With new family researchers, I usually get a blank stare when I ask if they've utilized a city directory to chronicle the family residences over time. I must then explain that city directories are like telephone books—but before telephones were invented. And in a way, genealogists can treat them like we do phone books. They're taken for granted, mundane, but infinitely useful. We may still remember the thrill of seeing our own names printed there for the first time. Isn't it still a thrill to see an ancestor's name in print in a contemporary source?

City directories have been in use for over two hundred years. At first they only contained the listings of the prominent members of the city, followed by the services most needed by the citizenry: the barber, the cobbler, the attorney . . . As time went on they attempted to become a compendium of every person living there. Advertisements helped pay for the printing and today we view these ads with a smile as they reflect the quaintness and charm of simpler days when we read an ad for bowler hats or prams or saddles.

The obvious usefulness of a city directory is that it is an alphabetical listing of names of people residing in a given location that can help you determine where your ancestors lived at a particular time. It will very often contain that person's occupation, as well as both business and home addresses. Women are sometimes listed as "widow of . . .", thereby supplying you with a time frame as to when a male member of the family had died. An occupation may assist you in determining which of the 17 John Kellys is your great-grandfather, or maybe which one certainly wasn't (i.e., he wasn't an undertaker or lingerie dealer).

When I assist people on how to get started in genealogy, I advise them to compile a dossier on every family member with all the pertinent documentation. It is always advisable to perform a directory search, year by year, as it will almost always come in handy at some point in time. It may also turn up some surprises. At the very least, it will serve as further confirmation of other records you seek to compile.

It is also advisable to complement the search of directories with a contemporary map if you are not familiar with the town in question. A modern map can help, but many street names change over time and large-scale developments can obliterate the details of large older sections of the town. The local history desk of the municipal library or historical association can be very, very helpful in this regard and often turns out to be a real treasure.

There is a considerable gap in the public record as a result of the disastrous loss of most of the 1890 Federal Census. Many Americans do not have roots that extend back to the point that they can utilize the 1880 Census and the 1900 Census is just that many years too late to be useful. Here in New York, the New York Police Department conducted its own census in 1890 of the city's residents—by address. By being able to ascertain the correct address of the family you are searching, only then are you able to utilize this resource for information which may shed some additional light on your family's history. Since many immigrant families spent a period of time in New York city before moving on, an address can be invaluable.

In those dreaded cases where there is no index to a particular locale for an important census year, an address found in a city directory will help you immeasurably. One can either translate the address into the appropriate enumeration district (ED) by means of a guide or map, or perform the tedious task of searching the census page by page by address. Boring, yes, but it may very well be the only way to obtain that piece of the family record. Again, when used in conjunction with contemporary maps, it is sometimes possible to find the houses of worship for certain religious congregation that your ancestor may have belonged to, and that in turn could lead you to the religious records of births, marriages, and deaths. Very often, the religious record may be all you have to go by, as suspicion of the authorities by many newly-arrived immigrants kept large numbers of events unrecorded by the civil authorities.

It needs to be said that city directories are by no means complete. A listing may not appear for several years, then suddenly reappear, and misspellings were common. But for all their failings, city directories are those "old reliables" that are too frequently overlooked.