People tell us “I’ve got Ancestry. Why do I need a gazetteer of the town where my family lived?”
That’s a fair question. We’ll use the Childs’ Gazetteer and Business Directory of Sullivan County for 1872-73, which we publish as a download as an example here.
As it turns out, we use Ancestry heavily both in our own genealogy research and in writing local history (which we also do). Being able to hypothesize a family tree for a local history figure on short notice, and work out marriages, births, and that sort of thing on the fly is a little-recognized capability Ancestry is great for. We’ll write another post about that soon, but this one is about the use of gazetteers in your genealogical research.
First off, gazetteers (also local directories, business directories, and that kind of thing) usually contain a few components. Often there’s a short narrative about the locality. We got our feet wet in genealogy in Sullivan County, in New York State, and conveniently we publish a gazetteer from there.
These volumes are notable, first, for listings of the families (usually the head of household) and the businesses in each locality, normally in alphabetic order. Here’s a sample: 
From any of those listings you know several things that you’re not apt to find as a hint in Ancestry.
Also, there’s often a short article about the town or city, its history and its industries. Frequently you’ll find a list of houses of worship. Perhaps there will be ads for local businesses (selling ads was one way publishers of directories made their money). You may find listings of organizations, and often lists of other things about the locality that were meaningful when the gazetteer was compiled. You’ll almost always find the occupation of the head of household listed. And, best of all, gazetteers were normally published in non-census years, providing a good way to check where a person or family might be outside the years ending in 0.
In addition to the Childs’ Gazetteer and Business Directory of Sullivan County for 1872-73 that we use as an example, we publish several others, including:
–The Erie County, NY Directory for 1924
—Genesee County Business Directory and Gazetteer (1882).
—Child’s Gazetteer and Business Directory for Lewis County for 1872-73
—Port Jervis City Directory (1922)
—Child’s Gazetteer and Business Directory for Wayne County for 1867-68
—Boyd’s 1908 Street Guide for Philadelphia and Camden
—Westbrook, Maine: Directory for 1888
—Blue Book of Newton, MA for 1910
—Nevada, Missouri Directory for 1905
—Tax Book and Valuation of Property, Town of West Greenwich, for 1889
—White’s Peoria County Directory for 1919
—Directory of All Business and Professional Men of Ashtabula County, Ohio (1895)
In future articles we’ll discuss some other obscure material we publish that you just might find helpful in your research, and, generally, you won’t find on Ancestry, as good as it is.
