Ancestry.com announced an “update” in it’s “US City Directories 1822-1989.” It’s clear from taking a look at the advertisements that the creation of database entries from this record set was automated.

Production Machining and Welding Designing were apparently living as neighbors in Peoria, Illinois, in 1955. Mr. Designing worked as an “And.”

Apparently it wasn’t too difficult to find work as a conjunction in Peoria in 1955.

The city directories are a great source and, for those without ready access to these print materials, the images at Ancestry.com  are a definite advantage. But there are limitations.

Speaking of “And,” there’s one comment to make.

Manually creating indexes to these materials would be extremely time consuming. It’s easy to understand that there will be some erroneous entries in databases of this type. That’s why we mention these things on this blog.

Not because one shouldn’t use these materials (after all the images are accurate reproductions of the individual pages), but because informed users are better users.

We’ll be looking at some of the limitations of these directories in future posts.