City Directories -MARSDEN BROWN'S REAL IDENTITY SOLVED BY CITY DIRECTORIES
Marsden Brown, born 30 Sep 1833 in Tionesta, Venango, Pennsylvania was a mystery . . . until city directories were consulted.
The first of five children born to Asa Clark Brown and Eleanor Huffman was Marsden Brown. Marsden moved his family to Minneapolis, Minnesota after his service in the Civil War. Unfortunately, the Civil War Pension and Service indexes had no entry for him. The last known record of him was the 1865 state census in Minneapolis. After that, no records could be found for him. It looked as if he had disappeared. With a name like Marsden, it should have been easy to locate him.
I turned to the records of the last known locality and began a search in the city directories. I found him listed in the following city directories in Minneapolis:
- 1871/72: Brown, J Marsden, carpenter, 3d bet Minnetonka and Helen.
- 1873/74: Brown, Marsten, carpenter, res Washington av, near 6th av south.
- 1875: Brown, Marston, carpenter, r. Washington av. bet. 11th and 12th aves. S.
- 1876: Brown, Marston, carpenter, r. 203 2d av. S.
Most directories list the name, their occupation, and their residence. Later directories often list the name of the spouse.
The 1871/72 directory broke the research case of Marston Brown open. In all previous research, he had NEVER been listed with Marsden as his middle name. I rechecked the pension index, and found an entry for Joshua M. Brown who served from Pennsylvania. His pension records, though they contained only two pages, gave Joshua Marsden Brown's birth date as 30 Sep 1833. His Declaration for Pension document, dated 8 October 1908, listed his residence as Seattle, Washington. He had moved west!
He was found in the following records in Seattle:
- 1899 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, teamster, res 1605 23d av.
- 1900 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, teamster, res 1602 23d av.
- 1900 CENSUS: Brown, Marden; Brown, Olive; Brown, Loring
- 1901 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, teamster 1806 23d av, res same
- 1902 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, express 1806 23d av. res same
- 1903 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, expman, h 235 29th N
- 1904 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsten, tmstr, h 235 29th av N
- 1905 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden, expmn, h 235 29th av N
- 1906 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden expmn Main and Railroad av h 235 29th av N
- 1907 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden tmstr h 235 29th av N
- 1908 DIRECTORY: Brown Marsden expmn h 235 29th av N
Just like tax records in the south, city directories provide an every-year accounting of an individual. Knowing where a person is living leads to other record sources. Notice that Marsden was no longer listed in the directories after 1908. This suggests that he either moved away, or he died. He was not found in the 1910 census in Washington, nor was he found in the statewide death index which began in 1907. It's too bad that his death wasn't as easy to find as was his half-brother's. Lorenzo D.
Brown's last entry in the Minneapolis city directories even listed his death date.
Using a variety of other sources, I learned that Marsden moved back to Minnesota about 1908, and eventually died there in 1911.
HOW TO LOCATE CITY DIRECTORIES
City directories were first published in the 1700s. Many of these have been microfilmed and are available in larger repositories such as the Family History Library, the National Archives, Allen County Public Library, and the Library of Congress. Searching their online catalogs will provide the necessary call numbers.
Do not be discouraged if you cannot identify a directory in these repositories. Thousands of directories, even for smaller towns, exist. Knowing where to find them can be a challenge. A relatively new project for locating all directories in the United States is explained at www.uscitydirectories.com
The city directory site attempts to identify all printed, microfilmed, and online directories, and their repositories for the country. The site answers these important questions:
- - Does a directory exist for a locality?
- - If it does, where can it be found?
Discover if your locality has a directory by selecting the state from the list in the upper left of the www.uscitydirectories.com home page. If you do not have easy access to the records listed, you can order them through Genealogy Research Associates' Record Lookup Services.
The most intriguing thing about city directories is that you never know what you'll find! One of the earliest city directories for Cincinnati, Ohio, actually listed the birth state of every person in the directory.
