The Directories have had a number of different names over the years:

• Sands and Kenny's Commercial and General Sydney Directory (1858-1861)
• Sands Commercial and General Sydney Directory (1863-1864)
• Sands Sydney Directory (1865-1871)
• Sands Sydney and Suburban Directory (1873- 1900)
• Sands Sydney Suburban and Country Commercial Directory (1901-1917)
• Sands Sydney Suburban and Country Directory (1918- 1923)
• Sands New South Wales Directory (1924-1932)

Sand's is not a legal document - the information was collected by Sands' agents who called door to door - and is therefore open to error. Many libraries hold microfiche copies of all available issues.

STRUCTURE
The two major parts of the Directory are the Alphabetical and the Suburban sections as well as directories of trades and government officials.

ALPHABETICAL DIRECTORY
The Alphabetical section consisted of a single alphabetical sequence of the names of householders, businesses and organisations, and the address of the premises.

The Alphabetical listing is very useful for building profile of people living in Sydney over time. By working backward from the issue in which a person last appear and noting down the details, you may be able develop a biography. Details such as names, titles used, addresses, and trades and occupations are usually listed.

Be mindful, though, that usually only those that Sands considered to be the head of a household or the principal of a business were listed. Other people at an address were usually not listed.

If you discover someone of note occupying or owning a property, biographical works can be checked to determine more about the person. Possible biographical sources include the Australian Dictionary of Biography, A Biographical Register 1788 -1939, Australian Encyclopaedia and microfiche sets of previous editions of Who's Who in Australia. Also check the names in library catalogues and on the Australian Public Affairs and Information Service (APAIS) database.

Information on less notable persons may be compiled using Births, Deaths and Marriage Indexes (usually held on CD-ROMs in libraries) and newspapers (eg obituary notices).

SUBURBAN DIRECTORY

The Suburban section arranged names of householders and business premises variously under suburb, locality or Local Government Area as the Directory developed over the decades. Up until 1879/1880, this section consisted of a single alphabetical sequence of names for each given area. From about 1879, the layout of the Suburban section of the Directory arranged entries by street name. Under each street name, occupants of premises are listed according to the position in the street of the premises occupied.

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE SUBURBAN DIRECTORY
The street-by-street listing of householders in Sand's is useful for undertaking research on the history of properties. The type of information usually included is:

Householder's name and title;
Street number and house name - where established;
Householder's occupation or type of business.

The entries will look something like this:

Smith Street - East side
2 Mellick, J., Draper "Emoh"
4 Malouf, Joseph, "Chez Nous"
6 Harrison, H.
8 Solomon & Sons, General Store

By working backwards from the most recently available issue of the Directory (1932), and noting down the details of an individual property for each year that it is listed in Sand's, you can build up a chronological profile of the occupants of a property, and possibly determine its uses.

The first year in which a property appears in Sand's can be considered an indication of when a piece of land was first developed. Caution should be exercised - sometimes what appears to be the first listing for a property may in fact be the first listing after a period, sometimes lengthy, of omission from the Directory. This can occur if the property was vacant for some years.

STEPS TO TAKE for USING THE SUBURBAN DIRECTORY:
The microfiche copy of the Sands Directory is arranged by year. The page parameters appear on the band at the head of each sheet of fiche, and a thorough index appears on the first fiche for each year.

1. Determine the address of the property you are looking for as far as possible. The more information you have before you start, the easier it will be to search through Sand's. Some useful details to acquire are:

Street Name;
Street number or house name if known;
The physical location of the property in a street (eg north or south side of the street and the intersections between which it is located);
The Municipality in which the property was located during the relevant period (mindful of shifts in Local Government Boundaries and the fact that boundaries may bisect streets);
The names of any previous owners or occupants of the property;

2. Find the relevant Municipality in the Suburban section. (See Index on first fiche for each year).

3. Find the relevant Street from those listed for the Municipality (Order is alphabetical);

4. Compare house numbering or location within that street. (Intersecting streets are in italics).

5. Note down details as they are discovered.

SOME PROBLEMS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER:

• Street names may change over time.
• Street numbering was often absent in the earliest years of the Directory;
• Street numbering may have changed;
• The listings generally only include head householders - not necessarily owners or boarders.
• Street names or house names may not always be present;
• House names could change regularly;
• The listing may not show a change of use of a property, or a redevelopment;
• Because the Directory was concerned with occupied premises, the existence of unimproved property (i.e. vacant land) was frequently unrecorded;
• Re-subdivisions of property are often difficult to identify using the Sand's Directory;
• In some instances, Sand's agents may not have been able to collect information about a building - e.g. it may have been vacant for some years;
• Sand's ceased publication in 1932.

OTHER SOURCES of INFORMATION

• Deeds and other ownership documents of a property which may be available to you or perhaps held with a Bank or solicitor;
• Land Titles Office;
• Sydney Telephone Books on Microfiche from 1888 to 1988. These list telephone subscribers only in alphabetical order but are useful for checking on a person's movement beyond 1932;
• Library or archives institutions (eg Mitchell Library, Water Board Archives, State Records Office).
• Assessment, Valuation and Rate Books for Municipal areas
• Local History Collections of local Public Libraries.
• For heritage property - National Trust of Australia (NSW), Australian Heritage Commission or NSW Heritage Bracnh database.