City Directories: Tracking Your Ancestors Year by Year

The phone books of the past list adults with addresses and jobs every year, filling the ten-year gaps between censuses.

2 min read

A census shows where your ancestor lived once every ten years. A city directory can show it every single year. Directories were published for most American cities and many large towns from the early 1800s onward, and they're one of the most underused tools for urban research.

What a directory lists

A typical entry gives a name, occupation, workplace and home address, in a compact, abbreviated style:

Miller John, carp, h 412 Elm

That means John Miller, a carpenter, has a house at 412 Elm Street. Common abbreviations include:

• h: house (owns or rents a whole house; usually the household head)
• r: residence or rooms
• bds: boards (lives in someone else's household, often a young adult or a single man)
• wid: widow, usually followed by the late husband's name
• col'd or (c): older directories often marked people of color this way

Each directory has a list of abbreviations near the front. Check it, because they vary.

The clues hiding in directories

• "Wid John": when Mary Miller first appears as "wid John," her husband likely died in the year before. That narrows the search for a death record and obituary to a single year.
• "Removed to...": some directories noted when people moved away, with the new city.
• Young adults appearing: when a son first shows up as "bds 412 Elm," he has started working, and you know he's about 16 to 21.
• Disappearance: when someone vanishes from the directory, they either moved or died.
• Occupations and employers: these can lead to union, business or company records.
• Same-name sorting: two John Millers become easy to tell apart when one is always a carpenter on Elm and the other a clerk on Main.

Reverse directories

Many 20th-century directories added a street section, or "criss-cross" listing, sorted by address. Look up your ancestor's house to see who lived next door, upstairs, or in the same building. That's a quick way to spot relatives living nearby and to build the cluster described in The FAN Club.

Where to find directories

• Ancestry has the largest digitized collection of U.S. city directories.
• Internet Archive and HathiTrust have many free directories, especially before the 1920s.
• Local libraries and historical societies often hold complete runs for their town, on shelves or microfilm.
• Fold3 and state digital libraries have additional collections.

Limits to keep in mind

Directories usually list only adults, often only men and working women, and they skip some people entirely, especially the very poor and recent arrivals. Information was gathered months before publication, so a directory dated 1905 may reflect where someone lived in 1904. Use directories alongside the census, not instead of it.