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When you find your ancestor's name in a City Directory make sure you capture all the people with the last name and not just your relative. For instance the family name: "DeCloedt" on this 1938, City Directory, from Mishawaka, Indiana. As you can see above there are many people with the same last name "DeCloedt"... Continue Reading →
Don't you just hate it when your ancestor comes to the USA in 1860 at age 32 and the only records you can find are the Federal census for 1870, 1880 and 1900 census. We can also find a death index; an INDEX that gives so little information for his death that it is almost... Continue Reading →
When you are working with a City Directory collection, make sure you have the correct dates on both the photo copy collection and the actual city directory being photo copied. I was working with a New Jersey city directory in Ancestry dot com and found that the title of the collection did not match the... Continue Reading →
At a talk I was giving, on the use of City Directories in genealogy, I was asked the following question. “Why did they have City Directories and who published them?” My response was “City Directories were published by some wealthy company as an advertisement tool. Businesses would pay to have their name included in the... Continue Reading →
In the 1881 City Directory they have a section that lists the people who were in the 1859 City Directory and are still in the area and in the 1881 City Directory. 1881 Minneapolis City Directory: the link will take you to the book and you can find this page if you scroll down to... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
At our October meeting of Clarkston Area Genealogy Society we discussed HeritageQuest and City Directories. Here are some tutorials on the two topics. Notice the dates of the tutorials and you can see that some are old and therefore talk about an old system, while other dates are more recent and talk about the new... Continue Reading →
Helen Louise Blue Bowen - FB query - Aug 2016 - Indiana In my last posting “Process I” I told you I would give you the full detailed step by step process I used to find the death date for Helen Louise Blue Bowen. What follows is a complete step by step process with details... Continue Reading →
Can a City Directory entry confirm a death date? Let’s take a look at one case where the death date was attributed to the father instead of the son and there was no way of confirming the information. Paul J. and Catherine Hungerford had a son in 1846 who they named Paul J. Hungerford. Now... Continue Reading →
Have you ever wondered how to create a tree or branch from just a few clues? Here are the steps I took to complete a branch for Helen Campbell Gillette. (Links to items are at the bottom of this posting) I found an obituary for Helen Campbell Gillette. I started a tree for her. I... Continue Reading →
Placement of the Ad is just as important as the words and picture of the Ad. You would think that the editors of the 1882 Grand Rapids, Michigan City Directory would have caught this. Thank You. Jose from Clarkston, Michigan
In previous blogs I’ve written about the good resources one can find in a City Directory and I found an excellent example in the 1953 Detroit City Directory. While creating the family tree for Gordon F Laramie, I got a City Directory hint for Morris G Laramie. The hint gives me... Continue Reading →
City Directory 1920 Detroit, Michigan The art of engraving 1920's I was working on the "D. R. Lewis wed Ida Mae Jordan 1902, Baltimore Family Tree" when I was asked by one of the owners to help her with information about her great-grandmother. I created a tree for her family; "Oscar William Parrish - Bev... Continue Reading →
When you find a relative in a City Directory don’t just take the one entry, look through the whole City Directory and find other entries for the family and maybe find information about where they lived. Here is an example of what you can find in a City Directory if you take the time to... Continue Reading →
Genealogical Collection 