Here’s a quick tip for those of you with ancestors who lived in Detroit, Michigan.
On January 1, 1921 new address numbers were assigned to many streets in Detroit. There is an explanation at the beginning of this book as to why this was done.
So, if your ancestor was living at 107 Clarendon Avenue N. prior to the renumbering in 1921, the new address would be 8868 Clarendon Avenue N. That’s quite a change.
This kind of change would have to be recorded in our family history in order to properly represent the location. Sort of similar to when all the county lines changed over the decades.
NOTE: Any location we list for our ancestors should always be recorded as it was at the time. Not, as it was later on. This is true of cities, counties, states, countries or street addresses.
This list for Detroit is published by Steve Morse on his website stevemorse.org. We are all familiar with Steve Morse for his publication of immigration information from Ellis Island and Castle Garden. But, his website contains much more than that now.
Here is a list of the resources on this site for Detroit, Michigan.
Here is the direct link to the PDF containing those old to new numbers. Detroit Old and New House Numbers effective 1 Jan 1921. It downloaded pretty quickly for me. I immediately saved it to Evernote and tagged it for easy reference.
I didn’t know about this specific resource until it was posted on one of the many genealogy Facebook pages I belong to. In this case it was the Detroit Genealogy group. My thanks to Richard Nolan for sharing it.
I think I’ll go back to the Steve Morse site right now and see what other hidden resources he has that I didn’t know about.
OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
Detroit Free Press Newspaper Now Onine - 1837-2015
City Directories - A Treasure Trove of Genealogical Information
Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl
Copyright © 2010-2016 Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Hi! This list is really great - I have several relatives and ancestors that lived in the City of Detroit. But I also have relatives that lived in the City of Highland Park, which was within the City of Detroit. Do we know if there is also a changed address list for Highland Park? My relative's address does not show up on the Detroit list. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi. Thanks for your question. I don’t personally know about the City of Highland Park. I have not come across it during my research. You might want to either Google your question or ask it on the Detroit Genealogy Facebook group. Best of luck and thanks for stopping by.
Delete