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

For Vermont, directories have been published for various cities and counties since the mid 1800s, though they may not exist for every year. Some directories focus on the businesses or occupations of an area, while others include heads of households and landowners.

The University of Vermont and other libraries have collections of city and county directories. Typical types of directories are city directories, telephone directories, church directories, occupational directories, farmers directories, or rosters of society members.

The Family History Library has compact discs that incorporate recent telephone directories for most of the United States. These directories are not available at Family History Centers, but may be used at the Family History Library. Current telephone directories can also be found on the Internet, and may assist in finding living relatives.

A series of directories to businesses in Vermont is:

Vermont (State) Directories. Woodridge, Conn.: Research Publications, 1990–94. (On 20 FHL fiche 6044609–15; computer number 660765.) These directories for the years 1849 and 1855–1860 include the names of businessmen, officials, clergymen, merchants, and doctors and are listed by town and then alphabetically by name. These are a microfilm of originals published by various publishers.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society microfilmed their entire collection of Vermont directories. This collection is also available through the American Genealogical Lending Library in Bountiful, Utah.

Directories for each county in Vermont were published by Hamilton Child between 1881 and 1888. They include the names of residents and their occupation and include farmers and other rural residents. Directories of heads of households have also been published for some cities in Vermont. These and other directories can be found in the Family History Library Catalog by using a Locality Search under:

VERMONT- DIRECTORIESVERMONT, [COUNTY]- DIRECTORIESVERMONT. [COUNTY], [TOWN]- DIRECTORIES

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