California Genealogical Society blog: Our Library Collections: Washington

A photo of the Lindstrom family from the The Researcher

One in a series by CGS member Chris Pattillo, highlighting some of our holdings at the Library in Oakland. For a fuller listing of books, journals, and more, consult the CGS Library catalog in WorldCat.

Our collection of hard copy books for the state of Washington occupies two shelves in the Dorman Room. It includes a good selection of the standard fare of genealogical sourcebooks including cemetery and death records, marriage, pioneers, and bible records and several histories for the state.

There are two sets of journals. The first, East Washington Genealogical Society Bulletin, is limited to the years 1970-1971. The other, The Researcher, published by Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society, covers 1994 to 2001. The last edition we have of The Researcher is quite substantial, coming in at 114 pages. Featured articles include “Searching for Ladies: The Rumerfield Sisters,” “Ladies in the Shadow of the Mountain” and “Pierce County Pioneer Woman: Margaret Meyer Tiedeman." This caught my eye because of recent discussions at CGS about how to do more to help our members find their female ancestors.

Whitman Mission genealogies for the families
impacted by the Whitman massacre

A book of particular note is Whitman Mission, 29 Nov 1847 Families, including some Cayuse and Nez Perce. This book is a preliminary genealogical index compiled in 1998 by Warren Louis Forsyth. The book includes the family histories and genealogies of persons impacted by the Whitman massacre of 1847, when missionary Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa and eleven others were massacred by members of the Cayuse tribe because they suspected Whitman of poisoning 200 Cayuse tribe members who died of measles. On the cover page, the author added this note, “Yes, go copy what you want (including electronically, and microfilming & circulating film copies to branch libraries) of all pages for private use and public research/teaching study if proper identification is included.” Our copy appears to be such a bootleg copy, in that it has numerous hand-written annotations throughout the book.

A book about the San Juan Islands

Our collection includes a few county books and a half dozen directories. We also have San Juan Islands: The Cronstadt of the Pacific by Archite W. Shiels, published in 1938. For anyone planning a vacation to the San Jan Islands this looks like a good read.