Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Tuesday's Tip - City Directories on Fold3.com

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This week's Tuesday's Tip is to:  Search and browse the "large city" City Directories on the Fold3 subscription site (www.fold3.com). 

In my opinion, City Directories are one of the least used resources in genealogical research.  Names, relatives, neighbors, addresses, occupations, and places of business can be determined by tracing a person year by year in City Directories. 

One of the largest collections of City Directories is on the Fold3.com subscription website (formerly Footnote.com).  The key feature of this collection is that there are long year to year runs of the directories, often from the first year up to about 1923, when copyright protection kicks in.

Fold3.com currently offers these City Directory collections (not every year, but most years):

*  California: Los Angeles (1873-1924)
*  California: San Francisco (1861-1923)
*  Colorado:  Denver (1862-1923)
*  District of Columbia: Washington (1822-1923)
*  Illinois: Chicago (1843-1923)

*  Indiana: Fort Wayne (1861-1923)
*  Indiana: Indianapolis (1857-1923)
*  Iowa: Des Moines (1866-1913)
*  Kentucky: Louisville (1861-1923)
*  Louisiana: New Orleans (1861-1923)

*  Maryland: Baltimore (1863-1923)
*  Massachusetts: Boston (1789-1926)
*  Michigan: Detroit (1861-1923)
*  Minnesota: Minneapolis (1865-1923)
*  Minnesota: St. Paul (1863-1924)

*  Missouri: Kansas City (1865-1923)
*  Missouri: St. Louis (1863-1923)
*  New Jersey: Newark (1861-1923)
*  New York: Brooklyn (1862-1913)
*  New York: Buffalo (1828, 1861-1923)

*  New York: New York (1786-1922)
*  New York: Rochester (1861-1889)
*  Ohio: Cincinnati (1861-1923)
*  Ohio: Cleveland (1861-1923)
*  Ohio: Toledo (1864-1923)

*  Pennsylvania: Philadelphia (1785-1922)
*  Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh (1861-1923)
*  Rhode Island: Providence (1861-1924)
*  Texas: Dallas (1878-1923)
*  Wisconsin: Milwaukee (1861-1891)

*  Miscellaneous City Directories - There are also a few miscellaneous years for some New England towns

You can see which cities have published, microfilmed and online City Directories at http://www.uscitydirectories.com/

Miriam Robbins has listed many Online Historical Directories at http://sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite/.

1 comment:

Miriam Robbins said...

Catching up on my blog reading. Thanks for the shout out, Randy!