Source Information

Graden, Debra, ed. Jersey City, New Jersey Directory, 1889-1890 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1997.
Original data: Boyd, W. Andrew. Gopsill's Jersey City Directory of 1889-90. Washington, D.C. A microfilm copy of this directory can be found at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

About Jersey City, New Jersey Directory, 1889-1890

Located in northern New Jersey across the Hudson River from Manhattan Island, Jersey City is a part of Hudson County. This database is a listing of city residents between 1889 and 1890. In addition to providing the person's name, information regarding occupation, business address, residential address, and page number from the original directory are included. It contains the names of about 69,300 people, mostly heads of households. For persons seeking ancestors from New Jersey before the turn of the twentieth century, this can be a useful source of information.

Ancestry.com regrets to inform you that Debra Graden passed away unexpectedly. Photocopies of the original data will no longer be available upon request. We are grateful to Debra for the long hours she contributed to making her databases such useful resources to so many people.

City directories are primarily useful for locating people in a particular place and time. They can tell you generally where an ancestor lived and give an exact location for census years. They are also useful for linkage with sources other than censuses.

There are usually several parts to a city directory. The section of most interest to the genealogist, of course, is the alphabetical listing of names, for it is there that you may find your ancestor.

Whenever you use a directory, however, it is important to refer to the page showing abbreviations used in the alphabetical section of the directory, usually following the name in each entry. Some abbreviations are quite common, such as h for home or r, indicating residence. There may even be a subtle distinction between r for residents who are related to the homeowner and b for boarders who are not related.

Some city directories list adult children who lived with their parents but were working or going to school. Look for persons of the same surname residing at the same address. If analyzed and interpreted properly, these annual directories can tell you (by implication) which children belong to which household, when they married and started families of their own, and when they established themselves in business. In cases where specific occupation is given, you can search records pertinent to that occupation.

Once an ancestor has been found in a city directory, there are several ways the information can be used to gain access to, or link with, such sources as censuses, death and probate records, church records, naturalization records, and land records.

Taken from Chapter 11: Research in Directories, The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy by Gordon Lewis Remington; edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry Incorporated, 1997).