City Directories were the forerunners to telephone books, and often listed the resident’s occupation and spouse in addition to the address. Some also contain maps of the city or cities covered by the directory. The directories can help you establish the dates that a person lived at your address, but keep in mind that this is not necessarily who owned the house. The names are listed in alphabetical order, but some directories also contain a reverse directory, where you can look up the address if you are uncertain of the name of the person who lived in the home in that particular year. If the person in the home was a business owner as well, you can check the business section of the directory to see if the business was operated out of the home. Keep in mind that a period of time passed between the compilation of the information for the directory and the actual publication date. If you run into a dead end in your deed reconstruction, be sure to take a look at available directories. They can provide you with some additional names to take back to the deed’s office.
