When you are reading the history of a place, always be on the lookout for names of people and jot them down with a date and place if possible.
Here in an 1881 City Directory there is a section that has the history of the area and it contains some names. (Link to the 1881 city dir. can be found at end of this post)
The names shown in the history are: Lieut. Nathan Clark, daughter is Mrs. C. O. Van Cleve who is an infant in August of 1819. Also named in the history is wife of Capt. George Gooding, Maj. Russell, Hon. Robert Smith and a company name: Sidle, Fletcher, Holmes and Company flour mill and paper mill.
These names can be added to a family history if your relatives lived in the area at the same time as these people. There might be an occasion where these people interacted with your relatives and there is a record of the encounter such as; sale of land, attended funerals together, were part of a wedding party, are named in the newspaper as part of a committee, church gathering or city function.
Names of people, who lived in the area at the same time as your relatives may give you confirmation of a date or location, so don’t overlook them.
Thank You
Links:
Minneapolis City Directory on line: http://box2.nmtvault.com/Hennepin2/
http://box2.nmtvault.com/Hennepin2/jsp/RcWebBrowse.jsp
1881 Minneapolis City Directory: [See blog – https://newspaperproject2012.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/names-in-history-minneapolis-city-directory-part-ii/]
Message Board posting:
http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.minnesota.counties.hennepin/5562/mb.ashx
How I got this City Directory Information Dec 2016:
Debbie sent this link to Joette who sent it to me.
Digitized Minneapolis City Directories 1859-1917 Online
The Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis has digitized the Minneapolis City Directories from 1859 to 1917, using a grant from the former Professional Librarians Union of Minneapolis (PLUM) and the Minnesota Legacy Amendment program. City directories allow users to find former city residents, their occupations and local businesses. The city directories are available at http://box2.nmtvault.com/Hennepin2/.
Images are available of each year’s directory. The text has apparently also been converted
by an OCR (optical character recognition) process. You can search for any words in the directories by clicking on SIMPLE SEARCH. Details about the optimum method of using the search software may be found at http://box2.nmtvault.com/Hennepin2/help/ResCartaWeb.htm.
Genealogical Collection 
Leave a Reply