
Telephone Directories in the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/bib_guid/telephon.html
County and Regional Business Directories
Directories of this sort are listings of businesses, often divided by category, and published in for a county or other regional area.
Professional Directories
Many publishers and professional associations in the late 19th Century began publishing directories naming those individuals or business names of those belonging to those organizations. There were associations in the fields of law, medicine, civil and military service and many other types of businesses.
Initially these types of directories was published listing members in states in and counties but generally today they list their members with their resident location but publish everyone in the association in the nation.
Organizational Directories
These directories are similar to association directories. They often list all groups in a state or the nation with their name, address and other information about them. They are directories to aid one in locating a sought after organization or organization member.
Religious Directories
Religious directories often list churches and clergymen for a specific religious group. Knowing the religion of an ancestor who was a minister in a given religion may be found in a directory of the corresponding religion. Upon locating the minister in the directory the researcher will know where in a census to look for that person. Knowing where to look eliminates extraneous searching of incorrect places and people of the same or similar name.
Post Office and Street Directories
When one finds while researching a city with or without a state designation a post office directory can be searched looking for city names.
Likewise street directories list streets in larger cities and tell which cities have streets with the sought after name.