Local Knowledge, Part 4: Big Apple, Fine Print

Brooklyn directory dated August, 1941
had listings "corrected to July 10, 1941"

Read the fine print to date a source.

That's my local knowledge tip for today.

It actually works for every source in every location.

But in New York City, finding the date of a phone directory takes a bit more effort, because the entire city population is NOT listed in a single, massive directory. No, New York has five boroughs, each of which has its own quite large phone book.

Five boroughs, five phone books, and--just to make things more interesting--five different cutoff dates for listings. Which borough did your ancestor live in, and when? The fine print matters in the Big Apple.

August Cover Date Means . . . ?

In my previous post about searching free NYC telephone directories, I showed a sample from a 1941 Brooklyn phone directory. The snippet at top is a repeat because I want to emphasize that the cover date was August, 1941.

I clicked to the official page 1 of that directory to read the fine print. It said: "This issue corrected to July 10, 1941."

So what? If I search the August edition for an ancestor who moved to a new Brooklyn address on or after July 11, I either won't find that person or I'll find outdated information. A missing listing might mean . . . passed away, or married, or changed name, or moved away.

Or if someone's missing, it might mean no phone (ever or only for that particular year). That was the explanation when I couldn't find ancestors who, it turned out, were living as boarders in someone else's apartment. I discovered them in an earlier directory and in a later directory, both times in their own apartment.

Five Boroughs, Five Cut-off Dates for 1940

Looking at the 1940 phone directories digitized and posted online by the New York Public Library, I was surprised to see that each borough's directory had a different cut-off date for listings.

• Manhattan (1940 directory): "This issue corrected to November 9, 1939."
• Bronx (Winter 1939-40 directory): "This issue corrected to October 19, 1939."
• Brooklyn (Winter 1939-40 directory): "This issue corrected to January 4, 1940." 
• Queens (Winter 1939-40 directory): "This issue corrected to December 13, 1939." 
• Staten Island (Winter 1939-40 directory): This issue corrected to January 9, 1940."

I had ancestors in four of these five boroughs, so I needed to know where to look and check the dates of each edition. "New York City, 1940" wasn't enough.

Local Knowledge, Part 3: Free Big Apple Directories

Easy access to free New York City phone books via stevemorse.org

Knowing that May 1 of every year was Moving Day in New York City helped me understand the timing of moves for siblings of my paternal grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882-1943). That was Part 1 of my series on local knowledge of Big Apple genealogy resources.

In Part 2 of my series, I used free NYC Municipal Archives tax records to find clear b/w photos of the buildings where ancestors lived in 1940.

Now for Part 3. I wanted to look up my grandpa's New York-based siblings in 1940s phone directories, relying on local knowledge for free access.

New York Public Library's Virtual Resources

The New York Public Library is a fabulous source of genealogical resources, not only for researching New York ancestors but well beyond. Many of its resources have been digitized and posted online, available for free without a library card on a 24/7 basis.

The library's digital collection includes New York City directories, which it has been scanning and posting in recent years. This makes valuable genealogical info widely available to anyone, anywhere, who wants to search for a person or a business in the Big Apple, going back as far as 1786. These directories also feature interesting advertising and street maps of the time (context!).

Actually, the library's virtual collection includes both city directories (pre-telephone era) and phone directories--the latter for the five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island).

Not all borough directories are posted and not all years are available, but this an excellent source to tap if your ancestors lived or worked in New York City.

Steve Morse's Super-Easy Search 

My favorite way to search 1940 NYC phone directories for free is through Steve Morse's One-Step access to the books, borough by borough (snippet at top shows a sample from my research).

If you use this one-step access, select a borough on the drop down menu at top left of the search screen. Then click the arrows to progress through pages, or do a name search, or skip to the proper alphabetical page for the name you want.

The snippet shows my search for grandpa Isaac's brother Max Birk, who lived in Brooklyn in 1940. I specified "Brooklyn" as the borough and typed in "Birk" as the name. Steve Morse's super-easy search tool brought me to the page showing Max Birk at 602 Avenue T in Brooklyn, NY. This is the correct address for that time, as it matches Max's 1940 Census location.

By the way, I searched the 1940 Bronx phone book for Paul and Jennie Salkowitz (Jennie was Max and Isaac's sister). They weren't listed. Why? The light bulb went on: According to the 1940 U.S. Census, Jennie and her husband were boarders in somebody else's apartment. No way to have a phone of their own! They moved shortly afterward (on Moving Day, May 1, I'm willing to wager) and had a phone number in later directories.

Internet Archive: Browse Page by Page

There's a third way of accessing some NYC phone directories for free: via Internet Archive. The collection here is more limited. Happily, I did find a 1941 Brooklyn, NY phone directory for free.

