Women's History Month 2019: Telephone Books

The descendant of the city directory is often thought of as the phone book. After all it's a city directory but with phone numbers.

1905 San Francisco Phone Book available from Internet Archive

Well sort of. The first telephone book was published in 1878 but it did not contain phone numbers. It wasn't until the 1889 that numbers were actually printed. And unlike the city directory which tried to document every address, phone books only included subscribers which didn't represent nearly everyone until much later.

And as you probably know, as time went by not everyone was listed. Some people chose not be listed or limited their listing to a name (or variation of their name) and a phone number. I had a phone as a teenager but my phone number wasn't listed.

So research in the late 19th and 20th century should include a combination of city directories and phone books. Phone books might be a tad harder to track down but a good place to start is digitized book websites. Also consult the library in the town you're researching for possible collections. In some cases they may even have digitized copies on their website.

As you research your female ancestor's life, keep a timeline and list her or her family's appearance in the census, city directory, and phone book (if applicable).

To learn more about the history of phone books, see my article on the GenealogyBank Blog.