Trade Directories
Directory Resources are both a research tool and a valuable insight into the lives of your ancestors and what governed the lives. Pigot directories start arround 1820 and cover the major professions, nobility, gentry, clergy, coach and carrier services, Taverns and Public houses of the areas. Entries include the name, trade and address. Slater directories tend to be larger than the Pigots and cover the 1850s in a similar manner. Bulmer Directories have a larger history section than others, normally before the directory information. In Kelly's directories some residents will also be listed. There are sections on each major town and surrounding villages, with a history of the area in a great deal of detail as you would find in a gazetteer. Information on the main trades, the chief land owners, the type of soil and even the coverage dates of parish registers can also appear.
The
later Kelly directories from 1890 onwards contain more residents and these
are sometimes put in a section called Court Directory.
Finally the Post Office Directories in the 1900's gave fairly complete listings for the residents and tradespeople of an area.
S&N publish directories on CD ROM in Acrobat format which can be read on PC, Mac or Unix computers. They are searchable for most years apart from ones earlier than 1830 where poor quality typefaces or typesetting prevent them from being OCRd.
Stepping
Stone Directory CDs
These contain the images of pages in folders on the CD, and are not searchable
by name. They can be browsed using Windows Explorer. They normally have
S.S. after the name.
