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(This page's most recent update is May 2026)
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City and business directories are available online from all over the U.S. and Canada and are what I consider another important (and underutilized) set of information that can assist you in advancing your family history and genealogy research.
Download the Quicksheet PDF
I have put together a Quick Reference Guide that has websites where you can find online city directories. Some are free (such as The Ancestor Hunt) and some are only available via a subscription.
To obtain the one-page Quicksheet pdf for easy reference, you can download it by clicking on the Download button:
For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets.
If you use Quicksheets often, the Quicksheet Vault puts 390+ of them in one organized place — clean, printable, and easy to reuse whenever you need them. Whether you keep digital references handy or build your own genealogy binder, the Vault makes research simpler. Learn more about the Quicksheet Vault HERE
One reply on “Where to Find Online City Directories”
I’ve been very fortunate to have access to the City Directories at HeritageQuest Online as a benefit of my local public library, which allows card-holders remote access from home. They provide remote access to:
Fold3,
HeritageQuest Online
Historic Map Works,
New England Historic & Genealogical Society Free Databases,
Newspapers.com,
NewsBank,
Sanborn Maps Texas.
For the first year of COVID, they also allowed remote access to Ancestry.com Library Edition.