Gazetteers and Genealogy

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

Worcester Directory for 1871

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.

 

 

 

Acronyms for Organizations

Our newest book, Acronyms for Organizations, is now available in paperback and for the Kindle™ on the Amazon website.

Acronyms for organizations

To view it at Amazon.com, please click HERE!
You can also read more about it, and about our efforts in “real” publishing (you know — like books) and how it compliments our usual business of e-publishing, here’s the front cover!Close observers will note that we published an earlier book of initializations (or initialisms, if you prefer), acronyms, and abbreviations for organizations around four years ago, called “What Does That Stand For?”  Around half the length, it was our initial experience in modern print publishing, and we learned from it.  Many people spoke well of the earlier version, but it left us with the feeling that we had only skimmed the surface of what such a book really ought to contain.  (You can read a little more about our own historical process HERE.)

So, we took what we had there, and began a systematic process of collecting acronyms for organizations (as well as abbreviations and initialisms, of course) for thousands of additional information.  We discovered whole categories of abbreviations for organizations we had not considered — and we went into far greater depth with those we already had.

A little about the book — and it’s also available for Kindle:

Paperback edition:  562 pages, $23.99

Kindle edition:  598 pages, $13.99

(if you buy the paperback edition, you can also get the Kindle edition for a small additional charge).

In any case, please do have a look at the listing in the Amazon catalog — CLICK HERE to go directly to this listing.

Neversink downloads

We’re happy to say that with the availability of these Neversink Downloads, we’ve completed the migration from CD-ROMs to exclusively downloads!

“Old Neversink”  was our all-time best-selling CD-ROM, and, appropriately, it was the last to completely migrate to our modern world of downloads.

In that connection, we are very happy to again make available to you the following four items from the Old Neversink CD-ROM:

Eugene Cross 1910 Diary with index.   See the Old Neversink page

Child’s Gazetteer extract for Neversink, with index.  See the Old Neversink page

Neversink Genealogy with index.  See the Old Neversink page

Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County extract for Neversink, with index. See the Old Neversink page

Considerably more information about each of these is available on the Neversink page, so rather than simply say it again here, please have a look there!

CLICK to go to the Neversink page now

Included in these four downloads are two Neversink excerpts from larger publications of ours, Child’s Gazetteer of Sullivan County, and Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County.  Some people have mentioned to us that these excerpts are easier to handle than the file representing the full book, and that they are happy to have them available to work with in this form.  They’re short enough to print out, if you are more comfortable working from paper (as many of us secretly are!)

And, if you haven’t looked at our Neversink offerings recently, you might want to take a peek anyway — we have several items that we’ve added since the CD-ROM first came out that may be of interest to you.  (Needless to say, we do hope you will check out these four Neversink downloads while you are there!)

To the Neversink page!

Neversink Downloads
Some old Neversinkers, admiring the sidewalk they just coompleted

Lewis County, NY material

Among the final items we are planning to bring you this calendar year is some Lewis County, NY material.  These two items were originally issued on the Lewis County CD-ROM which we discontinued a few months ago, but are now again making available, but this time, at a substantial savings, as downloadable files in PDF format.

Originally the north end of Oneida County, NY, Lewis County is indisputably part of the “North Country” and as such historical material can be a bit skimpy.  We are happy to be able to offer these items to help those who need them.

One of these republications is Child’s redoubtable Gazetteer and Business Directory for Lewis County for 1872-73.  Child did these of most New York and Vermont counties, and later expanded into other states.  He had a formula for producing these collections of historical material, and, based on this one and other Child Gazetteers we’ve seen, the formula worked very well.  Most of the information contained is still of great interest to local historians and genealogists nearly a century and a half later.  If you would like more information about this download, please click HERE to go to a page all about it.

The second item is modest in size and of less general interest, but since we have it we would be remiss not to again make it available.  This is a survey of local relief in Lewis County in 1906.  Extracted from a three volume survey produced by the state in that year, this is information you are unlikely to find elsewhere.  However, be advised that this section is short.   There were no state hospitals or other facilities in the county at that time, and the services provided by the county itself were quite limited.  Nonetheless, you may find that it’s worth a look.  Click HERE to go to our main Lewis County page, where you will also find other Lewis County, NY material.

 

Recovering history
Between the Lakes Group helps you recover history!

Erie County NY material

We’re happy to bring you some Erie County NY material.  While it was originally provided on our Erie County Directory CD-ROM, which, along with all the rest of our CDs, was discontinued, it has been unavailable long enough to qualify as “new” we think.

Without further ado, here is the “new” Erie County NY material:

The Saga yearbook for 1957 from Clarence High School in Clarence, New York.

The Gateway yearbook for 1954 for the Frontier Central School in Hamburg, New York.

The Erie County Directory for 1924.  Note that this is real Erie County NY material, not Buffalo material and not Tonawanda material (neither of those cities are included in this directory.  It appears they were published as separate directories shortly after this Erie County directory was published.

Some picture of antique postcards of Erie County and Buffalo.  We had included these times from our collection on the CD-ROM, and we hated to see them go to waste.  (You’ll see one of them below)

At any rate, all this Erie County NY material is available at a significant savings over what we charged for the CD-ROM, and you get to pay for only what you want, not everything we previously included in the CD.

Take a look at our Erie County page in any event.  We now have a fair amount of material that may be of interest if Erie County history is of interest to you.

