Ancestry Magazine

Local directories contain large amounts of information about people and communities. The following example gives a glimpse of the potential value of commercial directories.

Local directories contain large amounts of information about people and communities. I have used them extensively in British Isles research. The following example gives a glimpse of the potential value of commercial directories. Family tradition states that William Adamson as a butcher in Northumberland in the 1830s, possibly in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Examination of Pigot’s 1834 Commercial Directory for Durham, Northumberland, and Yorkshire reveals William Adamson in the alphabetical listing for Newcastle-Upon-Tyne as a butcher. In the listing for butchers he is indicated as residing at George Stairs and as having a stand or shop in the Meat Market.

Now what? From the directory we get a street address. Examination of a map of Newcastle-U pon-Tyne shows that George Stairs is in All Saints Ward, immediately revealing the section of the city to be searched in the 1841 and 1851 census returns. The 1841 census is not indexed, but the 1851 census has a name and age index produced by the Northumberland and Durham Family History Society. The index shows Ann Adamson, age 50, and Grace Adamson, age 13, living at George Stairs. Here is William’s family. The 1841 census now must be examined to prove the family connections, but the search is simplified by knowing where in the city to look.

From the directory we also know that William had a stand or shop in the Meat Market and that market days were Tuesdays and Saturdays. On first reading this, two images came to my mind. The first was that of the weekly open-air market I grew up with in Whitehaven, Cumberland, where each vendor sold produce from a stall open to the elements. The second was of the high, glass-roofed market hall in Carlisle, Cumberland, where each vendor set up a stall to sell produce. Neither image was accurate. To get an accurate picture we turn to non-genealogical sources. The illustrations in Architectural and Picturesque Views in Newcastle, engraved by William Collard and published in Newcastle in 1841, show that, in reality, a new, enclosed Butcher and Vegetable Market was opened on 24 October 1835; it was 409 by 306 feet. The building was divided into long avenues dissected by shorter arcades. A search can now be made locally in directories from the late 1830s to determine whether William Adamson made the transition from the old Meat Market to the new Butcher and Vegetable Market.

Development History of Directories
The first recognizable commercial directory appeared in 1677, when Samuel Lee produced a list of London merchants. Despite its success, no successor appeared until 1734, hen a directory of London merchants was compiled by James Brown and published by Henry Kent. This directory was revised annually by Kent unt il 1771, and then by others until it was discontinued in 1826.

In the eighteenth century there was often a strong link between registry offices, which provided information on all aspects of trade, and the publication of directories. The city of Birmingham provides a good example: in 1752 Thomas Juxon opened his “Office of Intelligence” there to provide information on everything from buying and selling of property, employment of apprentices, and hiring of journeymen. At the same time, he compiled a listing of all the principal inhabitants and tradesmen in the city. Similar situations are found in many other cities around the British Isles.

Many of the early directory producers were originally in occupations that involved direct contact with the public, such as land and house agents, auctioneers, post office officials, and policemen. These early producers often lacked the skills needed to succeed in such a venture, and many publishers issued only one or a few editions of their directory.

How the information was gathered is important for research. Methods differed among publishers and even for the same publisher. Charles Pye, operating in Birmingham, personally canvassed the area and included people in the directory free of charge. In 1797 his directory had 81 pages. In 1800 he changed the process, asking people to send in their names plus sixpence to be included in the directory. This was a disaster; the 1800 directory contained only 12 pages of names. Although later editions of a directory are often bigger and more complete, such is not always the case, as Pye’s example shows.

The early directories provided commercial coverage for one or more of the major cities within the British Isles. The first attempt at national coverage was Bailey’s British Directory, produced by William Bailey in 1784. This was followed in 1790 by the Universal British Directory, compiled by John Wilkes and containing five volumes with 69 additional parts issued at irregular inter vals between 1790 and 1799. Complaints about this work abound; information from other directories was often copied in it. It should be pointed out that coverage in early directories was extremely variable, but they are still worth searching if you know that your ancestor was a tradesman or someone important in the community.

