11.6 BMD and Census Substitutes
Another way around the privacy issues that protect original certificates for BMD is to turn to substitutes like the ones described in Chapter 8. Newspapers, sexton records, burial records, and church records are all good sources to turn to when researching in the 1900s. Generally, there could be access to census records in the early twentieth century but, for later information, wills, land records, and voter registration indexes make good census substitutes.
Phone books and city directories hold a wealth of information for people living in the 1900’s. City directory collections are available on each of the “big four” websites, and they may provide more than a phone number and address. City directories could list spouses and other household members, occupation, and more. If a research subject owned a business, there may be advertisements printed in city directories. Additionally, local or university libraries may have collections of city directories.
CHICAGO STYLE:
Begin with the collection in quotation marks, person’s name with event and standardized date, describe the database, add the italicized website, then accessed date in spelled out month, numerical day, year format, end with the text of the url.1
“1856 Chicago City Directory and Business Advertiser,” James P. Mason trunkmaker at W.&G. Wright, Google Books, accessed February 5, 2025, https://books.google.com/books?id=lN8CAAAAYAAJ&dq=1856%20Chicago%20City%20Directory%20and%20Business%20Advertiser&pg=PR7#v=onepage&q&f=false.
EVIDENCE EXPLAINED:
Name of the directory or phone book in italics, in parenthesis add the city and state : publisher, and the year. Insert the name of the person on the record; describe the database, italicized the website, in parenthesis add the url : standardized access date, end with details about the document like page or image numbers. Bold everything after the website.2
1856 Chicago City Directory and Business Advertiser (Chicago, Illinois : 1956). James P. Mason; imaged, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=lN8CAAAAYAAJ&dq=1856%20Chicago%20City%20Directory%20and%20Business%20Advertiser&pg=PR7#v=onepage&q&f=false : 5 February 2025), page 96.
SENSIBLE CITATION:
Start with the collection in quotation marks, then list the person’s name with the event followed by standardized date and place if they were not in the title, describe the database, insert identifying information about the record like film, page, or certificate numbers, add the website in italics, end with the standardized access date. Embed the url within the citation from the person’s name to the end of the standardized place.
“1856 Chicago City Directory and Business Advertiser,” James P. Mason trunkmaker at W.&G. Wright in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States, imaged, page 96, Google Books, accessed February 5, 2025.