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Here’s 10 tips for researching city directories and street guides, as well as censuses, to absolutely nail it when it comes to finding where your ancestors lived and even find other relatives you never knew you had! It comes down to knowing how to utilize a Federal Census, City Directories, and Street Guides.
INTRODUCTION
The point of this article is to be able to squeeze every bit of BIOGRAPHICAL information you can about an ancestor you are researching by leaving no stone unturned. This method will require a bit of work and understanding the importance of careful, methodical genealogical documentation, but the end results can be very rewarding.
I’ve used these techniques myself to find death dates, biographical information, confirm siblings, and even find new family lines I never knew existed! To make this technique even more valuable, I had NO information on the family I was researching before I started as I never knew about them growing up; I was working completely in the dark on a blank slate.
Now I know it all! I’ve even built an entire family tree just from what I’m going to show you.
The scope and limitation of this technique realistically lies in which CITY/TOWN and in which TIME FRAME you are researching. I researched between 1896 and 1960 in Connecticut, primarily New Haven and surrounding cities which have very well-kept directories. Just apply as many of these tips as you can!
In conjunction with this article you may also want to consult my post on How To Use Ancestry City Directories Like A Pro Genealogist after you read this article. It’s a whopper as well on how to stay organized and mine all the data you can from the genealogical gems you will glean here.
CONTENTS
1. Create A Year-By-Year Timeline
2. Don’t Be Fooled By Alternate Names
3. Street Guides To The Stars
4. O Brother, Where For Art Thou?
5. A Census Isn’t Just About Names
6. Collateral Lines Lead To Finds
7. The Love/Hate Relationship With Forms
8. Map Nerd Alert!
9. Make Sure You “Address” The Problem
10. Boarders And Neighbors
1. Create A Year-By-Year Timeline
If anything, this is the most crucial thing to do. Write a list of every single date you are researching and fill in the address and any other bit of information you can for each year. Note the address at which your ancestor is living as well as the source from which you obtained that information.
I use abbreviations in brackets to note and track the sources; for example, “CD” for City Directory, “PET” for Petition for Naturalization, “DI” or “DEC” for Declaration of Intention, “1920C” for a Census, etc. Examples in the image below!
Without this all of the other techniques will be like leaves blowing around in the wind. This list is your central database where you will corroborate all of the other information you find from the rest of these tips. Make 1 list per person. Don’t get lazy and try and cram more than one person on a list, make multiple individual lists and then compare the results when they overlap.
The other reason you need to write down addresses for each year is that you might find that in a particular year your ancestor may have been listed in one location while another document might have him or her at an altogether different one.
I have encountered this several times, especially during census years. The trick is not to be fooled into dismissing a name as yours just because the addresses don’t match; treat it as “more information is better” because, as I’ve found, it just indicates that they were moving residences during that time. The point is that if you don’t keep a timeline it’s like trying to do math equations in your head without writing down your steps or trying to guess which exit to take in on a freeway system like Dallas-Fort Worth!
2. Don’t Be Fooled By Alternate Names
Oh, boy! Let me tell you about the stresses I’ve had with alternate names and misspelled names! Good gravy, it’s a nightmare any family historian will tell you about. From simple alternations between Howton and Houghton to more complex Lithuanian examples like Mažeika and Meshako you absolutely must be persistent and assiduous in how you research City Directories and Censuses to not let even a single shred of information slip through the cracks.
Every culture and country of origin has its own names and ways to misspell them; notwithstanding is the fact that enumerators and information gatherers were subject to the limitations of their own ears and opinions about others. Foreign sounding names were very frequently butchered! Especially for Eastern Europeans coming in waves during the late 19th century and mid-20th century.
I keep my own files for each family surname for which I find multiple alternate spellings! Here’s an example of one file, just look at the sheer amount of alternate spellings I’ve come across.
One of the keys to know your ancestor might have an alternate spelling on a City Directory or Census is if they appear in successive years but seem to be missing on one or two. This often means their names were written down wrong and then incorrectly listed in a directory on a page far, far away – as in they may not be alphabetized the same! I’ve had this happen to me on several occasions.
Gedrim misspelled *Giedrem and therefore alphabetized incorrectly! Italian names often drop the D’/Di- locative/patronymic prefix, Irish names often dropped the O’- and Mac/Mc- patronymic prefixes over time. Polish and German names were often subject to this phenomenon as well. So instead of being listed under D or O, those names would be alphabetized under a different letter!
This is where alternate names get tough! You have to basically dream up every single alternative you can and search the City Directory page by page if you have to; it has amounted to a TON of work for me and some very sleepless nights. If you’re in this situation however, there’s no way around it. Actually, if you’re lucky, there is one way around it and it’s called Street Guides. City directories and street guides work together!
