Indexing Project for Washington State City Directories

I received the following information from Terri Huntley, Historical Records Project Coordinator for the Washington State Digital Archives:

The Historical Records Project is designed for people to work from home using their computer/internet to transcribe or proofread selected documents (census, military, directories, birth, death, naturalization, and other materials). It isn't necessary to commit to specific hours since you work from your home donating your time at your convenience. The indexing efforts are posted online at the Washington State Digital Archives site: www.digitalarchives.wa.gov

Currently, many of the volunteers are transcribing many of the early Polk Directories that have been scanned at the Washington State Library. (We're working on early Seattle directories right now).

If you’re interested in volunteering, I need to know your spreadsheet preference: Works or Excel and your mailing address. Once we decide on a project to start on, I email a template and mail out paper copies along with postage paid return envelope. Once you have completed the project, you email the file back and return the paper copies in the envelope.

If you’re interested in volunteering, email Terri Huntley at: thuntley@secstate.wa.gov

FL Update and New MT and ID Pages

I forgot to mention yesterday that the Florida State page does have one link on it. Many of the state pages have links to statewide directories or directories that cover multiple counties or cities, so check them out. The links appear under the table of counties.

Yesterday morning, I added a Montana and Idaho State pages. Both have links on their state pages. Montana has new Carbon, Silverbow (Butte) and Yellowstone County pages and Idaho has a new Owyhee County page.

**Please note that I am going to be changing the way the pages open on the site. Instead of opening a new tab, pages linking to other pages on the site will open them in the same tab or window. However, links to other sites will still open in a new tab. It will take a while to change things over. I originally created the pages to open in new tabs because it was easier for me to cut and paste links from one page to another when I first created my site.**

Happy Hunting!

New FL Page and SK Updates

I just added Florida to my list of United States pages, but right now there is only one county available: Duval County (Jacksonville). There are plenty of links on the Duval County page, however, with more yet to come.

I also found more Saskatchewan directories online (actually, I've been getting many Canadian ones sent to me!) and added a few more to the Saskatchewan page while I had a few minutes earlier this evening.

New SK Page and More IL Corrections

I posted the new Saskatchewan page with one new link.

I've also been going through and correcting errors on the Cook County, Illinois page. Currently, the links for directories from the 1840s through the year 1870 have all been checked and corrected, and some new ones added. I'll keep plugging away at it!

IL Corrections

Thanks to a heads up from a reader, I corrected the links to the free city directories from the ChicagoAncestors website on the Cook County, Illinois page.

This page still needs lots of work, so I appreciate everyone's patience. I'll do my best to complete this and the Wayne County, Michigan page soon!

IL and MO Updates

Illinois State Page - one statewide business directory link added

Added Adams County, Illinois page - one county directory link

Added St. Clair County, Illinois page - 8 links added, all East St. Louis City Directories

Added Missouri State Page - two statewide business directory links added

Added Jackson County, Missouri page - one city directory link

Added Marion County, Missouri page - 28 city directory links for Hannibal, one county directory link, and one Colored Persons directory link

Added City of Saint Louis, Missouri page - one city directory link and one business directory link

Corrected links on all state pages for RootsWeb's Town/County Locator.

Happy Hunting!

CT, IN, MA, ME, NY, UT, WI Updates

Thanks to generous readers, I was able to add the following pages with links today:

Hartford County, Connecticut - new link: Hartford City Directory, Geer, 1899 on Google Books

Jackson County, Indiana - all new, 6 links

Cumberland County, Maine - all new, 1 link

Essex County, Massachusetts - all new, 9 links

New York City, New York - all new, 1 link

Salt Lake County, Utah - all new, 1 link

Dane County, Wisconsin - all new, 1 link

I also received links for three other counties and states tonight, but have run out of time. Thanks, all!

Resources, Articles, FAQs and Comments

Thank you to all who commented via Twitter, Facebook, this blog, and my e-mail. I appreciate all the comments, corrections, and new links shared. Please note that if you find an error, list specifically what it is and on what page it appears (i.e. "1884 Chicago City Directory at Ancestry, Cook County, Illinois) to help me correct it faster.

