I've been going over old census entries to see if I can find new clues as well as cite my sources properly. While this is somewhat tedious, I've already found a lot of information I've overlooked in the past. Here's an interesting example, the 1930 US Census for my wife's great-grandfather Saul Hytowitz and his family. Here's the interesting bit:
These are the columns 25-31 that deal with occupation, employment and veterans. I couldn't figure out what his occupation was from the handwriting although I can clearly see he worked in the shoe industry. Luckily, I ran across a blog post on Ancestories that had a link to a website that details the instructions for the census enumerators. And then I found this:
217. Distinguish a traveling salesman from a salesman in a store; the former should be reported as a commercial traveler.
I knew he was a shoe salesman because I found that out in the 1930 Pittsburgh City Directory and other sources:
But I didn't know he was a travelling shoe salesman. And guess what? His son Joe does the exact same thing.
A few other interesting things:
1. The city directory shows Saul owning the house on Straka Street with his children renting space there. The 1930 census says he's the one renting the house for $73 a month. I wonder which one is right. I wonder if he bought the house sometime during the year.
2. I just noticed that Saul's parents, Jacob and Rose are also in the city directory. Didn't see that before.
3. The veterans section of the census shows that Saul was a veteran and served in World War I. His son Joe was also a veteran. I need to figure out how to get their service records. I didn't notice that before either.
UPDATE: Steve Morse has a great little page that deciphers the occupation codes in the 1930 Census. I entered 4290 and got 'Commercial travelers' in 'Retail store or retail trade'.
I can't believe I overlooked this resource. The Internet Archive is such a great research tool with so many family histories scanned in full and other terrific resources. So I was very surprised to find 30 (yes, that's thirty!) Atlanta City Directories on the site. The earliest is 1867, two years after the end of the civil war. The latest is 1923.
The beauty of this resource is that you can download the entire books to your hard drive in searchable PDF format or you can browse it online and run searches.
Here's the link to the "Atlanta City Directory" search I ran. Enjoy!
Most of the Atlanta City Directory information I have comes from the Fulton County Public Library. I have not been able to locate anything online except for one or two copies. Footnote doesn't have any and every time I searched Ancestry.com I found only 1889-1890 and the Strangers' Guide:
I get the above results when I enter "Atlanta Directory" in the keyword search in the card catalog.
So imagine my surprise when I got some hits that led me to other years. When I tried to find these specific results in the card catalog I couldn't. So I tried a different way. I decided to filter the catalog this way: 
Same results including something that has nothing to do with Atlanta, the "Baronia anglica concentrata, or, A concentrated account of all the baronies commonly called baronies in fee." Whatever.
So this time, after I filtered by 'Directories & Member Lists' I chose the first option in the list which was 'U.S. City Directories' which has over 6 million records. The search on this screen is useless and if anyone knows how to get good results from it, I'm all ears. When I tried to search for 'Tuggle' in 'Atlanta' with an exact match I got no results. When I turned off the exact matches for 'Atlanta' I got 2,766 results starting with New York. So that's a complete waste of time.
On the right hand side of the screen you have the option to browse the collection, and that's done through another set of filters. And here's where you can find all the directories from 1877-1890 and one for 1948-1949:
From here it's easy to get to the correct year, but then you lose the ability to search that specific volume. So you have to browse through it and load all the images until you get to the right page. This is a terrible way to go through a City Directory because you can miss so much important information like the street listing or the business section.
I even tried to copy and paste the titles into the title and keyword search boxes in the card catalog but obviously that didn't work. The good news is that these are fairly good scans and I don't believe I had anything prior to 1887 at the library.
I wonder how many other important titles I've been missing on Ancestry.com because they are impossible to find in an easy way. Why do they hide these titles in this way?
We had a short visit to the Smyrna City Library today and I have to say their genealogy section is quite impressive for such a small library. I was also able to do a couple of quick searches on their ProQuest databases. I'm not sure why I can't get the Atlanta Contitution to show up on CobbCat, which is the Cobb County Library System and has home access to ProQuest, but I need to figure this out since it is a very good resource.
I also found out a few days ago that the Atlanta History Center has a great website and research room. If you go to search the collection (under research) you will find their Terminus system as well as photo albums, the architecture database and the Franklin Garrett Necrology Genealogical Resource. Franklin Garrett’s Necrology is a genealogical resource for white men from the metropolitan Atlanta area, twenty-one years of age or older, who died between 1857 and 1931. Women listed in the necrology are mentioned in reference to their male counterparts. It's a great resource because it can give you an idea if the information was found in an obituary.