The thing to do is to note these names on your timeline, and be sure to note them how they are misspelled. It seems counter-intuitive but in case you need to go back and find the record, you need to remember under which name to look.
3. Street Guides To The Stars
Not all City Directories have Street Guides, but if they do they can be absolute family history gold! For New Haven, Connecticut there are street guides for the years 1913 – 1918. The street guides can be found in their respective City Directories, either in the beginning or towards the end of the directory. If you need to find out if your City Directory has a street guide, just find the index page and it will list it.
A STREET GUIDE is basically the entire City Directory (which is listed alphabetically) listed by ADDRESS! It’s a beautiful piece of genealogical intel!
A quick word about the street guides, at least for New Haven, CT. There are 2 types of Street Guides: (1) a quick listing of every street and their intersections which only contain the names of streets; and, (2) a comprehensive listing of every street and the names of every resident on that street. If your City Directory contains the 2nd type, you absolutely must search it out, you could be leaving invaluable information on the table if you don’t.
One of my favorite finds that came from utilizing street guides is how I connected my great-grandfather’s family to my great-grandmother’s family and found undiscovered collateral lines for that side of my genealogy.
My great-grandfather was living at a specific address which was right next door to where my great-grandmother was staying with her cousins after just arriving in 1905. It turns out her uncle owned a saloon next door in which her cousin worked as a bartender. I’m not sure if they met in the saloon but they were certainly living next door!
Once I’ve found an ancestor on a street guide, while I’m looking at it, I always take the time to just sweep up and down the street to see if I can identify any familiar names. Since coming across street guides is so rare, avail yourself of the opportunity to familiarize yourself with how many people are living at a single address, if there were stores next door, the ethnicities of the names on the street, or any other patterns you can observe.
In the next section of “10 Tips For Researching City Directories and Street Guides” we’re going deep into the matrix of information to reveal a few advanced techniques for uncovering hidden information only a trained professional would be able to detect. I’m going to show them to you.
4. O Brother, Where For Art Thou?
For European immigrant families, fitting in was enormously important in the late 19th and early 20th century, so much so that people often altered or ‘Americanized’ their last names just to do so. Having a pronounceable name was social credit that made you more likely to get hired and economics was the name of the game for our immigrant ancestors who sacrificed EVERYTHING for their families.
Trying to find a relative by researching city directories and street guides or a census that altered their name is one of the most time consuming tasks in all of family history research. It’s often daunting but it can be done. One of the ways I’ve successfully accomplished this Herculean feat is to follow a sibling that did NOT change his name but lived in the same vicinity as my ancestor.
For example, my great-grandfather was listed under 8 different names between 1909 and 1920, while at the same time his brother did not change his name! Yes, it’s true!
So, what I did was make a timeline for both brothers (see tip #1) and then compared all of their addresses and plotted those addresses out on a map to reveal that, where I could identify them, they were always living on the same side of town fairly close to one another.
Knowing that fact led me to be able to go back to the city directories and find which name had the best chance of being my great-grandfather’s. Highlighted in yellow below is my great-grandfather’s brother and above him my g-grandfather who shortened his name to *Stanis, he would later change it to “Standish.” My mind also starts wondering who this Joseph fella is living at 242 Wolcott?
Here’s another example of him under a different misspelling. What ended up confirming these misspellings as my relative were the addresses; as you can see this 68 Haven St address is the same as was listed on the 1920 Census, even though his name appears as “Alex Standish” on the Census. He was also listed under that Wolcott address under another, similar name in a different year which is why it is imperative to make a timeline.
The trick with this technique is to know when a person IS or ISN’T related. Sometimes it’s just not possible. For example, this “Joseph Staniszewski” at 242 Wolcott St could very well be related but it’s the only year he appears on a city directory. I would have to hunt this person down to see if I could dig up any immigration records or other documentation on him to either confirm or deny – it would amount to an additional line of research.
More often than not, the city directories will be your best friend in determining if a person is related or just happens to have a similar name. For example, my ancestor used the name *Stanis once or twice, but I can easily confirm that this Antonio and Paul Stanis are not related because in a subsequent city directory Paul returned (REM) to Pennsylvania. As far as I know, our family never settled in Pennsylvania but I am filing it away for future reference just in case.
UPDATE 2021: I believe I found that we did have a relative that moved to PA! From being contacted by DNA matches we were able to surmise that a relationship exists for both an Anthony and a Joseph! How cool is that!
Finally, look deeply for overlapping addresses. They don’t have to be in the same year but if you can spot 2 brothers, or relatives, living at the same address a few years a part that might be a clue that they once lived together.
It may be a bit circumstantial but it does help to tighten the noose or close the corral gates, so to speak, on corroborating information, especially if those addresses are near to each other.
5. A Census Isn’t Just About Names
The name column on a census is the undisputed ‘big man on campus;’ however, there is a whole other team of players that support the big, buff all-star player who constantly gets the limelight. One of those key players, a kicker if you will, is the address column.
