Be Sure To Check City Directories

If you are struggling to locate information on a city-dwelling ancestor, don’t overlook the wonderful resource of city directories.

A city directory can help locate people in place and time; it’s often a true genealogical gold mine in itself and can lead to other records.

A city directory might well furnish these gems of information: given name and surname, date of birth, race or color, occupation, marital status, the names of spouses, children, father and mother, as well as date of death, residence and age.

City directories were a tool created by businessmen to advertise their services and products in a vehicle that would pay for itself. These businessmen wanted residents to pay to be in the city directory and then to buy a copy of the directory.

Over the years, city directories have included such things as lists of returning soldiers, lists of colleges and universities and their graduates, midwives, a map of the businesses and a list of who moved where. Often, a city directory was like an unofficial census, as was the 1840 Cincinnati, Ohio, City Directory, which included all free blacks.

The best reason to use city directories in your search for urban ancestors is to pinpoint where they lived so you can then find them on the federal censuses.

In 1870, for example, there were 150 places in the U.S. with a population of more than 10,000. These cities were divided into wards or subdistricts. New York City, for example, with an 1870 population of nearly a million, had 22 wards. Yankton, Dakota Territory, with a population of 737 that year, had three wards.

Maybe the best use of city directories to locate an address for your ancestor is to save your eyes hours of looking at microfilms.

City directories are very available. Go first to the public library nearest the city you are researching. If you cannot travel there, phone or write the library’s Reference Desk and ask them to please photocopy the city directory’s pages with your surname; enclose $1 and a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Most libraries, historical societies and archives on the state level have a fairly extensive collection of in-state directories. Addresses for these places can be obtained with Elizabeth Petty’s “Genealogists Address Book,” available at your genealogy library or by purchase from Genealogical Publishing Co. at (800) 296-6687.

On the national level, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass., contain major collections of city directories. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has a very nearly complete collection on microfilm which can be accessed via your nearby Family History Center. (Using the FamilySearch computer program, request state-county-town-city directories.)

The following story illustrates why you should use city directories in your research: A man thought his ancestor had lived in Buffalo, Rochester or Detroit, but wasn’t sure which city. He checked the city directories, but since his ancestor had a common name, he just couldn’t be sure of finding the correct person. He had an old, but dated, letter of his ancestor, telling of a Trinity Lutheran Church just down the block. Comparing addresses in the age-appropriate city directories, he found that Buffalo was indeed the town where his ancestor lived.

On your next visit to the public library, have a look at its city directories and then visit your Family History Center and order a film for the one you need. Good luck!

, DataTimes MEMO: Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review