GHPR 525 - Cultural Heritage Research Techniques

According to the Introduction of the 1921-22 Polk's Detroit City Directory (1922), the first Detroit city directory was published in 1837. Subsequent editions were irregular until 1872, when the R.L. Polk Company began printing them annually. 

MyHeritage is not transparent with the directories that are present in its index. It appears that the collection includes the Polk’s City Directory Detroit volumes from circa 1888 through the early 1950s.

Although earlier editions differ, by the 1920s the Detroit City Directory contained the following sections (order may differ) :

• Front matter (ads)
• Introduction
• Indices
• Statistical data
• Miscellaneous information (City, county, state and federal officials; public schools; courts; post offices; societies,etc.)
• Removals, alterations and additions
• Buyer's Guide (ads by alphabetical category)
• Alphabetical directory information (1st page includes abbreviations used)

The MyHeritage search interface is finicky. The easiest way to retrieve relevant results is to search by resident name or address. If you are looking for a specific year, list it in year field under the "Residence" heading (making sure that the drop down indicates "Match flexibly").  Publication should be "Detroit." See the example searches below.

By name:

By address:

MyHeritage's algorithm uses the abbreviation tables from the front of each book to expand raw records and make them more readable to humans (see https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/02/myheritage-adds-huge-collection-of-historical-u-s-city-directories/).

Unfortunately, this means that if you type an abbreviation (other than directional) that is not listed, you are likely to get no results. 

Incorrect:

8303 E Outer Dr. / 2216 Fischer St.

Correct:

8303 E Outer Drive / 2216 Fischer Street

It's best to avoid abbreviations and spell out the full word, or to leave off the suffixes completely.

Detroit's street addresses have undergone several changes, including:

• name changes
• number changes (1920)
• suffix changes for various routes (e.g., avenue becomes street, etc.). If you are not finding records on a property that you know should exist in the record, check to see if this is the case. For example, 
  • 2216 Fischer Street was at one time 2216 Fischer Avenue
  • 2903 Seminole Street was at one time 2903 Seminole Avenue

If your record looks funky (see example below), it’s best to check the actual digitization image. Often, smudges/marks/ink bleed through in the original will cause OCR errors.