Library Resources for Researching Property History

A city directory will contain an alphabetical list of citizens, listing the names of the heads of households, their addresses, and occupational information. Sometimes a wife's name will be listed in parentheses or italics following the husband's. Other helpful information might include death dates for individuals who had been listed in the previous year's directory, names of partners in firms, and forwarding addresses or post offices for people who had moved to another town. City directory may also contain a business directory, street directory, government directory, and listings of town officers, schools, societies, churches, post offices, and other miscellaneous matters of general and local interest.  If there is a street directory, it may tell you what business occupied a site or who lived there.

The University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives has a collection of print city directories.  To find out what is available, you can search the Library's online catalog LibrarySearch. Use the Advanced search.  Use the drop-down menu to limit the field searched to "Subject."  Search for things that contain the word "directories" and the name of the city, town, county you are looking for a directory of in the subject field.  This will return a list of what's available within our region.  If you want just items in the UO Libraries, limit your search to UO Libraries.

You will need an appointment to see items that are located in Special Collections and Archives, so contact them before you visit.  They are always happy to help you use their resources.

The University of Oregon does not subscribe to Ancestry.com.  Eugene Public Library or Multnomah County Library do subscribe and you may be able to access it there.