Lynn City Directories 1882 – 1974
You don’t have to go to a paid subscription site to access city directories for the City of Lynn, Massachusetts. You can access nearly a century of free Lynn city directories from the Southern Essex Registry of Deeds website.
City directories are a great way to learn about the residents of your house in between the census years. You’ll need to do deed research first to find out the names of the owners of your home, then you can search for the names in the city directories. Some directories will provide a listing by street, which works well for the more recent directories or if your street name hasn’t changed.
Where to Find the City Directories
To find the city directories go to the SalemDeeds.com website.
Look for the menu on the left and select Special Projects and then in the sub-menu, choose City Directories.
Accessing the Books
Now you’ve arrived at the City Directories page. By pressing on the Book field, you’ll see a list of all the years that are available. There are over 80 city directories in total between the years 1882 and 1974.
Select the year you want to see. In the Section menu you can jump between main sections such as Title Page, Index to Contents, Index to Advertisements, Index to Advertisers, Street Directory, General Directory, Business Directory, City Directory and Cover. The options will vary by year.
In the 1900 Lynn Directory, the General Directory sections provides information about residents. Be sure to check out the list of abbreviations at the start of the chapter so you can understand what you are reading.
Use the zoom buttons (or scroll on your mouse) to make the text bigger. And use the download button to save the page to your computer. The download provides a nice, high quality png image file. Page arrows on the right and left let you navigate pages one by one.
The chapter called City Directory (Lynn, 1900) contains information about the officers and workers in the City of Lynn.
Here are some of the many boot and shoe manufacturers in the City of Lynn in 1900.
The 1975 book contains an alphabetical directory that includes “important facts” such as Name, Wife’s Name, Address, Occupation, Employer, Head of Household, Employed Women, Retirees, Widows, Students (18 years and older) and Members of the Armed Services.
As always be sure to check for the list of abbreviations. Included suburban town names (S for Salem, N for Nahant, etc) are listed as well as abbreviations for some major businesses (NET&T for New England Telephone & Telegraph Co).
Limitations and Tips
The limitation of this free offering from the Southern Essex Registry of Deeds is that there no search capability or way to jump to a specific page. You will have to use the Section options or navigate page by page. Some of these books are over 700 pages so that might get a bit tedious.
But being able to access these books online, for free without leaving home is a great advantage.
View the House History Guide for Lynn, Massachusetts.
Learn more about City Directories – read 3 Tips to Extract Details from a City Directory.
Leave a comment if you have any questions about how to use the city directories.