I am always in the habit of looking at where an ancestor lived, street wise, when I look at census data. It took me a while to pick up this habit so I’m going to pass this tip on to you. This is especially true if you are looking to find ancestors on city directories!
You absolutely need to see what censuses tells you in relationship to city directories and street guides because of the difference in time intervals in which the two were taken. It’s an additional source of information in a field where information can often be very hard to come by.
In census years you get two address snapshots, one from the census the other from a city directory, this is a good thing and not monotony. Be aware that you may get what seems to be conflicting information from both sources in a census year which is not really conflicting at all. Take a look at the timeline below.
If you find the census year (1920) on there you can see my great-grandfather was listed at 2 separate addresses according to 3 different sources. Holy conundrum, Batman!
Well, it’s actually not that bad is what I’m trying to say. If you look upwards to the years 1918 and 1919 you can see that he was living at 68 Haven Street. If you look at his residence for 1921 it has him at 272 Front Street. Both of these addresses appear in the line for 1920.
The conclusion is that he moved houses in the year 1920 from 68 Haven Street to 272 Front Street. Without making a timeline, you would have no way of proving that.
We can further substantiate these facts given that the 1920 Census for New Haven, Connecticut for the street on which my g-grandfather was living (68 Haven) was enumerated on January 11th, at the beginning of the year, therefore it came first!
6. Collateral Lines Lead To Finds on City Directories and Street Guides
This is one of my family history research mantras. If you’re trying to find where you ancestor was on a city directory but are unable to locate that person, try and follow collateral lines that you know about like cousins or a spousal family.
For example my great-grandfather arrived from Lithuania in 1906, his brother in 1904. What has been eluding me is finding them on ANY city directory, or anywhere for that matter, between the years 1906 and 1909.
Believe me, I’ve searched all of the surrounding cities as well. The first instance of seeing my ancestor on a city directory or census is in 1910.
Going back to tip #5 above he had different addresses listed on the census and the city directory, he was one elusive guy I tell you. One of those addresses is the tip I’m going to show you regarding collateral lines.
The address ‘89 James St‘ really meant nothing to me until I started to track down my great-grandfather’s wife-to-be’s addresses and place them on a timeline. As it turns out my great-grandmother’s cousin with whom she was staying lived at 89 James St in 1906. Coincidence? Maybe!
As it turns out, that family owned a saloon at 111 Chapel Street in New Haven, CT where great-grandma’s cousin Stephen was a bartender. My great-grandfather later ended up living at 109 Chapel Street, already married with children, in 1912. Coincidence? Maybe!
That cousin’s family lived at that 111 Chapel Street address (and then 109 Chapel Street) up until 1914. The point is there is definitely a connection between all of them!
What I can surmise is that my great-grandfather was living in the vicinity of 89 James and 111 Chapel Street during the years 1906 through 1909 not only because of the address co-occurrences, but also due to the fact that their first child was born in 1909 and they were enumerated as a single household (mom, dad, and child) in 1910.
What city directories and street guides may not directly tell us about an ancestor, they can often reveal information indirectly if we apply good old family history/genealogical research.
Often times new immigrants lived as boarders or were not counted in a household as the head of the house at a particular address due to social norms or lazy enumeration, it’s just reality. However, it is our duty to find any means necessary to exhaust all avenues of logical research to find out all we can about our beloved family history.
The tips in this article come from my successful research techniques!
In this final section we are going to be looking at 4 very advanced tips to find information when all else has failed. In the previous Tips For Researching City Directories and Street Guides I introduced you to 6 professional-grade research techniques that allow you to locate any ancestor who was living in a city or town that kept city directory listings. A few of those tips are even designed to help you deal with tough cases.
To round out this comprehensive guide the last 4 tips will involve more indirect research techniques, those aimed at acquiring corroborative information. These are powerful investigative techniques to basically treat looking for an ancestor who lived in a particular city during a particular year as a ‘skip trace.’
While this mindset may seem extreme it’s basically utilizing secondary and tertiary bits of information to substantiate someone’s existence. I’ve used Ancestry’s database for my research.
Everyone leaves a trace, there are clues everywhere to be found if we only put in the time, effort, blood, sweat and snot to find them.
7. The Love/Hate Relationship With Forms
No one likes filling out forms! It’s tedious and time consuming and the thought of filling out an application usually sends me into a spiral. However, historically speaking, they are snapshots of information about a person in time and the foundation of our civilized world. As a family historian, I LOVE forms!
Knowing that forms contain biographical information, it’s not enough to simply ‘add’ a record into your database without first thoroughly comparing it to every other relevant piece of documentation you have and seeing what those collective sources say in concert.
