DC, GA, WA, BC, and ID New Pages and Updates

Here are the latest updates and new pages. I added a few links for the District of Columbia and Georgia from the EveNDon website, then switched to Ancestry and USGenWeb to add all I could find on my home state, Washington, with a few links from neighboring Idaho and British Columbia. I do intend to go back and finish adding all the EveNDon links for the rest of the states, but it's nice sometimes to mix things up a little.

Speaking of EveNDon, I noticed when I was on the site earlier that there is a memorial to Eve, who passed away June 30th. How sad! She and Don have given the genealogical community such a gift by uploading these directories to their site and not charging at all to view them. The site does take donations, so I encourage you to donate something as a way of giving back to the genealogical community.

Some good news: The Got Genealogy? website has declared the Online City, County, and Rural Directory Site their July 2009 Site of the Month! I stumbled upon this great website a while ago doing a Google search for city directories and found Lisa's helpful free online newsletter on that topic. I wrote more about Got Genealogy? on my other blog here. Check it out! I'm sure you'll love all the goodies at Got Genealogy?!

I added all the Washington State directories that I could find anywhere online...mostly at Ancestry and USGenWeb sites. I believe that I have 99% of the directories available online for this state now linked on my site. There are probably a few out there that might be "hidden": Pacific Coast directories or British Columbia directories that might have some listings for Washington residents. I'll keep my eye out. Meantime, if you have ancestors or relatives from Washington State, enjoy the links! I am disappointed that there are not more free sites that contain Washington directories (most are linked to Ancestry). However, do not forget that the Washington State Digital Archives are preparing to upload many Polk directories for Washington communities to their website, hopefully in September. Volunteers are needed; if you would like to help this project along, check out this post I wrote in May.

New Pages

Fulton County, Georgia - with one link from EveNDon

Richmond County, Georgia - with one link from EveNDon

Bingham County, Idaho - with one link from Ancestry

Kootenai County, Idaho - with 12 links from Ancestry

Clallam County, Washington - with seven links from Ancestry

Cowlitz County, Washington - with four links from Ancestry

Franklin County, Washington - with one link from a USGenWeb site

Island County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry

Jefferson County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry

Kitsap County, Washington - with five links from Ancestry

Kittitas County, Washington - with five links from Ancestry

Lewis County, Washington - with four links from Ancestry

Lincoln County, Washington - with one link from a USGenWeb site

Mason County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry

San Juan County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry

Skagit County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry and two from USGenWeb sites

Snohomish County, Washington - with five links from Ancestry and two from USGenWeb sites

Spokane County, Washington - with 13 links from Ancestry

Thurston County, Washington - with one link from Ancestry

Yakima County, Washington - with four links from USGenWeb sites


Updates

Articles - added two articles; one by Lisa B. Lee and another by Phyllis Matthews Ziller. There are now 16 links to articles that you can read to help you understand how useful city directories are and how to best utilize them in your genealogical research!

British Columbia - one link from Ancestry

District of Columbia - three links from EveNDon

Georgia - four counties total now linked

Idaho - three counties total now linked

Washington - 20 counties total now linked

King County, Washington - with 20 links from Ancestry and one from a USGenWeb site

Pierce County, Washington - with 20 links from Ancestry

Whatcom County, Washington - 11 links from Ancestry, 14 from USGenWeb sites, and one from the InternetArchive

Updates and New Pages for June 14, 2009

I created a ton of new pages as well as made many updates today!

Updates:
The biggest update was the one on the Cook County, Illinois page. Currently, all links (especially the ones from Footnote) are correct and formatted properly. I also added a link from Eve and Don.

Resources - added links to NEHGS and KentuckyCityDirectory

Articles - added link to Dae Powell's article, City Directories, on his Shoestring Genealogy website

San Bernardino County, California - two new links from Ancestry

Orange County, California - two new links from Ancestry

Los Angeles County, California - two new links from Ancestry

Hartford County, Connecticut - 10 new links from DistantCousin

New Haven County, Connecticut - corrected format of links

Fairfield County, Connecticut - two new links from DistantCousin

Adams County, Illinois - one link from Eve and Don

Madison County, Illinois - corrected links from Ancestry; added link from Eve and Don

St. Clair County, Illinois - one link from Eve and Don


New Pages:
Colorado

Denver County, Colorado - with one link from DistantCousin

El Paso County, Colorado - with one link from DistantCousin

Delaware

New Castle County, Delaware - with one link from DistantCousin

San Francisco County, California - with three links

Santa Clara County, California - with three links

Alameda County, California - with three links

San Mateo County, California - with three links

New London County, Connecticut - with one link from DistantCousin

Glynn County, Georgia - with one link from DistantCousin

LaSalle County, Illinois - with two links

Christian County, Illinois - with two links

Peoria County, Illinois - with two links

Kane County, Illinois - with two links

Updates and New Pages for the Week of June 7 - 13, 2009

Updates:

British Columbia - eight new links from Our Roots

St. Clair County, Illinois - one link from Ancestry

Essex County, Massachusetts - three links, one each from InternetArchive, DistantCousin and Eve and Don

Articles - added five links to articles about researching city directories. The one by Kory Meyerlink is especially helpful and detailed, in my opinion.

New Pages:

United Kingdom

England* - with four links

Bristol County, Massachusetts - with three links

Hampden County, Massachusetts - with one link

Hampshire County, Massachusetts - with one link

Middlesex County, Massachusetts - with two links

Norfolk County, Massachusetts - with four links

Plymouth County, Massachusetts - with two links

Suffolk County, Massachusetts - with twelve links (Boston is in Suffolk County)

Arizona - with one link

Maricopa County, Arizona - with four links

Pima County, Arizona - with two links

*I haven't decided yet if I will break up the four countries of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, North Ireland and Wales) into county pages. For the time being, I will leave it. If I find too many links to keep the pages neat, organized and unconfusing, I will further categorize them by county.

I've also begun adding county pages for all the United States. These county pages are not "live" and do not have links on them. However, it will make it easier for me when I come across resources; I'll be able to put the links on the already-created county pages and then make them live. Creating pages is one of the more time-consuming details of my webmaster tasks, and although this behind-the-scenes activity isn't readily obvious to my readers, it will eventually speed along the process of getting data on the website.

Thank you to all who continue to send me links. My list is ever-growing! Also thanks to you all who are being patient with me while I correct and update pages that I first created weeks ago in the old format.

Happy Hunting!

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.

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.