About This Collection:
Historical directories are an important source for identifying where you ancestors were at different periods of time. In addition to learning the street address where they lived or conducted business, you may also learn something about their occupation or status, who their neighbors were, or information about the places they lived in or the associations they were involved with.

This collection includes city directories, national and regional address books, as well as directories for specific industries, occupations, professional associations, etc. from the end of the 18th century to the early 20th century. The collection includes images of the original books as well as a full-text index. You can search across all of the books in the collection together or browse to find specific titles to search individually.

We are in process of building the largest online collection of German directories. So far, the collection includes tens of thousands of digital images and millions of names.

Important Note:
This database was built using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. While we have used the best technology available, pleae be aware that there are limitations to indexes created by computers as compared to humans. If you do not find a name using the search option, try browsing to find the name.