CITY DIRECTORIES - BEFORE THERE WERE PHONE BOOKS

CITY DIRECTORIES are publications that were put out in communities mostly so people could locate each other.  They are like a pre-Yellow Pages and pre-White Pages combo, though a lot of abbreviations are used and since people paid to be listed, the emphasis seems to be mostly on professions - business - work.  Retired persons and widows are usually listed as "at home."   I've noticed listings that are all male but on the census you find the women in the family were not listed in the directory. On occasion you will notice that a young woman who has just become a marriageable adult has herself listed as well; she wanted the young men to know where she lived if they wanted to look her up.

CITY DIRECTORIES ARE GOOD TO USE TO FIND INFORMATION BETWEEN CENSUS such as addresses.

While most City Directories were published for smaller towns, I've found some that were for a series of towns linked by a railroad line, you could say along a transportation route where people had businesses.

If you are working with a common surname, or immigrant families who not only had common surnames but also common first names, finding the profession and address may help you narrow it down to the family you seek.

TOWN BOOKS - A WEALTH OF INFORMATION WHEN THEY EXIST

A town book may or may not provide addresses and phone numbers.  It is not a city directory.  It's a bit closer to a yearbook, but historical.  One client I worked for came from a small town in the deep south.  I was surprised to find many volumes of Town Books at the Los Angeles Public Library which included black and white pictures of some of his ancestors who he best remembered as a small child!  The stories were very much about how these citizens contributed to their community so in them we found out who was the big deal at the Baptist Church as well as who was the temporary mail carrier!

Town Books are usually written and organized and published by people who are VERY PROUD, VERY PATRIOTIC about their town.

They are often put in special collections or archived so you may have to ask about them and order them to be brought out in advance.  Ask large out of town libraries as well because who knows how it is that Los Angeles Public got copies from this small town!

A TOWN BOOK can give you a snapshot of the town as it existed around the publication date!

IRISH - AMERICANS - THE ORANGE AND THE GREEN - DIFFICULT GENEALOGY SEARCHES

Be it Catholic (Green) or Protestant (Orange) Irish,  a resource for finding out exactly where in Ireland ancestors once lived in Ireland is SHIP RECORDS.   But Irish immigrants were coming to the US before Steam Ships, and you may find that the pre-steam ship or early steam ship era ship records are not as good as the ones you see on databases such as Ellis Island where more information was taken.  On some of these ship lists there is only a surname and a headcount of family members under the surname.

I've personally run into some trouble with using ship records because of common surnames and the descendants lack of knowledge about things such as height or coloring of their ggg grandpa or ggg grandma.  I also question how accurate some of those height measurements are as I found more than one ship that had hoards of men all the same height - 5 foot 6"!  As for coloring, words like "fair" could mean White, Blonde, or simply lighter than other passengers on the ship from a certain country (i.e. If you're Italian you can't be "Fair!"

In one case I had over 16 possibilities.  The client was upset because I was able to find one grandparent with a less common surname and a sure immigration year and village in less than an hour and the other could not be verified though I spent several hours. 

So many people are "sure" they know the year of immigration but in the end they are off by a year or three.  As this client was.

As a result a multitude of resources must be used.

The U.S. Census is still the backbone of American genealogy but "Ireland" is what most people reported, though sometimes - rarely - there will be a county or other commentary.

How to narrow it down?  Try the World War I draft registration cards for birth dates and the name of the birth place.

Try for death records - cemetery records.  The person who reported the information may not always be accurate either.  I've seen "another country" as the information given, but the place the person was born should be there.

Try finding people on the census and, based on religion, search for the cemetery they were likely buried in during that era in that town, such as a church graveyard and CALL THAT CHURCH IF ITS STILL IN SERVICE to ask where they archive membership records.

Another thing that's come up is that on the ship they asked where a person was living before they got on the ship, which is not the exactly same thing as a home town village. 

