{"id":837,"date":"2009-11-13T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T20:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/using-the-city-directories-at-footnote\/"},"modified":"2013-07-11T14:12:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T19:12:36","slug":"using-the-city-directories-at-footnote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/using-the-city-directories-at-footnote\/","title":{"rendered":"Using the City Directories at Footnote"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been spending quite a bit of time over the last few weeks exploring the city directories available at Footnote, now Fold3<\/a>.\u00a0 The first few days I was frustrated as my searches weren\u2019t turning up anything.\u00a0 But then I realized why, and have been able to effectively search the directories.\u00a0 This post will explain how the directories work on Footnote, and how to effectively find the people for whom you are searching.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, it is important to understand how the directories are set up on Footnote, in order to make the most of your searches.\u00a0 Unlike some of the other collections where all names are annotated (such as American Revolutionary War collections), the directories usually only have the first entry annotated.\u00a0 So when you search for John Smith, you are not likely to find a listing in the search results.<\/p>\n

There are ways around this issue.\u00a0 First, the directories are searchable using OCR, which stands for Optical Character Recognition.\u00a0 Simply put, the search analyzes the text on a particular page looking for optical characters that match the search term.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it\u2019s not foolproof, especially since some characters are mistaken for others and if the page is faded or has other flaws, it may not recognize the characters at all.\u00a0 Even with this search, your exact search may not be returned in the search results, which I will explain why using an example later in this post..<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n

Navigating to the Directories<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Choose Original Documents<\/strong> from the top navigation menu.<\/p>\n

\"nav1\"<\/p>\n

Scroll down to City Directories<\/strong> and click on the title link.<\/p>\n

\"nav2\"<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the state of your choice and click the state\u2019s link.<\/p>\n

\"nav3\"<\/p>\n

Click on the link for the city you want to search.<\/p>\n

\"nav4\"<\/p>\n

Click on the Browse<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n

\"nav5\"<\/p>\n

You will now see a screen that similar to that below:<\/p>\n

\"nav6\"<\/p>\n

Performing a Search<\/strong><\/h6>\n

From the screen you navigated to (see above), click on the year you want to search.\u00a0 Then in the search box, type in the surname of the person you are searching for, the click on the Go<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n

\"search1\"<\/p>\n

I searched for Ward in 1904.\u00a0 There are 642 matches.\u00a0 Because only the first listed name on a page is in the search results, I will not find anything for the person I am searching for, which is Bridget Ward.\u00a0 So the strategy here is to find a page that is likely to have your person on it.\u00a0 In this case, the third entry (for Harriett Ward) will put me the closest to Bridget, so I will navigate to that page.<\/p>\n

\"search2\"<\/p>\n

Once you click on a page, it will take you to the viewer.\u00a0 Here you can view the page, annotate it, save it, etc.\u00a0 By using the filmstrip at the bottom, you can navigate to other pages.\u00a0 In my case, I need to navigate backward to find Bridget.<\/p>\n

\"search3\"<\/p>\n

In the filmstrip, the orange arrow indicates the current page.\u00a0 An orange box around the page indicates that you have viewed that page.\u00a0 When you hover over a page in the filmstrip, it will have a pop-up that indicates the name of the first person on the page; this will help you navigate to the page you need.\u00a0 In my case, I just need to go back one page in order to find Bridget Ward.<\/p>\n

Now this one was a pretty simple search, for two reasons.\u00a0 First, the name I searched for happened to be the first name listed on a page, and was therefore annotated.\u00a0 Second, the name was popular enough that it was bound to show up using the OCR search.\u00a0 What do I mean by this.\u00a0 Well, just looking at the screen above, you can see the name Ward clearly in three instances (and there are plenty more on the page).\u00a0 Even if a few of them were flawed (e.g., was faded, page torn, crease through the name), the OCR could still pick up on other instances that are not flawed.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at an example.<\/p>\n

Returning to the search screen (click you back button twice), I am going to do a search for Stoffel in 1916.\u00a0 The search results return only one match, which is not in the realm I am looking for.\u00a0 It happens to be in the business section of the directory, not the individual section, so this does me no good.\u00a0 We\u2019ll look at why this was the only result in just a moment.<\/p>\n

\"search4\"<\/p>\n

So how do I navigate to a page within the realm of where I need to be?\u00a0 I head back to the search screen and try a search with a more popular name near where my listing would be.\u00a0 This time, I searched for Stocking.\u00a0 The first item in the search results was for a page that leads with \u201cStirn, Nicholas.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s close enough for me, so I click on that page to go to the viewer.\u00a0 Using the filmstrip at the bottom, I navigate to the page that starts with \u201cStocknick, Anthony\u201d to look for my Stoffel.\u00a0 And there it is.<\/p>\n

\"search5\"<\/p>\n

So back to the question:\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t this show up in the search results.\u00a0 First, the page it terribly faded, making it difficult for the OCR to pick up the characters.\u00a0 Second, there is only one instance of the name on the page, lessening the chance that OCR would pick up the instance (in the first example, there were plenty of instances of the name Ward, strengthening the chance that OCR would be able to pick up at least one of the instances).<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Now that you know how the directory search in Footnote works, you have a better chance of finding what you are looking for using the strategies I provided in the example above.\u00a0 The goal is to get close to the page you need, as opposed to getting to the exact page through the search (although it is possible in some cases).\u00a0 Being creative in your search will help get you close enough.\u00a0 Once you get close, simply use the filmstrip to navigate to the exact page you want.<\/p>\n

And while your there, why not annotate the name you were searching for.\u00a0 This will then show up in search results and help others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been spending quite a bit of time over the last few weeks exploring the city directories available at Footnote, now Fold3.\u00a0 The first few days I was frustrated as my searches weren\u2019t turning up anything.\u00a0 But then I realized why, and have been able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,25,300,29],"tags":[382],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-genblog","category-resources-genblog","category-technology-genblog","tag-tools-tech-fold-3","cat-27-id","cat-25-id","cat-300-id","cat-29-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-dv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3887,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions\/3887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}