What are the Town and City Directories Available for Research?

Our Statewide Guide to City Directories is a partial collection of all extant directories for Massachusetts. It is an inclusive guide but more of a list of directories accessible to our researchers.

What are the Best Research Centers with Collections of City Directories?

The best archive center to search directories on your own are at the (1) Massachusetts State Library, State House on Beacon Hill; (2) The Boston Public Library (3) the Massachusetts State Archives at Columbia Point (limited selection) and (4) at New England Historic Genealogy Society (society membership or a per day fee to use library required.)

Massachusetts City Directories

Find Street and Residential Information for Family History

Title Page of an 1837 City of Salem, Massachusetts City Directory

Salem, Massachusetts 1837 City Directory

Why should I use old, outdated Massachusetts city directories for my family history research?

From as far back as the colonial days of George Washington in 1798 and up through the early 1980s, existing Massachusetts city directories offer many terrific clues and research tips about finding people and institutions from the past.

You cannot find most of this information anywhere else.

Older city directories are much like telephone books from the 90s, except they offer a better panorama or "birds' eye view" into the makeup of a community at a particular time.

For example, do you need to know the names of all Boston Methodist church organizations in 1900? The names of all cemeteries in existence in Lowell in 1870? A list of all civic and social organizations in 1925 Worcester?

What City Directories are Available for Research?

The most comprehensive guide available by far is the Massachusetts City Directories and Voting Lists from the State House Library, Special Collections Department in Boston.

This is not an all-inclusive list of extant city directories in the state but is more of a list of directories accessible to us and you as researchers.

Additional directories for specific years for some cities and towns not listed, may be available elsewhere.

Local Massachusetts town libraries, town halls, or historical societies may also have the only surviving set of city directories for a specific year or span of years.