Shown here is Max Birk's entry in this Brooklyn phone book, located by browsing page by page. Note the directory's specific date: August, 1941. That's a clue to check the dates on your sources, especially fast-changing phone directories in fast-growing cities like New York. More about dates in Part 4 of my series.

Father's Day: Where Dad Lived (and Why)

For Father's Day, I'm telling stories of where Dad lived, and why, and stories he told me about everyday life. Harold Burk (1909-1978) was born in Jewish Harlem, 77 E. 109th Street in Manhattan. That's the address on his birth certificate and the address where he lived at the time of the 1910 Census. It's just a short walk from the Northern end of Central Park.

Thanks to the images in the New York City Public Library's digital collections, I can see tenements similar to the building where Dad lived and read about conditions there. These East Harlem buildings were not quite as cramped and dank as tenements in the Lower East Side. Another plus: They were "uptown" and therefore more desirable, with less-crowded streets and within reach of greener pastures (literally) in upper Manhattan and lower Bronx.

The reason Dad's family lived uptown, rather than downtown in the Lower East Side where so many immigrants lived, has to do with family connections as much as infrastructure. When my grandpa Isaac Burk (1882-1943) got to New York City in 1904-5, he boarded with the Mahler family at 1956 Third Avenue in Manhattan. That's where Isaac married my grandma Henrietta Mahler (1881-1954) in June, 1906.

The bride and groom may have been cousins, a possibility I'm still researching, because documents show Isaac's mother's maiden name as Shuham and the maiden name of Henrietta's grandmother as Shuham. Both of those families had roots in Lithuania. Strong possibility of family connections, but no proof (yet).

By 1909, when Dad was born, his parents Isaac & Henrietta were living only a seven-minute walk from Henrietta's Mahler family apartment on Third Avenue. By 1915, according to the New York City Census, the two families were living in separate apartments in the same tenement house at 7 East 105th Street in Jewish Harlem. Built-in babysitters for a growing family: Dad was 6, his older sister was 8, and there were two more siblings under the age of 4.

Both the Burk and Mahler families found it convenient and desirable to live uptown in East Harlem because workers could commute by "el" (elevated trains) to jobs located in midtown or downtown. The Third Avenue El, as it was known, was fast and affordable.

This elevated train line stopped running during my lifetime as other mass transit options took its place, and the car culture took hold. In the early 1900s, however, the el and later underground subway lines enabled working people to escape the dirty, noisy, crowded Lower East Side. The NYPL has some atmospheric photos of the "el" at various periods.

Dad told stories of playing stickball in the streets as a youngster (maybe ducking the few cars that passed). He also told of boys daring each other to jump from one tenement rooftop to another. Even though the tenements were often butted up against each other or barely a few inches away, it wasn't at all easy or safe. Dad admitted he was just plain lucky to live through those escapades. Bet his parents never knew what he was doing!

Dad also told stories of taking horse-drawn buses from his Harlem home north to the Bronx for a daylong picnic outing. Sounds like the children would eat and then play while the adults shmoozed and snoozed before returning to their tenements. By the time I was old enough to hear these stories, it was hard to imagine the Bronx as a bucolic collection of farmlands and rural picnic vistas--but entirely true, as photos in the NYPL collection demonstrate.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and I'm delighted to keep his memory and his stories alive for future generations, in the spirit of #52Ancestors and the #GenealogyBlogParty's Dynamite Dads.

Family History Month: Using My Library Card for Genealogy

Whether I visit in person or log in at midnight from home, my library card has been an "open sesame" for family history research. I can't count how many times a library database or librarian has come to the rescue to help solve a genealogical mystery during my Genealogy Go-Over.

For everyday research, I love the convenience of accessing Heritage Quest from home with my local library's card, and I know many libraries also offer local or national newspaper databases for remote access. But I also have to look beyond my local library, because my research stretches across the country and across national borders.

Above, the Connecticut State Library allows in-state residents who have a state library card (separate from a local library card) to access the New York Times historical database stretching back to the 1800s, among other newspaper databases available for free, from home. This is handy because local libraries don't always have access to these databases. Thanks to this New York Times database, I've found birth, marriage, and death notices for ancestors, as well as mentions of ancestors' business dealings.

Looking for more info to understand my Ellis Island immigrant ancestors, I've browsed the New York Public Library's Digital Collections for old photos and old maps. Non-residents can apply for a NYPL card (for a fee) and access databases in their jammies, whether they're in Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon. The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne also offers non-resident library cards.

So see what your local and state libraries have to offer, and think about other library cards to expand your research access.

For more "free or fee" genealogy tips, see my posts here.