Ancestry is home to an extensive collection of city and county directories, as well as telephone books, professional directories, church centennial books, school lists, and yearbooks. City and county directories typically contain entries for working family members and include name, occupation, and home and business addresses. Early phone books may contain similar information in addition to the phone number.

Church histories and records may include indexes to parish records and in some cases, actual church records. The collection also includes many church histories and centennial books, which can contain the names of members of the congregation, as well as historical background information on the origins of the church.

Also among the collections in this category are school alumni lists and yearbooks which can be rich in details about your ancestor's school experience and may even include a photograph.

Professional directories most often list members of specific professions such as medicine or law. They often include biographical information and a short paragraph of the person's history within the profession. Like professional directories, organizational directories are lists of a specialized nature such as names of university alumni or members of fraternities. They may include addresses as well as dates of birth and death.