For example, I was able to confirm an ancestor’s address at a specific location in a specific year using city directories and his WWI draft card. Using forms I was also able to substantiate that while this same person applied for and was granted US Citizenship, his wife did not. Those are very basic and simple examples of how forms can assist your research.
More complicated examples would be how one of my great-grandfather’s ship name was incorrect on his naturalization paperwork and that only through careful pouring through other application forms was I able to find the correct ship name, and by extension, finally discover his ship’s manifest with his name on it.
Another of my favorite examples is coming across a Civil War application file that was 32 pages long on one of my ancestors which finally confirmed many points about his life and movements that I had suspected but never confirmed. I have to say, I love those moments.
For each of these complicated examples it took corroborating at least 5 different forms! There are so many more cool examples I’d love to share as well.
8. Map Nerd Alert! City Directories and Street Guides
I’m a big ol’ map nerd, I love maps, I love place names, I love visualizing the movements of my ancestors across time and space. I think I’m just a big ol’ nerd in general.
If you are looking to squeeze every bit of information about that elusive person on your timeline that you created using city directory information, try plotting out each of their addresses on a map and see if there are any other facts you can pick up on. Below is an example of my research.
There are 9 addresses in red on the map above, all of them are the locations of my great-grandfather between 1910 and 1923. Only after 1925 did he and his family finally settle down to a single location. I became the master of the city directory because I had to track him, his wife’s family, and their cousins’ families, all of whom moved quite a bit during their early years in America.
They all worked their butts off and sacrificed everything they had for their families to be able to succeed. To go from gentle, country farmers to factory workers in downtown Fair Haven must have been a shock to say the least; however, it is a confirmation of their fortitude and industriousness that they created success out of such opportunity.
In any case, when using this map technique try and overlay different people or families using different colors. I had spectacular results with this on several occasions. For several branches of my family I was able to pinpoint a great(x) grandfather and a great(x) grandmother living within social proximity to one another a year before they got married! In the map above, I was able to replicate those results.
You can apply this tip to researching census data as well in conjunction to city directories and street guides.
9. Make Sure You “Address” The Problem with City Directories and Street Guides and Censuses
What maps and city directories represent are social spheres. Where people lived in the early 20th century was pretty much their realm of existence and life could be very rigorous for families consisting of work, church, and family functions.
One of the nuances of peoples’ lives that is brought to life using maps is allowing us to visualize their neighborhood and the array of influences that people and places around them would have had on their daily existence. Having a catalogue of various addresses where your ancestor lived is important because you may also want to see who else was living there at the same time.
Always look for similar names on a city directory, and if you’re lucky to come across one, a street guide. As children became adults and entered the work force, they were listed on the New Haven, CT city directories at the same address as their parents. This is trackable data.
Other family or related individuals might show up only on a single year at the same address as your ancestor and that’s something you need to consider following up on to make sure it’s not an anomaly. Often times it’s the small clues that linger in the back of your head that lead to the greatest discoveries.
Below is a great example from a STREET GUIDE of my great-grandfather whose name is boxed in red. Living at the same address is a woman (circled) who turns out to be his brother’s future wife!
The trick here is to always look for people with the same address on any page in a city directory. Make sure you keep track of the years that have street guides, write that list down somewhere so that you can always refer back to it in a pinch.
10. Boarders And Neighbors on City Directories and Street Guides
One of the great mysteries I’m currently working on is trying to figure out the identities of 3 boarders on my great-grandfather’s 1910 census records. Our last useful tip is similar to #9 but involves the use of researching census data regarding boarders and neighbors, basically approaching the issue of being able to know more about a subject by who they associated with from another angle.
These 3 boarders that were listed on the 1910 census were not in the 1910 city directory. Therefore I was able to glean a bit more information on my family through an alternate source. One of the boarders had a surname similar to that of my great-grandmother’s maiden name so that left me with an additional clue.
The other mystery are the identities of my great-grandparent’s neighbors, all of whom were Lithuanian. A great tip is to try and track the ethnic data of who your ancestors lived around as immigrant families would normally want to form bonds with others that spoke their language and understood their social norms.
These would be families they might intermarry with and socialize with. It’s about familiarity in a golden land of opportunity.
In 2019, through hired professional research in Lithuania (I paid for a researcher) I was able to put a name to the boarder named Paul *Gedin, who is, in fact, Paul Gedrim (or Gedrimas), my great-grandmother’s younger brother! My great-grandmother Elizabeth is enumerated on line 2 as “wife.” How cool is that?!?
Researching CITY DIRECTORIES, STREET GUIDES, and CENSUSES are like geysers of information just waiting to be tapped, there is an overflow of genealogical information to be extracted if you just know how. Hopefully this article will lead you to that success.
Have something to say? Leave a comment below. I hope you have found this research guide to City Directories and Street Guides as they relate to Census data valuable. Let me know how your research is going of if you have any questions.
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