I completed and added the following pages today: Resources, Articles and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). They are all accessible from the Home page. The FAQs page especially is helpful in understanding how the site is set up, and I recommend you read it before going on to any other pages.

The Articles page lists helpful articles found online that explain how and why city and other directories are used in genealogy. The Resources page lists where I find the directories that I link to on my website, as well as a useful form that Dae of Shoestring Genealogy created to list information found while researching directories.

My next big focus will be the Detroit (Wayne County, Michigan) and Chicago (Cook County, Illinois) pages. As you probably noticed, they are incomplete and have unlinked titles on them. I also need to reformat the links to show the publisher's name, so that you can know if you are comparing the same directories from different websites.

Keep those links and comments coming in. I'll be adding them as time allows.

It's Open!

The Online City, County, and Rural Directories website is now open! You can view it at:

http://sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite/

Thank you in advance for your patience regarding new pages that must be added, incomplete pages that must be corrected or completed, and any errors you must find.

Now, I'm off to enjoy a barbecue with my family!

More CA Updates

This morning I finished the Los Angeles County, California page! Whoo hoo! I've added all the links I could find anywhere on the internet for city, county, and other directories for this location. It was a lot of work, but well worth it!

My focus is to complete my FAQs page and create a resources page and then release the site to the public, hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday. There will be a lot of incomplete pages, and many, many more to add, but I do want to start making things available to the public.

Thanks for your patience!

CA Updates

I worked hard on my Los Angeles County, California page today. I had to make some major corrections and updates, as it was one of the first pages I created, and I have since changed the style of the website's pages. I also did some detailed searching online to find other links to directories for this county that were not already on Ancestry. When completed, this will be a looooong page of links spanning 1873 to 1987!

Anticipated Opening Date

My goal is to have the Online City, County and Rural Directories website available for public viewing by the end of Memorial Day weekend, or the end of May at the very least.

Please note that there will be a limited amount of information available on the site's grand opening, as there are literally thousands of links to add and hundreds of pages to create. I'm so excited by all the links I'm finding online...many to free-to-use websites!

I currently have some directory links available for the following states and provinces: British Columbia, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Washington State and the Yukon Territory.

There are some corrections and information I need to complete before I roll out the red carpet.

Stay tuned...!

OH Updates

• Completed adding free Ohio directory links from Distant Cousin and Old Directory Search websites.
• Completed adding free Cincinnati directory links from the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County website.
• There are eight Ohio county pages that are now "live": Cuyahoga, Erie, Fairfield, Hamilton, Hancock, Huron, Sandusky, and Williams.
• These pages only have free directory links currently listed, and only for the above resources. There are many more free ones available at other resources--plus those from subscription database websites, such as Ancestry--that must be added.
  

BC and YT Updates

Found some great Alaska-Yukon Territory directories that included some British Columbia communities. Added them to the Yukon Territory and British Columbia pages. Alaska pages will have to wait (need to get to bed!).

Update

Today I began an Article page and a FAQs page. I also added a Huron County, Ohio page. There are now 184 pages on the website.

I also started changes to the page footers to add a link to this blog and a subject line of "Online Directories" for the e-mail address link, so that when I receive e-mails from site users, I'll know at once that they are referencing the site.

Welcome!

It seems like I just don't have enough irons in the fire...not only am I starting a new blog, but I'm also starting a new website! It's not quite ready for visitors, but I'll give you an idea of what it's about:

Have you ever wished you could find links to all the online city directories in one place? A place where they were listed by location and in date order? This is the purpose of the Online City, County, and Rural Directories Website. It is meant to be used as an aid to genealogists, historians, and other researchers.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done to this site, and with all the online databases available, it's likely this project will be a continuous work-in-progress!

My goal is to have a complete listing for city, county, rural, business, and other types of directories for the United States and Canada, and then go on to add directories for other countries. I also plan to have lists of resources, articles, and ideas of where to find offline city directories.

These links will include both free sites and subscription database websites.

Subscribe to this blog to get updates via your e-mail or your feed reader (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.). I'll be announcing the opening of this website through the blog.