Williamson County Genealogical Society Meeting

The Williamson County Genealogical Society meets on the third Thursday of every month, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the Round Rock Public Library. Meetings are open to the public, where a different topic is discussed each month, providing an excellent resource to those interested in learning about their family history.

Join us on Sept. 21 for City Directories: A Possible Breaker of Roadblocks. City Directories are an often-overlooked source for genealogists. Published from the early 1800s, they contain names, addresses, occupations, and sometimes even ethnicity of people in the city.

“Directories were created for salesmen, merchants, and other interested in contacting residents of an area. They are arranged alphabetically, giving lists of names and addresses. These often list the adult residents of a city or area.

The most helpful directories for genealogical research are city and county directories of local residents and businesses. These are generally published annually and may include an individual’s address, occupation, spouse’s name, and other helpful facts. An individual’s address can be very helpful when searching an un-indexed census of a large city.”

Mr. Mouton will talk about what a City Directory is, what it can do for you, how to use it, and how to find unknown relatives. He will cover a little of the history of city directories, what is in a city directory, why you should use a directory, how to make a directory work for you, different kinds of directories, what directories are on the Internet, how to identify other ancestral relatives, and an example of how to use all that information. What better way to learn how to break down some of your roadblocks.

Bring your curiosity, your questions, and your laptop—we have WiFi and tables so you can be comfortable.