Anyone familiar with old Jersey City directories?

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DeFilippis78
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Anyone familiar with old Jersey City directories?

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Re: Anyone familiar with old Jersey City directories?

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Alicia

Directories can be fun and fustrating.

This is what I found in researching 1900-1920 directories in Trenton, NJ. The directories were available for every year, but the family I was researching was not in every directory. Spelling of the name changed over the years and if I did not look carefully the family could be missed.

Here is a description of the directory process in Trenton in 1927

Compilation of the city directory was a massive undertaking in its day. John J. Cleary, writing in 1927, provides a description:
............

"My mind easily goes back to '79, '80, '81 and '82, [that's 1879, 1880, 1881 & 1882] for in those particular years, not yet being steadily employed at reporting, I was glad to be taken on the Directory force each Spring. . . . The second of April would see a staff of canvassers spread like a net over the city in a house-to-house quest of names. We waited until after April 1, because the custom used to be to have all the movings on the date named, and we wished to find families settled in their new quarters before enrolling them. . . . After about 10 days spent in canvassing the city, the work of compilation began at Mr. Fitzgerald's home. Half a dozen of the canvassers were retained for this job, which required care and special intelligence. The names had to be sorted alphabetically, the sifting being carried through not only the initial letter of each family name, but down to the last letter, and then to the Christian name. The same practice is still continued. Each name with occupation of the person and house address occupied a separate strip of paper, and according as they were placed in alphabetical order, the slips were pasted on a long sheet for the convenience of the printer."

http://www.trentonhistory.org/citydirec.html

You may have to search the 1905 NJ state census. I haven't found an index to it.

Debbie
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DeFilippis78
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Re: Anyone familiar with old Jersey City directories?

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So basically it could be wrong spelling?

Alicia
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Re: Anyone familiar with old Jersey City directories?

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Alicia

Spelling, or they moved and missed a directory or they did not provide the information to be included in a directory.

Debbie
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