Directories have been published for various Alabama cities and counties since the early 1800s, though they may not be available for every year. Some directories focus on the businesses or occupations of an area, others include heads of households, landowners, and voters.

City and county directories are similar to present-day telephone books and are useful records for locating people. They were often published annually. They list heads of households and employed household members with their occupations and addresses. They can be used with census records or as substitutes for them.

Directories are particularly valuable for research in large cities where a high percentage of the people were renters, new arrivals, or temporary residents. In fact, a directory may be the only source that lists an ancestor if he or she was not registered to vote and did not own property. Most households were included because the directories were created for salesmen, merchants, and others interested in contacting residents of an area.

Directories have other clues that may require careful study to discover. For example, people in similar or related occupations were often relatives, in-laws, or friends. A year-by-year study of directories may reveal the movement of ancestors and relatives within the city and sometimes to or from other cities.

Many directories were published as county directories listing inhabitants of major towns in the county. Rural directories collected information on farmers, dairymen, and other rural residents. The Family History Library has city directories for various years from throughout the state of Alabama including:

Birmingham, 1902–1935 and 1940
Huntsville, 1859–1850 and 1931
Mobile, 1837–1935
Montgomery, 1859–1860, 1878, 1902–1935, and 1940