City Directories Research Tip

City Directories in the U.S. date as early as 1780 and are of value to the genealogists, especially as an 1890 census substitute. In many cases a city directory included all of the names of the family members and many other details about the occupation and living standards of the family. It has been said that prior to the 1880 census, that census takers created city directories, in order to sell them, using the census that they had just recorded.