NYPL Digitizes New York City Directories + Where We Can Find Directories For Other Locales

NYPL Digitizes New York City Directories + Where We Can Find Directories For Other Locales

We love city directories.  They can tell us so much about a family – where they lived, their occupation, and sometimes when a person died. The FamilySearch wiki piece, City Directories, shares even more reasons why you might want to consult city directories, assuming you are not already doing so.

The New York Public Library shares …

New York Public Library is digitizing its collection of New York City Directories, 1786 through 1922/3, serving them free through the NYPL Digital Collections portal. The first batch—1849/50 through 1923—have already been scanned, and the 1786–1848/9 directories are right now being scanned …

If you are seeking city directories for where your ancestors lived, besides local resources (such as DigitalNC, North Carolina City Directories, Historic Pittsburgh City Directories, Seattle City Directories, and Indianapolis City Directory Collection), two places that I check are Internet Archive and HathiTrust, both of which have massive city directory collections.  Additionally, the Online Historical Directories Website provides links to directories online for Canada, Ireland, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the United States.  You will also find city directory collections at Ancestry.com ($) and Fold3 ($).  Google Books also has a large collection of directories where it’s easiest to just search it using city directory + locale of interest.


Where else might we find online collections of historic city directories?

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