Breaking Down Brick Walls - July 12, 2008

July Membership Meeting
Breaking Down Brick Walls, a Panel Discussion

Saturday, July 12, 2008
1:00 p.m.
CGS Library
2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland, California

For the July membership meeting, the California Genealogical Society is experimenting with a new kind of presentation. Breaking Down Brick Walls brings together three active and knowledgeable CGS board members for a panel discussion of the tools they use to dismantle genealogical barriers. CGS News Editor Jane Hufft, CGS Research Director Nancy Peterson and "Lookup" Maven, Lavinia Schwarz will present their most challenging research problems and the unique strategies they used to solve them.

Nancy Peterson is the CGS Research Director and author of Raking the Ashes, Genealogical Strategies for pre-1906 San Francisco Research. Nancy is a Stanford graduate and certified genealogist.

Lavinia Schwarz's unique journey into the archives of New Orleans in search of her great-great grandmother, a free woman of color, yielded many important strategies for breaking down not only brick walls, but the invisible walls that so often block our reasoning. Lavinia graduated from Cal with an English major and holds a master's in education.

Jane Hufft, editor of the CGS Newsletter, has had several articles appear in genealogical publications and has been at work on her own research for many years, developing strategies that go from the paper card catalog days of the Salt Lake City Family Library to the Internet. A Cal graduate in sociology and former school administrator, Jane has a master's in education.

Please note that the short membership meeting starts promptly at 1:00 p.m. The panel discussion follows at 1:30 p.m. There will be handouts for the audience and time for questions and answers.