So today, I found the obituary of my wife's 3rd-great-grandfather, Pinkney Jackson Tuggle:
Death of Mr. P.J. Tuggle. - Mr. Pinkney J. Tuggle, a well known citizen of Atlanta, died night before last at ten o'clock, at the residence of his son-in-law, Mr. Pierce Mims, 42 North Bell street. Mr. Tuggle was seventy years of age, having been born in Greene county in 1815. He was married to Miss Sarah W. D. Carter, daughter of Christopher Carter, of Newton county, and twelve children were born unto them, ten of whom are living. After the war Mr. Tuggle moved to Cherokee county, and later moved to Atlanta. During the last summer he was stricken with paralysis of the throat, and suffered much from that cause, but his death was the result of pneumonia. He will be buried at Oakland cemetery at ten o'clock today. Mr. Tuggle was a kind-hearted man and an affectionate husband and father, and had not an enemy in the world.
The Atlanta Constitution (1881-2001); Nov 8, 1885; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945) pg. 11
Most of the information in this obituary was already known to me, but there were a few things that were new:
1. I didn't know that Pinkney was a citizen of Atlanta. Everywhere I have found him his death place was Greene County. I even read in one place that he was buried at Oakland Cemetery because he refused to be buried at the William Tuggle plantation in Greene County. So I wonder why none of the researchers before me figure out that he died in Atlanta. I guess it's just the copy/paste nature of today's genealogy? Strange.
2. Up until now I hadn't researched all of Pinkney's children. I did a couple of quick searches for Pierce Mims and found out he was married to Lily Cola Tuggle and his full name was actually Franklin Pierce Mims. There are many trees for that family that I can now connect to. And I also found grave photos from Oakland Cemetery and actual family photos of Pierce and Lily. I also found their death certificates. Lots of great info to follow up on.
3. I only know of 10 children for Pinkney and Sarah, not 12. Two may have died in infancy but in any case, I wonder who they were and why I have not seen them before. Add to my ever-expanding to-do list.
4. I have only looked at Atlanta City Directories from 1887 onwards so I wonder what information I might find in 1885 if there is even a city directory for that time.
5. This last point reminded me to look at the census information I have for this family. I was shocked to see that I only had 1850 and 1860 information, when they lived in Greene County. I quickly pulled up 1870 (Canton, Cherokee County) and 1880 (Atlanta, Fulton County).
6. In 1880, Pinkney and Sarah lived with their daughter Mary J. (Martha Jenny) Vining and her husband David M. Vining at 225 Decatur Street. There are a total of 16 people living in this house including Paul Tuggle who was Pinkney's son and is buried next to his parents at Oakland.
7. Sarah's middle initials are wrong in the obituary. Her full name was Sarah Whitehead Battle (Tuggle) Carter. I wrote about her and her maternal line here.
Last year, I found Pinkney and Sarah's graves at Oakland Cemetery a while back and added pictures. I just looked at the photos again and noticed the Masonic symbol on the tombstone. Milton B. Tuggle, their son was also a mason. That's something else I need to check up on.
While searching for Pinkney Tuggle I came across an article in the Atlanta Constitution from 1895 about a scandalous legal custody battle over the 9 year-old grandson of P.J. Tuggle (who was named after him). There is a lot of drama in that story, including two parents who keep abducting the child from each other, private detectives, a chastity discussion by the Judge Westmoreland and much more. But that's a story for another post.
I mentioned in my last post how much City Directories have been helpful in my research and wanted to point my readers to a new site from Miriam Robbins Midkiff:
Online City, County, and Rural Directories Website
This new site has set a lofty goal to have a complete listing for city, county, rural, business, and other types of directories for the United States and Canada, and then go on to add directories for other countries. The navigation is very easy and you can quickly get to what you are looking for. Since this is a work in progress you need to check back and see what's been added recently.
Of course, there have been a lot of directories added lately to Ancestry.com and Footnote.com, but those are pay sites and they are not complete anyway. Here's an example:
I know my wife's Hytowitz line arrived in the US around 1880, but since there is no 1890 census I have a huge gap until I find them in the 1910 Census. I have tried everything I can think of to find them in the 1900 Census, but with no luck so far. Looking through the Pittsburgh City Direcotries on Footnote is extremely frustrating. But on Miriam's site I found the links to Eve and Don which are so easy to browse through.