Many Irish immigrants went from a village to a port city and lived there a while before they got on the ship to leave the country.  So it's not unusual to see "Liverpool" or "South Hampton" as the place they left or were living at before they got on the ship when the village or town they left family is different.  The reason they did so was usually economic.  They needed to make some money first to afford the trip.  Imagine this in more modern times.  These days we are supposed to change our address with the DMV within 10 days of moving but how many people manage that?  So a person leaves their village, pretty sure they will never see their family again, they go to what is the Big City and work for a few months, then board the ship, make it to a town that has promises of work with other Irish immigrants, and find they have to move again and again before they "Settle."

I've heard horror stories of immigrants coming from Ireland on ships that let them starve and let them stay in filthy conditions - until the ship was close to port when people were expected to help clean the ship.

Irish came to the early Americas as servants with contracts that were almost as good as slavery.  After many years - seven - twenty!  They were "free" to go work somewhere else.

As a result of the conditions of immigration and living in the country, many early Irish immigrants married late or not at all and did not leave descendants. 

But today, a great many Americans have that "wee bit of Irish" in them... and have made up for these deprivations for sure!

THERE WAS ONE WOMAN FOR EVERY TEN MEN - GOLD RUSH SAN FRANCISCO

I posted about the Japanese-American Museum  in Los Angeles several weeks ago.   When Chinese and Japanese came to America it was for work more than any other purpose.  Agriculture. For the Chinese immigrants there was working on the railroad, the rail road that would tie the United States together - coast to coast.  Both communities sent for brides from their country of origin.

Imagine the world of Gold Rush California!  There was one woman for every ten men, and according the THE GOLD RUSH, a PBS video that is part of AN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE series, in
a few short years after Gold was found north of San Francisco, the city had grown so that it had twice daily newspapers, nine insurance companies, and consulates of twenty-seven foreign governments. 

The gold rush MADE San Francisco. 

1849 is when people rushed to find their fortunes moving west to the gold fields and streams. The few people who found their fortune early and announced that there was gold had fortunes and walked away. Gentlemanly behavior and fairness were the norm. But when thousands came to work hard all day for about $8 worth of gold (use that calculator I have embedded on the side bar), it became lawless, the wild west.

Soon people found the fortune to be made was not in finding gold but opening businesses that served miners, and so today we still wear BLUE JEANS!

Yes this is a DVD recommendation for those of you who want to know more about West Coast American History, or who have Gold Rush heritage!

INTER-BRED ROYAL GENEALOGY ? A BREEDING CHART?

I noticed a picture a woman holding up her genealogy chart, an inverted pyramid in which the family crests of two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and sixteen great great grandparents - all European aristocrats and royalty - were imaged.  It was fascinating. 

Of course most of us don't have that aristocrat - royalty connection.  There are those who note the modern marriages of aristo-royals with non-aristo-royals (few who are paupers, many who are mega wealthy and may be refilling the purses of broke houses) with a sort of glee, those who say the old families were so inter-bred they really did/do need new blood.  (The Duchess of Cambridge was/is no pauper!)

If you do have the aristo-royalty connection, you may find that genealogy research is actually easier than if you don't.  Simply it's that wealthier or famous families, power families, have kept track of their genealogy for a lot longer than most, so that information is there for the having.  Jewish people who are related to great Rabbi's have the same experience!  Otherwise with commoners the trail grows cold in a few generations.

Recently I was surprised and then humored to see the photo of someone who would be the great great great grandchild of my grandmother and to see HER NOSE!  If not her nose than the distinctive nose of her family!  This distinctive nose has not been seen in any of her grandchildren or great grandchildren.  It proved to me that genes can skip many generations, even as each generation has more donations!

CAN'T FIND THE GRAVE OF YOUR GG GRANDFATHER? NEITHER COULD PRINCESS DI!

IRISH EXAMINER - PRINCESS DI'S GG GRANDFATHER great-great-grandfather, Baron Edmond Roche GRAVE FOUND  full article linked here.

Goes to show you...  even elite families seem to loose track of ancestors...