Hello Ann, City Directories have been around for a long time, well before the telephone's invention. In NYC they start in the 1700's. In a small, or rural location, they might be much later, so it depends on location. The City Directories can be accessed in several ways: 1. Go to the Public Library and look at them there. 2. Go to your nearest FHC they have them all on microfilm, all over , ever location and year imaginable, rent the microfilm and have funn reading thru. You would request the DATE and LOCATION applicable to your family. 3. Subscribe to a specific mailing list, which is looking for City Directory Look-ups. Go to www.rootsweb.com click on MAILING LISTS, now start looking for city directories, or the location. For example: I was subsribed before to a mailing list called: OK-CITY-DIRECTORIES-L@rootsweb.com That was location specific to Oklahoma City, OK. So you need the specific location for your county/state. They are available. Once subscribe, request a certain name, and YEAR and location and see what comes back for you. It is free, it can't hurt! 4. www.ancestry.com Ancestry.com has a specific database which covers City Directories. Perhaps you could go to your nearest FHC , because they ALL offer access to ancestry.com FREE of charge at all their facilities, so you could go there and look it up. 5. While subscribed to just a regular county mailing list, for example this one here, NJHUNTER-L@rootsweb.com you could also post the name, daye, location you are looking for, because it is possible that someone reading the mailing list might have access to that info, or might want to help you personally, with a look-up. Don't be shy! Ask for what you need, and someone might surprise you with plenty of data, and help! I hope these were some good ides/suggestions for you. Best regards, Lilly Martin ----- Original Message ----- From: <Cookiebrown11@aol.com> To: <NJHUNTER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 1:28 PM Subject: Re: [NJHUNTER] Homes and Land > Lilly, > > You mentioned in your note that you found some of your information in city > directories. Where can you find them and when did they start keeping them. > Before the telephone ? > > Ann > > > ==== NJHUNTER Mailing List ==== > Visit the Updated Hunterdon County GenWeb page at: > http://www.rootsweb.com/~njhunter > > ============================== > View and search Historical Newspapers. Read about your ancestors, find > marriage announcements and more. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13969/rd.ashx > >