Census records are especially helpful in learning the addresses where ancestors lived. The problem with census records is that they were only compiled every 10 years. Other tools are needed to find ancestors during the other years. One of the best tools is city directories.

Although we usually think of telephone books as a synonymous term for city directories, they are not the same. City directories were compiled long before telephones were invented. One of the first city directories in the United States was published in Baltimore in 1775. The telephone was not patented by Alexander Graham Bell until 1876, so phone directories were not common until the late 1800s and early 1900s. ×

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