James Pigot produced provincial and national directories successfully. He issued his first directory in 1814, and in 1820 he began the first of four national surveys, beginning in Scotland and the north of England and then moving south. The first survey was from 1820 to 1826, followed by others from 1826 to 1830, 1831 to 1840, and finally, 1848 to 1853. For the early to mid-nineteenth century, Pigot’s directories are most likely to be available in original, reproduction, or microfiche versions in North American libraries.

Kelly’s Directories was the largest company to produce directories in the British Isles. The firm began in 1835 when Frederick Kelly, chief inspector of inland letter carriers, obtained the copyright for the Post Office Annual Directory. By the 1850s, Kelly’s was the dominant producer of directories. This situation continued until the 1950s, when the demand for commercial directories decreased due to competition from telephone directories. Kelly’s grew because the company developed a large network of agents who sought information for the local directories. However, most agents were reluctant to canvas for names in the Victorian-era city slums. Lack of coverage also occurs in multi-dwelling houses or courts. Coverage of residents of such dwellings is likely to be incomplete.

Classification of Directories
In their excellent book British Directories, Gareth Shaw and Allison Tipper propose a typology for directories. This arrangement attempts to make sense of the varied developmental history of the different styles of directories. From the researcher’s point of view, they all can provide valuable information about a community and its inhabitants, even if your particular ancestor is not listed.

The most important development was the transition from trade directories to the general directories that included both the typical trades section and a list of private inhabitants arranged alphabetically. These directories dominated the market by the early 19th century.

The other major developmental line was through professional directories, which generally listed only the wealthy and professional people within the community. The more specialized court directories listed only the most important people in the community. The resort directories were developed to provide listings for the elite when it became fashionable to spend time at the established seaside and spa towns. They usually contain listings of lodging houses and medical practitioners.

Directory Content and Format
The earliest changes in the general contents of directories is best exemplified by the following table from British Directories by Shaw and Tipper. Approximate Dates and Basic Contents
1720-1750 Names, alphabetically arranged, with addresses; later, occupations were added.
1750-1790 Alphabetical list of names and addresses, together with alphabetical street sections and residents’ names.
1790-1800 Names, addresses, and occupations, together with alphabetical trades section.
1800-1820 Names, addresses, and occupations; street section; classified trades section.

As researchers, we want to know about the community as well as the people. Usually, each listing for a community begins with a general description of that community. This can give details about the history, major buildings, industry, land estates, charities, churches, poor rates, population, crops, market days, and fairs, plus postal and carriage services. The quantity of descriptive information varies greatly. For example, Parson and White’s 1829 directory of Cumberland contains 38 pages of detailed descriptive information for Carlisle, while a similar selection is limited to two pages in Slater’s 1848 directory.

If you are seeking descriptive information about a community, look at the listings in The Book of British Topography, by John Anderson. This book, first published in 1881, lists many early county directories with strong topographical descriptions. Its limitation is that it lists the directories in only one collection, the British Museum’s, but it still provides a good starting point to know which directories to seek.

The description of the community is followed by the listing of people. The format varies depending on the size of the community and the purpose of the directory. For example, by the late nineteenth century Kelly’s London directory contained well over 3,000 pages and had eleven different sections; government officials; a street listing providing names of heads of household; a commercial section providing names of heads of household; a commercial section providing an alphabetical listing of tradespeople; a trade and professional section providing an alphabetical listing by trade; a law section listing judges, recorders, counsels, notaries, and solicitors; a court section listing householders not in the commercial section; a parliamentary section listing peers of the realm and members of the House of Commons; a postal section providing information on postal rates and services; a city, clerical, and parochial section listing mayors, aldermen, councillors, and ministers; a conveyance section listing wharves, wharfingers, booking offices, and railway carriers; and a banking section listing London, foreign, and country bankers. In the county directories this listing may be only one page, generally beginning with gentry and clergy followed by listings by trade.