Anyway, check out the site and Miriam, if you need any help, let me know!
I am embarrassed to say that I made one of the dumbest mistakes in my research so far. I guess I can blame my inexperience but that's really no excuse. What did I do? I didn't try enough spelling variations for Selena Bishop. I have seen her named spelled Selena, Selina, Celina, Alina and Salena. But only when I looked at the photo I took of the 1932 Atlanta City Directory did I decide to actually run some searches on Salena Brannon (her married name). And guess what I found? Her death certificate. Doh! So I ordered the death certificate through VitalChek and it should be here soon. I really hope it has her parents' names on it. That would crack open my biggest brick wall to date.
I really need to devise a research checklist and get organized. Does anyone have a good list? I know everyone has different tactics but I would love to hear some suggestions.
And now for a feel good story for the holiday season. Has anyone heard of Cliff Young? Well if you have or haven't, go read about this amazing athlete, who at the age of 61 ran his first ultra-marathon (543.7-mile (875-kilometer) endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne) and won! Here's the full story.
One of the reasons I've been visiting the library is to go through the City Directories. I looked at all my research subjects and tried to find them and see what information I can gain about them. And let me tell you, if you're not looking at City Directories you are missing out on a lot of information. I am not sure how accurate it is, but it is extremely helpful.
For example, the Atlanta City Directories usually have two indexes. The first is a street address index that lists all the streets in the city and then the house number. Next to each house number you will find the residents. This is very helpful when you are trying to figure out who lived in a certain house and you don't know all the names.
The second index is obviously the names index. But it doesn't just give you the name. You can see the last name, then usually head of household name and wife's name in parenthesis. Then you will get an occupation and place of work. Next to that you can see the persons address and whether they were renting or boarding at that location.
There are a lot of additional tidbits that are invaluable clues. For example, you might find a person who died that year and get a date of death. You can find widows listed with their deceased spouse's name next to them in parenthesis. Sometimes if someone worked for another person as a cook or driver you will see their employer's name.
Needless to say I was blown away. And then, on my first library visit, I forgot to bring my camera (doh!) so I wrote down everything I could find. I took down 3-4 books at a time and went through a through surname search to see who I could find. What really helped me find hidden relatives is that they sometimes were listed as living in the same house. Here's an example:
This is a partial listing of Brannon's living in Atlanta in 1932. Look what I can find from this:
1) L Travis, married to Esther, works as a Secretary/Treasurer for Charles J. Williamson Inc. and rents a house at 209 Poplar Circle. From my previous research I know that Lester Travis Brannon Sr. was married to Esta (Esther) Louisa Cherry and was a bookkeeper/accountant. In 1930 they are listed in the census as living at 189 Poplar Circle. This is a perfect match. I can now go through the rest of the directories, year by year and see where he worked and where they lived. This is information I can't get anywhere else since it's past the 1930 census.
2) Lollie G, married to Louise, works as a musician at the Fox Theatre and rents a house at 1186 Stewart Avenue. Before I found this I knew he was a piano salesman from the 1920 census. But this adds so much more and I didn't even know his wife's name. But this gets better:
3) William L works as a salesman and rents a house at 1186 Stewart Avenue as well. This is my wife's elusive grandfather who I know as Lawrence, not William. The six siblings all had names that started in the letter L. Leile/Lula, Louis, Lester, Lollie, Levi and Lawrence. Anyway, he's living with his big brother Lollie. The thing is, in 1932 his son, my father-in-law, is born but Lawrence is not listed as living with a spouse yet. I wonder when these were actually published and how old the data is in them. And a little more:
4) Salena L, widow of William T, owns the house at 1186 Stewart Avenue! Salena (Selena) is my wife's great-grandmother and the daughter of my mysterious Margaret Bishop/McElrath. I don't have a date of death for her yet, but if I keep going through these directories I might be able to find that. I also find it hilarious that her two sons are renting rooms from her. Smart woman!
5) Is Lula that rents apartment C11 at 635 North Highland Avenue one of the sisters? I don't have any information about her so this could lead me down a new path.
As you can see there is a lot of information here. I took this page as an example, but I have tracked the family members for 20 years through the turn of the century and found middle names, spouse names, occupations, places of employment and so much more.
Bottom line: If you are not looking at City Directories, you are losing out!
