Are you new to finding ancestors in city directories? Here’s a quick list:
- Do you know what’s available in a city directory?
- Do you know how to find the information you’re looking for?
- Do you know the 4 ways of navigating Henderson’s Directory?
- Do you know what to do with your finds once you find them?
In this post, I share what I know about city directories. I’ve developed this technique for handling any city directory, but I use Henderson’s Directory in this video. Specifically, I look at a family in Edmonton in 1908, 1909, and 1910, and I take you through it step by step from the first page through to the analysis.
In finding our family, we learn:
- Who they are
- Where they live
- What they do for work
- Who else is living nearby
- Who works for them
- Who their coworkers are
- What happens to them over time
If you’re new to city directories and you wonder what else you might be able to find, this is for you. Length: 49 minutes.
The above is a YouTube video link. If you’d rather see it full screen and in HD, the link is here.
Postscript
I was inspired to do this video after participating in a few Facebook discussions recently. It’s taken me a couple of years to develop these ideas, but by no means do I think I know everything there is to know about city directories!
As well, I’ve been playing with city directories from Regina, Moose Jaw, Winnipeg and so on, and I have been having some trouble with the Pagebook viewer being unable to run on my browsers, so have had to resort to using the page indices in the beginning, plus the good old paging through things one page at a time.
If you’ve got a great tip, please share it with us in the comments below.
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