In the trade listings a researcher needs to be creative. In a directory for a small commun ity it is easy to check all occupational sections for the name you are seeking. However, you will need to do further research to prove that an individual you find is your ancestor. This will often mean learning more about what the duties of a particular job might have been in a particular time period and location. For example, many traders carried on more than one occupation at a time, especially in the grocery trade, and a particular tradesman may be listed as grocer, tea dealer, provision dealer, shopkeeper, or merchant. At the end of most community listings there is a miscellaneous section for people with occupations that do not easily fit into the prescribed occupational classifications. Always check this section when seeking a missing ancestor.

Detailed maps are often included in the directories. These may be of the county as a whole or of the specific community. Their scales and thus the details vary greatly. County maps are helpful because they often show the communities and the quality of the interlinking roads and railways. They may also indicate which communities had polling stations or where a Post Office money order could be obtained. The city maps are also useful for helping you find what sections of the city had been or were being developed in a particular time period.

How to Find Directories
Because of the large amounts of local information they contain, directories are highly sought after by book collectors, local historians, and genealogists. This desirability, combined with their age, makes them expensive to purchase, even if you can find them.

A good place to start searching for directories is the locality index in the catalog of the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here you will need to check under a variety of headings, because directories cover many different areas. For example, to find directories for Wales you will need to examine: England-Directories; Wales-Directories; Wales, ( County)-Directories; Wales (County), (City)-Directories.

Particular directories listed in the catalog are usually available on microfilm or microfiche and can be borrowed from the Family History Library through one of its local family history centers for a nominal fee. (Remember that pre-1974 county names and boundaries are used in the catalog.) This process can be repeated to find particular directories for any given locality in England, Scotland, or Ireland.

If you do not have easy access to an LDS family history center, or if you want to purchase your own copies of directories, the best place to start is the British Isles Directory Project, a joint effort of Gwen Kingsley in England and Nick Vine Hall in Australia to record British Isles directories on microfiche. The current catalog lists directories for all counties in the British Isles; it notes 244 directories in England, four in Wales, fifty-two in Scotland, twelve in Ireland, and the list is continually growing. The quality control on this project is very high. In the production process, every page of the microfiche is checked by the publishers for clarity and to ensure that no pages in the original volume were missed or incorrectly microfilmed. These measures do not rectify the printing problems in the original directories, but the project attempts to provide the best available reproduction. The microfiche itself is high quality-thicker than the standard microfiche used in North America, durable, and very readable. The duplication on the microfiche is one directory page per microfiche frame. The Detroit Public Library is the only repository in North America with a complete set of the microfiche for public access. Some libraries and societies have purchased sample copies. A current listing of directories is available from Gwen Kingsley, Lyndon, Queen Street, Kingswinford, West Midlands DY67AQ, England.

There are two good sources for Pigot’s directories from various years in the 1830s. If you would like to purchase a printed facsimile edition of the appropriate multi-county directory for your area, contact Michael Winton, 5 Lynn Road, Castle Rising, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, PE31 6AB, England, and ask for a current list of publications. Microfiche versions by single county for 1830 can be purchased from the Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA. The society has many directories in its collection, including copies from the British Isles Directory Project. They are well worth consulting if you are planning a trip to London, or if you can hire a local researcher to access the collection on your behalf.

If you know where in England your ancestors came from, I strongly encourage you to join the local county family history society. Along with all the usual benefits of joining a family history society, many of the societies are now producing copies of local city and county directories. For example, the Derbyshire Family History Society has published microfiche copies of directories from 1823 through 1942 from a variety of different publishers. The address of a county family history society can be obtained from a current copy of Family History News and Digest, published semi-annually by the Federation of Family History Societies, or by writing to the FFHS administrator, Mrs. P. Saul, The Benson Room, Birmingham & Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham B33BS, England. A society listing is published annually in the July/August issue of Everton’s Genealogical Helper (The Everton Publishers, P.O. Box 368, Logan, UT 84323-0368), but a random evaluation showed that many of the addresses are two or three years out of date; thus, your correspondence may not get to the appropriate society.

