today on the ancestral findings podcast are you looking for a way to learn more about your 1890s
era ancestors and are frustrated by the absence of the 1890 u.s federal census there are a lot of
good substitutes for this information out there and city and town directories are one of them
this is what they are and how they can help you fill in the 1880 to 1900 gaps on your family tree
without the 1890 u.s federal census how are you going to learn who your ancestors were and what
they were doing in 1890 in fact how are you going to track your family through their adventures
from 1880 to the next census in 1900 20 years is a heck of a long gap in the historical record
without access to the 1890 u.s federal census a lot of important information in your family tree
is going to be missing the good news is that there are reliable substitutes that you can use to fill
in those gaps city and town directories are one of them this is what you need to know about them
before there was the telephone and the accompanying phone book there were city
and town directories these were essentially like the phone book but without phone numbers
these directories were popular in the mid-1800s to early 1900s most cities and towns of at least
a medium-sized population had them occasionally you will find them printed for smaller towns and
villages too you would be amazed at the amount of information you can find in these directories
when you think of the phone book you probably just think of someone's name and phone number
before the early 2000s the phone book probably included someone's address too
you actually had to pay to not be included in it because inclusion was otherwise automatic
so what useful genealogical information could be found in this type of directory
the older pre-phone directories included a lot of things
information included varied by location but it was not uncommon to include the individual names
of people in a household as well as their ages and addresses occupations were usually listed too just
right there you have the basic information people look for in the census record even better city and
town directories were usually published every year so you can trace the evolution of a family
in much finer detail than in a census if your family disappears from a directory one year
when they were in the previous one meaning everyone in the household disappears you can
usually safely assume they moved and began looking for them elsewhere in addition to having personal
information listed in the directories there was also business information some directories were
all business some were personal and business and some were just personal even in the ones that
were strictly for personal information there were usually paid advertisements from local merchants
you can often find your ancestors business in the paid advertisements if the directory has business
listings you can find the name of their business the type of business that is conducted there and
its location you can find city and town directories at local archives
historical societies and museums with genealogy departments some genealogical libraries have them
and of course you can find them online at genealogy websites like ancestry.com and others
thanks for joining us today and subscribing to the ancestral findings podcast
check out ancestralfindings.com for additional free genealogy resources and
weekly giveaways ok happy searching you