What in the World is Happening with the Online Historical Directories Website?

I'm sure some of you have been wondering if the Online Historical Directories Website is still being updated. The answer is "YES!" In fact, I've had to do some major site maintenance, which is why it's been taking me so long to get back to adding new links to directories. Here are some things that I've been updating and changing as part of that maintenance:

• Changing my name on every page to "Miriam J. Robbins" after my recent divorce and subsequent return to my maiden name (over 700 pages!).
• Updating the copyright date on every page to reflect the 2011 year (and it won't be long before I'll be changing it again to 2012!).
• Updating a few rogue pages' names from "Online City, County, and Rural Directories" to "Online Historical Directories". This was a decision I made back in October 2009, and there were still pages I had not updated after nearly two years!
• Adding links on every page to the relevant corresponding page at the Online Historical Newspapers Website.
• EveNDon has been a wonderful resource of free online directories, created by Eve and Don Kreiger of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Tragically, Eve passed away recently and Don has changed the name of the website to Don's List. Old links still work, but I wanted to make sure the site name was changed.
• I changed all references of Family Tree Connections to reflect its parent company, GenealogyToday.
• And just when I thought I was finished, Footnote changed its name to Fold3! Old links still work, but I did change the name on my site. I'll change links later.

Whew! And believe it or not, I have been adding links to directories. I'll post those updates later.

Thank you again for your patience, and as always, I'm grateful for new links and corrections sent my way (email me here).

News and General Updates

It's been over two weeks since you've seen an update on this website and I just wanted to let you know what was going on.  Several things have delayed me from posting any updated information to the blog:

1) I started the Online Historical Newspapers website and its corresponding blog and have been busy getting a lot of links and pages set up on that.

2) You may recall that I said a while back that I was changing the name of the website from "Online City, County, and Rural Directories" to "Online Historical Directories". I've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to change the names of each of the pages (several hundred) on this site, so of course, that has been taking up time. The reason I've been working on this rather than adding more directories links is that Cyndi Howells of Cyndi's List has been adding links to the pages on this website to her Cyndi's List website, and I want my website's pages to look uniform and consistent.

3) My laptop is not working well...it's in its dying days. I used to work on my Directories and Newspapers websites on my laptop while I was watching TV in the evenings, or while my son or husband was using the main computer. Now, we're all juggling to use the one computer and I can't work on the sites in the evenings during TV time. I'm looking at getting another laptop or netbook, so I hope to resolve this situation in a few months.

I actually have been adding some links to the Orange County, California page, but am not quite done, so have not made an official update yet. Thank you all for your patience and continued readership!

P.S. You may have heard that Ancestry has added quite a few more city directories to their subscription website and labeled it the 1950 Census Substitute. If you have a subscription to Ancestry or can access it through your local library, check it out to see if there are more directories added to your ancestral locations!

A Change in Name

I've decided to change the name of the website to Online Historical Directories, rather than Online City, County, and Rural Directories. The reason is that "city, county, and rural" are only a part of the historical directories I'm linking to. There are farm, church, business, community, medical, voter, school, telephone, and lodge directories, as examples.

You'll still see "city, county, and rural" on many pages until I get them changed over, but I feel the term "historical" is more accurate and encompasses the variety of directories that I'm finding online.

I'm still stunned at the amount of directories I have found online, both for free and at subscription websites. What I have linked to so far on the website is really only the tip of the iceberg! We are so fortunate to be living in this digital age with access to resources becoming easier and easier.

Many public library districts are scanning and placing their directories online, because they're finding that not only is it not horribly expensive to do so, but it can be done in small, do-able chunks of time. Also, the images don't take up a ton of expensive web space, especially if they are done in .pdf format. Even smaller public library districts have been able to put their local directories online because of these advantages, and I'm finding a plethora of resources out there that I'm very eager to share with you.

I appreciate your patience in getting the resources you're specifically looking for linked on the site. If there is ever a specific location that you would like to see linked sooner than later, drop me a line and I'll be happy to work on getting "your" location up and running!

E-mail Address, Screen Resolution, and Opening a Page

Because I've been getting so much spam, I've changed the way I display my e-mail address on the site. When you look at the bottom of any page, you will now see "Report errors and broken links or send suggestions for new listings here." When you click on the link, it will open your e-mail software and input kidmiffATgmailDOTcom in the address line. You will, of course, need to change the AT to @ and the DOT to .

I've also made a note about the screen resolution at the bottom of each page. I've had complaints that sometimes the tables on the pages appear to go off the screen on the right. This happens if you have a monitor with 800X600 screen resolution. You'll need to change it to 1024X768, if possible (sometimes if your monitor is older, you will still have "issues" or different issues, if you change the screen resolution). To change your resolution on a PC, go to Start, Control Panel, Display, then click the Settings tab. Move the slider over until it says 1024X768, then click either OK or Apply.

Every page link to another page on the site now opens in the same tab or window in which you are viewing. Links to other sites will still open in a new tab.