It is also advisable to check with the county archives or county councils to see if they have issued microfiche or printed copies of the directories for their areas. For example, the Kent County Council issues microfiche copies of Post Office directories and Ke lly’s directories between 1845 and 1918 at three- to five-year intervals. Two sources for local addresses are Record Repositories in Great Britain, by Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, and English Local Studies Handbook, by Susanna Guy. The latter provides addresses for archives, museums, libraries, publications, and local and family history societies in England.

A growing number of smaller publishers are producing copies of old directories and other lists. One such publisher is MM Publications, 75 Thomas More House, The Barbican, London EC2Y 8BT, England. This publisher is providing microfiche copies of a growing list of county directories from around the British Isles, along with army and navy lists. East India Company registers, and Indian Army and Civil Service lists. This vendor keeps costs down by producing three or four printed pages on one microfiche frame, which can make reading problematic. There are also publishers that target the family history needs of a local area. One such vendor is J.A. Readdie of North Fiche, 38 Archery Rise, Durham DH1 4LA, England. He produces copies of directories, transcripts of parish registers, and nineteenth century local histories. To find the vendors in your part of the British Isles, read the local history and family history society journals, examining reviews and advertisements. When you find a new vendor, purchase one product first to ensure the quality of the product meets your needs.

If you do not have the time or the inclination to search all of these avenues for sources, an alternative is to hire a professional. This could be someone with access to the resources of the Family History Library, the collection of the Society of Genealogists in London, or one of the local county archives or libraries. If you have not hired a professional genealogist in the past, obtain a copy of the brochure So You’re Going to Hire a Professional Genealogist from the Association of Professional Genealogists, 3421 M Street N.W., Suite 236, Washington, D.C. 20007-3552.

Do not expect the search for your ancestor in trade directories to be a quick o9ne, unless you know exactly where he or she worked. The process can, however, reward you by building up a picture of where and when your ancestor worked. It will show who your ancestor’s neighbors and competitors were, and it will show how the community was growing and changing. It may also show whether family members or partners took over the business after the ancestor’s death. Finally, you may be able to follow the movement of your ancestor from one community to another as he or she moved to find work.

How to Make a Small Purchase in English Pounds
1. Find the cost of the product, membership, or service in English pounds.
2. Call Ruesch International at 1-800-424-2923 and ask for the International Desk.
3. Tell them the amount of the English check you need. They will convert that amount into U.S. dollars and add $2 for the cost of the check.
4. Send them a check in U.S. dollars for the indicated amount to the address they provide. They will send you a check in English pounds.
5. Mail the check with your order to the person or organization from whom you are purchasing the product.

For further details, read: Paul Milner, Foreign Currency Exchange Made Simple, FGS Forum 7(2): II (Summer 1995).

Bibliography
Anderson, John P. The Book of British Topography: A Classified Catalogue of the Topographical Works in the Library of the British Museum Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. London: British Museum, 1881. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970.

Guy, Susanna. English Local Studies Handbook: An Essential Guide to Sources of Information for Professional and Amateur Local Historians. Exeter, England: University of Exeter Press, 1992.

Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Record Repositories in Great Britain: A Geographical Directory: 9th ed. London: HMSO, 1992.

Norton, Jane E. Guide to the National and Provincial Directories of England and Wales, Excluding London, Published Before 1856. Royal Historical Society Guide and Handbook No. 5. London: 1950.

Shaw, Gareth, and Allison Tipper. British Directories: A Bibliography and Guide to Directories Published in England and Wales (1850-1950) and Scotland (1773-1950). Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1989.

Paul Milner is a professional genealogist and lecturer. He has specialized in British Isles genealogical resaerch for the past fifteen years.