AL, AZ, and AR Updates

As I mentioned earlier, Ancestry has added many more city directories to its collection, mainly from the late 1940s and the 1950s. Here are some recent updates:

Jefferson County, Alabama - four new links

Mobile County, Alabama - three new links

Montgomery County, Alabama - one new link

Maricopa County, Arizona - two new links

Pima County, Arizona - two new links

Pulaski County, Arkansas - three new links

Union County, Arkansas - four new links

CA, MO, and WA New Pages and Updates

I finally added all the rest of  links (18 more) to directories from Ancestry to the Orange County, California page.  I also added 21 free links to county and telephone directories from the Fullerton Public Library. It took me a loooong time to get this page completed because Ancestry divided up the directories for this county into three parts and I had to check each part to see which communities it contained so I could label the links correctly. I now have only 10 more California counties' directories at Ancestry to link!

I also added a link from the Hathi Trust Digital Library to the King County, Washington page.

I created the Boone County, Missouri page and added a link to it from the Hathi Trust Digital Library. This now makes five counties, plus the City of St. Louis, linked for Missouri.

Atlanta, GA Updates

Thanks to my friend, Amir Dekel, for pointing out the many city directories for Atlanta, Georgia on the Internet Archive! I just added all 30 of them to the Fulton County, Georgia page.

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!

Hawaii New Page

I've just added a new state page for Hawaii, with three Polk directories from the days when Hawaii was still a kingdom! These come from Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library and are free to view. I know that Ancestry has city directories for Honolulu as well and these will be added in the future. Also, the Hawaii GenWeb site has transcribed online historical medical directories. So stay tuned for these in the future.

Hawaii online historical directories are very difficult to find, so if you know of any other than the above resources, please e-mail me.

Kentucky Updates

I've added one new directory to each of the following pages: Kentucky state page and the Fayette County, Kentucky page. These are from the Kentuckiana Digital Collection, which is just amazing. Not many directories, but lots of other great digital resources! Check it out!

What's Coming in 2010 - and a New Website!

Happy New Year!

While I don't have any new pages or updates to report (I've been busy with holiday happenings and family gatherings, as I'm sure many of you are), I would like to let you know of some things to watch for in 2010.

Today I received an email from the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. They have added the following directories to their subscription website:

• Cleveland, Ohio: Boyd’s Directory, 1857 
• Medford, Mass.: 1930
• Mobile, Ala.: 1838
• Norwalk, Ohio: 1875
• Sacramento, Calif.: 1882
• Toronto, Ont.: 1856

Don't have a subscription to NEHGS? See if your local library does. Mine, the Spokane Public Library, recently added an in-building subscription.

Look for free Polk directories for cities in Washington State to appear on the Washington State Digital Archives website sometime in 2010 (I'll send out a notice).

Ancestry has announced the following databases will be available in 2010.

• Scottish city directories, 1800s–1900s - probably World Deluxe subscription and/or UK subscription
  
• Canadian city and area directories, 1800s–1900s - probably World Deluxe and/or Canadian subscription
• 1950s U.S. city directories (billed as 1950 census substitute) - U.S. Deluxe subscription
  

Again, check your local library to see if they have Ancestry's Library Edition (US libraries) to access city directories (and many other records and databases) for free.

And finally, while this has nothing to do with historical directories, I did want to announce to you, my readers of another new website I've started, the Online Historical Newspapers Website. Like the Online Historical Directories Website, you'll find links digitized historical newspapers online available for free or through subscription. This site will not link to transcribed articles or obituaries, but to whole digitized newspapers only!  And like the directories site, there is a corresponding blog for the newspapers site to keep you updated of changes and additions. Please add the site and the blog to your list of resources!

Happy New Year to you and yours. May 2010 see the coming down of brick walls and successful research!