Ancestry adds UK, Midlands and Various UK Trade Directories, 1770-1941

The 8,555,301 records in this collection are from trade, city, and other directories, primarily from the Midlands area in England.
I looked at the contents for Birmingham. The earliest volumes included are: 1770 The Streets and Inhabitants of Birmingham, and 1777 Birmingham 120 Years Ago (Published 1896). It includes Wrightson's Triennial Directory of Birmingham for 1815, 1818, 1823, 1830, 1833, and 1839. There are single issues of Pigot`s, the Post Office, White`s, Slater`s, Dix`s directories, then a series of 46 Kelly`s directories between 1872 and 1939.
For Wolverhampton the Red Book is included with good coverage between 1892 to 1941.
The data is directories is usually sparse, typically last name, initials and address, and in the early years only for those prepared to pay for inclusion. Directories are especially useful for filling in between census years to explore when addresses change or someone is no longer listed.
The index for this database was created using text recognition software. Records were not transcribed. Images of the originals are linked.