Also, why not take a look at our catalog!

Erie County NY material

Newton MA Blue Book for 1910

The Newton MA Blue Book for 1910 is an important piece of social history (and history of Boston “Society”) that we are delighted to bring back into our catalog.  Originally published on CD-ROM, it has been unavailable since we discontinued our CD line, but now we have taken the original material from the CD and made it available as a download — at a substantial savings, by the way.

In case you wondered what communities are included in the Newton MA Blue Book for 1910, here’s the list:  Thompsonville, Newton Upper Falls, Newton Highlands, Newton Lower Falls, Chestnut Hill, Waban Hill, Newton, Newton Centre, Newtonville, Nonantum, West Newton, Waban, Reeds Corner, and Auburndale.  Today — and doubtless in 1910 — residents frequently would say where they lived according to the small community — e.g. Waban — rather than the more inclusive Newton.  In case you’re trying to correlate any of these to today’s locations, the Blue Book contains a large and detailed map of all of Newton as well.

Since the Blue Book is first and foremost a directory, it has the predictable names and addresses of the residents — with some additional touches, such as summer addresses for those who went to the ocean in the summer (a bit like the Social Register).

The ads are fascinating.  You’ll find the usual trades, but you will also see ads for riding stables and private schools, as well as seating maps of the major theatres of Boston — and you’ll not find that in many other municipal directories of the era!

If this sounds interesting, you can CLICK HERE to go directly to the Newton MA Blue Book for 1910 page on our website to learn more.  There we have a list of the surnames included, in case you would like to check further.  We would be remiss if we failed to mention our catalog as well.  Who knows what you might find there!

Newton MA Blue Book for 1910

 

Worcester MA Directory for 1871

We’re very happy to announce the republication of Howland’s Directory of Worcester, MA for 1871, this time as a download.

A few years ago we made this rarity available on CD-ROM, but when we discontinued our line of CDs, it became — as far as we know — unavailable except as a rare book.  Now we are catching up on making material that was previously on our CDs available as downloads, and today Howland’s Worcester MA Directory for 1871 came up.

We are aware that Ancestry.com does offer lookups in this directory, but we are unaware of any other online sources for this 405 page volume.  While lookups are certainly useful, we think that having the “real thing” at hand offers many advantages that you don’t get with a download.

At any rate, you can read more about this volume, and, if you feel inclined, you can buy it via download if you go to our page about the Worcester MA Directory for 1871.

Worcester MA Directory for 1871

Missouri Material

We’ve got some Missouri material to offer you!

To tell the truth, it’s not all new.  When we discontinued our CD-ROM about the small city of Nevada, Missouri, these three items included on it were no longer available.  Now, we’ve taken these items and made them each into an individual download.  In the process, we’ve made these available at a considerable savings compared with the cost of the CD-ROM they replaced.

Here’s what’s newly available:

The Nevada, Missouri City Directory for 1905.  (It may surprise you to learn that Nevada was large and important enough to need a city directory.  However, at that time it had an Army camp, Cottey College, a state insane asylum, and a fair number of optimistic businesses.

The Comet yearbook for 1928 from Nevada, MO High School.  This is a remarkably modern yearbook for the times, and features higher quality photography than is found in most older yearbooks.

Some Nevada, Missouri photos.  Honestly, they are scans of old postcards from the area, and had that unfortunate stippled finish that used to mean “this is one classy postcard.”  Regrettably, they don’t scan well.  However, they did appear on the discontinued CD-ROM and we felt we needed to make them available for those who might have a need.

All three of these are available HERE.

Be sure to let us know if you would like us to publish additional Missouri material.  We attempt to be responsive to our customers’ needs.

Nevada Missouri Bushwhacker Museum
The Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada, Missouri

Replacing our CDs

Minisink and Port Jervis replacing our CDs

Replacing our CDs has shown up a benefit we hadn’t really anticipated.

Here’s what happens.  As our customers know, our CDs usually contained more than one item.  However, we tended to title the CD with the name of the most important (our call) item on the CD.

However, when we replace our CDs with downloads, each publication on the CD becomes a product unto itself.  In that way, it gets its own listing in our catalog and on the various geographic and special interest pages of our website.

Here’s an example.  Recently we retired our CD-ROM about the History of the Minisink Region of New York State (and Pennsylvania, and New Jersey).  The featured component of that CD was Stickney’s 1867 History of the Minisink Region.   However, there were two other publications on that CD:  Twin River Valley, the 1834 yearbook of Port Jervis High school, and a particularly scarce 1922 Directory of Port Jervis  (which included neighboring locations).

The CD never sold as well as we thought it would; we suspect the reason was that if people already had access to the Stickney book, they went no further and never discovered the Port Jervis Directory or the Port Jervis High School yearbook on the same CD.

Well, now that we’re reissued the three as individual downloads, we think more people will be seeing these additional publications — that were actually there all along.

Do you want to take a look at any of these?

Here’s how to find them:

Stickney’s History of the Minisink — click HERE

Twin River Valley, the Port Jervis High School yearbook — click HERE

That elusive 1922 Port Jervis Directory — click HERE

Of course, our main catalog is HERE, so why not have a look at it, too?

Bottom line:  we think that replacing our CDs will help you find things you never suspected we had just as much as it helps us streamline our processes and deliver quality content to you faster and more economically.