English Trade directories of the 19th Century

English Trade Directories of the the 19th Century

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Trade Directories are the Pre telephone equivalent of the yellow pages phone directory combined with some aspects of Post Office directories.
They contain the names of the Gentry, Clergy, Professional people, merchants, and tradesmen who have their own businesses. In coastal counties they also list ships captains and owners. In mining counties they list the mine company, the owner and the management employees. You usually won't find a tradesman if he was employed by someone else.
They were used by the "travelling salesmen" as a source of information as they made their rounds. Because of the use they were put to, they are organised by County, Town & adjacent area, class and or trade/occupation. They also give a potted history of each town/area.
These indexes are taken from the facsimile editions produced the Society of Genealogists and distributed on microfiche. As these are indexes they only include the Name, Place and Page for references. Further information must be obtained from the original documents or microfiche facsimile.

Through the courtesy of Rootsweb, my entire Trade directories listing is now available as a searchable data base. The Counties covered by this data base are the Pigot's Trade directories of 1830, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Durham, Huntingdon, Northampton, Northumberland, Oxford, Westmoreland, Wiltshire & Worcester.
Also included in this database is Slater's 1854 Trade directory of Durham County and the English Electoral Polls.

Hint: The following searches can be performed: * Surname Only, *Surname and First Name.

Surname (3 letter min.):
First Name: (optional)
If you wish to browse the indexes without using the search facility, these indexes are currently available on line with more to come:
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Copyright © Sue O'Neill, 2000