dons-directories

USING CITY AND OTHER DIRECTORIES IN FAMILY HISTORY

©Copyright 2008 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Notes

Welcome and Introduction to Class
Some Types of Directories
Finding and Using Directories in Family History
Telephone and Online People Directories
City Directories
Trade, Guild, and Occupation Directories, and Electoral Registers
Conclusion

This page was last updated 2008-03-26.
Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley PAF Users Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS

Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre (snowd@math.byu.edu , dms34@juno.com)
These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley PAF Users Group website http://uvpafug.org under Class Outlines , Don's Listings , and are linked on the Hyde Park Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events. Many other class notes for family history are linked on both sites also.
This class will discuss various kinds of directories and how to use them in family history.
Directories are just lists of people, businesses, etc., and are usually alphabetical or chronological, but not always.

SOME TYPES OF DIRECTORIES

Telephone directories
City directories
Online people directories
Trades, guild, and occupation directories
Church directories
Electoral registers

FINDING AND USING DIRECTORIES IN FAMILY HISTORY

To find all directories that the Hyde Park Family History Centre has click here ("directory") and then here ("directories").
Historical Directories -- http://www.historicaldirectories.org/ -- This is a major free site with old UK directories online.
Directories in England -- https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/England_Directories on http://wiki.familysearch.org
Using a Directory for Research -- http://www.british-genealogy.com/resources/books/directories/index.html
Search for information about directories on www.familysearch.org -- Click here
Company and Telephone Directories -- http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm -- expecially note all the links for websites in the UK
UK Genealogy Archives, Directories on CD's -- http://www.ukgenealogyarchives.com/products/kelly.html
Chapter 9 (pages 159-169) of Ancestral Trails, 2nd Ed, by Mark Herber, 2004 -- http://books.google.com/books?id=4LbuMlWZcWIC&printsec=frontcover#PPA159,M1
Ancestry's Learning Center articles on directories -- http://library.ancestryinstitution.com/search.aspx?srch=directories&ti=5561&submit=Search
Using Directories in the Classroom -- http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Using+directories+in+the+classroom?opendocument

TELEPHONE AND ONLINE PEOPLE DIRECTORIES

Telephone directories in hard copy -- check telephone offices, public libraries, and university libraries
Examples of people search engines for the UK and US

BT Directory Enquiries -- http://www.118500.com/
192.com searches -- http://www.192.com/
Winzy People Search UK -- http://www.winzy.com/word/People%20Search%20UK
Veromi -- http://veromi.com/
Zoom Info -- http://www.zoominfo.com/Default.aspx?
Wink People Search -- http://wink.com/
PeekYou -- http://www.peekyou.com/
Pipl.com -- http://pipl.com/
ZabaSearch -- http://www.zabasearch.com/
Infospace.com -- http://infospace.com/
Switchboard.com -- http://switchboard.com/
Zillow.com -- http://www.zillow.com/ -- U.S. - shows aerial views and gives addresses
411locate.com -- http://411locate.com/ -- U.S. - includes reverse phone number lookups

Interesting information about telephone numbers and their history on Google search

CITY DIRECTORIES -- Primarily for Larger Cities

For information about directories by country and state -- click here -- in FamilySearch Research Helps
Some major publishers of directories -- see history in http://www.british-genealogy.com/resources/books/directories/index.html

Kelly's Directories (UK) -- history of Kelly's Directory in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly's_Directory
Pigot's Directories (UK) -- national and county directories of people and businesses
White's Directories (UK) -- national and country directories of people and businesses
Polk's Directories (US) -- see history in http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-18835_18895_20699-117864--,00.html

Other examples

German City Directories on Ancestry.com -- see Ancestry Magazine, Feb 2008 issue
Cork (Ireland) General Directory -- on CD at Hyde Park Family History Centre
Pigot's 1840 Kent -- http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~shebra/pigots_1840_kent.htm
Many links to city directories -- http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mtoll/unking.htm
Eastern and Central European directories, emphasis on Jewish people -- http://www.dbhd.org/search.php

Growth of some U.S. cities over time -- http://hindsight.trulia.com/

TRADE, GUILD, AND CHURCH DIRECTORIES, AND ELECTORAL REGISTERS

See the Historical Directories site for many trade directories -- http://www.historicaldirectories.org/
Article - Using Trade Directories in Your Research -- http://www.genealogyreviews.co.uk/tippey_directories.htm
Crockford's Clerical Directory of Anglican Clergy -- http://www.crockford.org.uk/index.asp
Clergy of the Church of England Database -- http://eagle.cch.kcl.ac.uk:8080/cce/
Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section - Leaflet Guides to Research -- http://www.history.ac.uk/gh/lfguide.htm
Electoral Registers produced almost annually in the UK since 1832 -- http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc/pdfs/electoral_registers.pdf
For current one see -- http://www.192.com/search/people.cfm

CONCLUSION

Directories are useful in genealogy since they are lists of particular groups of people or businesses and are usually easy to search.
Search engines such as Google can be used to find directories of many different types.

Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley PAF Users Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .