U.S. Content Update: New U.S. City Directories Database

Something’s wrong.

I searched for Elizabeth Rumsey in Pennsylvania, not exact, from your link to the Directory database.

I picked one supposedly for Bradford and Olean, Pennsylvania, linked to results here:

http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=View&dbid=1540&iid=31089_161293-00172&sid=_82004042=Pennsylvania%26_82004044=Bradford%26_81004041=1885-1893&pid=867052&ssrc=&fn=Elizabeth&ln=Rumsey&st=g

There is no Rumsey on this page and no Elizabeth.

I imagine you have as usual, uselessly indexed by keyword instead of by **name** (surname, firstname), but this is ridiculous.

What is the problem here?

These new directories search just like the newspapers. I gave up on the newspapers on this site long ago, much preferring GenealogyBank’s search. I gave these a shot, but using a keyword search just doesn’t give researchers the control they need to do what they want.

Love that you added images – but if I can’t find what I need, the search function doesn’t do much good. I’m going to end up “flipping” through pages in the end – which is annoying and time consuming.

I probably come at the city directory databases a little differently than most people. I almost don’t care if they are indexed or not. After all, if I look at a city directory at a library, the directory is not indexed. Rather, it’s in alphabetic order. I look up names just like I do names in a phone book or words in a dictionary. And that’s all I really need from ancestry on city directories. (Mostly – grin! – not to say I would never like to find an obscure city directory entry for a relative by looking up their name, but mostly I just want to scan the directory.)

To that end, here’s what I need.

Good images. I mostly don’t even care if the records are indexed. After all, the names are in alphabetic order. I just need the images. Transcriptions are pretty useless, and indexes are really of little value. When I got to the library to look at a city directory, I don’t have an index nor do I need one.

An easy way to “turn the page”. I need an easy way to get to the Smiths or to the Jones. Once there, I can just eyeball the list of names.

An easy way to find out which cities and years you have directories for. For example, I research mostly in Tennessee. Which directories do you have for Tennessee? Here’s how I found out. I did a dummy search for John Smith living in Tennessee and scanned down the list of matches for city directories. I clicked on the first image. The first image was in and of itself of no value. But it was for Chattanooga, and there was bread crumbing at the top of the screen. Namely, there was the following:

Search > U.S. City Directories > Tennessee > Chattanooga > 1871-1881 > Chattanooga, Tenn General and Business Directory 1876-7

What I then did was to click on “Tennessee” in the bread crumbs, and I got a list of cities, namely Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville. That’s the expected list, but I was hoping for a few of the smaller cities as well. Finally, I clicked on Knoxville, and I got the following list of years: 1869-1881, 1882-1886, 1887-1890, 1891-1894, and 1895-1901.

This is a wonderful resource, but indexing city directories and looking for names is not the best way to get at the information. You just need to go directly to state -> city -> year, etc.

As an alternative, I tried the card catalog. I put in a subject of City Directory and a keyword of Tennessee. I got Baltimore (not in Tennessee!), Memphis but only for 1909, Knoxville but only for 1926, Detroit (not in Tennessee), and Titusville (not in Tennessee). Surely there is a better way to find these things than doing a dummy search for John Smith.

I am trying to find the biological father’s name for daughters Suzanne Laura Wolk (born 1966 in NY) & Dianne Rachel Wolk Schiff, born to mother Ruth S Wolk. Can you help me navigate to where I need to go please?

Really nice work – thanks a lot! I have prevously used some datebases from http://rapidpedia.com/, but think that this time I’ll turn to something new!