CITY DIRECTORIES: WINDOWS ON THE PAST

by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.

Such ordinary things as city directories, a list of residents for a particular locality and year, can unearth valuable information about our ancestors.

By 1860 there were more than 70 regularly published city directories in the U.S. Others were published at irregular intervals.

While city directories are used frequently by genealogists for locating people in a particular place and time, they may, in some instances, provide additional information such as occupation, names of adult children still living at home and whether a woman was a widow or head of household. Street directories, often part of city directories, can be used to help determine the ward or census enumeration district where an ancestor resided.

This information is particularly valuable when tracing urban ancestors in the various unindexed federal and state censuses. City directories often contain what is called a "reverse'' street directory, which lists streets alphabetically with the names of people residing at each address. These can be used to identify other members of the family at the same address who had different surnames.

As American cities grew, the directories became more detailed, often containing special sections pertaining to businesses, churches and organizations.

Addresses of churches can be useful for narrowing the search for those located near to where your family resided. In large cities it can be a time-consuming task to ascertain which churches were in existence at particular times -- city directories can be useful for this type of research. If you learn the name of the minister who performed the marriage of your ancestors, a city directory listing for him might provide you with the name of the church of which he was a pastor.

City directories often indicate whether one was an owner, renter, or boarder. If a person was listed as an owner, then there should be a record of when the property was purchased and/or sold. Another use is for determining when an immigrant ancestor first appears. Armed with that data, one can search for naturalization records more easily.

Directories also can be useful in identifying and sorting out persons of the same name -- by address, ward, occupation and wife's name.

Not everyone was included in these old directories. Ancestors might not have been at home when the data was compiled or refused to answer the canvasser's questions. Moreover, in some cases, working class families are excluded, as are entire ethnic neighborhoods. Many directories are not alphabetized accurately, and there can be typographical errors and variant spellings of surnames.

City directories are widely available in libraries. While most public libraries, historical societies and state archives have rather extensive collections of their own in-state directories, some have directories of other major cities. Repositories with large collections of city directories include:

-- Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

-- American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.

-- DAR Library, Washington, D.C.

-- Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah

-- New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston

-- Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Ind.

-- Newberry Library, Chicago

-- New York Public Library, New York City

Many older city directories are available in microform and can be accessed through the Family History Library and its local branches throughout the country.

(c) 1998, Los Angeles Times Syndicate