Miscellaneous information on municipal, provincial and federal levels of government lists of institutions such as post offices, churches, courts, banks, hospitals and schools lists of benevolent, literary and scientific societies, associations, social clubs, military personnel lists of periodicals and newspapers historical descriptions of the place they cover, and of local industries and resources 19th-century county directories usually give a brief description of local communities Search strategies Begin by locating your street name in the alphabetical list of streets Check the street number every five or ten years to develop a history of the building's use and occupants, and to narrow the time when the house began to appear in the directories. Once you have established a date range, check the street number year by year to pinpoint precisely its first appearance. Beware Information in each directory was usually compiled the previous year. This means that data contained in a directory predates the directory's publication date by one year. For example, the directory for 1900 reflects the status of the site in 1899.
Information is valid only for the time the directory was compiled.
Directories give a snapshot of the property and its occupants for a single point in time. Directories list the occupant of the property, who may or may not be the owner. Of street name changes Names of streets may have changed. This includes photostats of maps and plans of Toronto, 1788-current, arranged by decade. The City of Toronto Archives has lists of former and present Toronto street names.