Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What Is Your Favorite Record Type?

It's Saturday Night -

time for more Genealogy Fun!

Our mission this week is to:

1) What is your favorite record type or resource?  Not a website, but a type of record - e.g., census, cemetery, land, etc.  Why?

2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Be sure to leave a link with your answers in a comment.

Here's mine:

My favorite source for genealogy research is the city directory. A city directory helps fill in our ancestor’s residence and occupation facts between census years. We can use it to narrow down a move into or out of a particular place. In later census, where the wife’s name is in parenthesis, we can learn about a new marriage. When the wife becomes a widow, she is usually listed as the head of household with the words widow of “husband name.”

Julia Hork, widow of John Hork, Hamilton, MT directory

Too many people only look at the residence information but ignore the rest of the directory. If the occupation lists also the name of the business, I also look at the listing for the business in the residence list and in the business section. If a person is a minister, priest, doctor, or teacher, I also look up the church, hospital, and school listings to learn more about where they worked.

Rev. LB Palladino was pastor at St Francis Xavier

Some directories have histories, lists of social organizations, and ads for various businesses. I found a directory that listed the rancher’s brands and another that listed what crops they grew.

Just like it is recommended to find every census record your ancestor was in, it is important to find every city directory they were in. Use the listings to fill in their residence and occupation in their timeline.

Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.