Before phone books, many municipalities had city directories. Updated annually, the directories were comprehensive listings of adult residents, along with their addresses,
their occupations, names of spouses, and other helpful facts. Initially intended for salesmen and merchants who wanted to contact people in the area, city directories
are a gold mine for genealogy research.

Participants in this session will learn about the variety of information contained in city directories and how to use this information to find their ancestors and learn what
they were really like. Through the use of a case study, a portion of the presentation will focus on how to use spreadsheets to record, organize, and manipulate the data and to use city directory information as a gateway to other resources.