Trade and Street Directories

Trade directories really started to come into their own in the late 1800s. Prior to that they were patchy and often county wide rather than city/town based.

Firstly, employees are not in there. Secondly, you needed to be pretty wealthy to appear. They are a bit like newspaper announcements; most folk were not in there. Not being able to find someone is frustrating, but normal.

"Harfield's Commercial Directory of the Jews of the United Kingdom" (1894) is browsable here. Ann Rabinowitz has kindly agreed to share her blog about this valuable resource which can be viewed here.

Street directories can be more help when you are looking for an ordinary person but again they are patchy in their coverage. Some of the largest streets in Salford appear to have no one living in them because not everyone is listed. These resources are great IF your family is there, but they might not be.

Entry from 1959 Kelly's Directory for Manchester and Salford.

For this kind of research you need a name and place, an occupation, or street address is even better.

Directories Online:

Gazettes Online contains London, Belfast & Edinburgh Gazettes from 1752 to 1997.

Historical Directories Online provided by the University of Leicester.

Manchester Street Directories is one of our own databases.

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