Rare footage of post-quake 1906 San Francisco

A still from film footage of devastation after the 1906 earthquake.
Photo: Jason Wright, Silver Shadows Daguerrotypes.
Digitized by David Kiehn, nilesfilmmuseum.org

As the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake looms this month, it seems appropriate to pause and consider our state's long history of seismic activity. Our knowledge of quakes prior to the 20th century is scant, as the oral tradition of indigenous peoples was largely lost after the arrival of Europeans, and the records kept by the Spanish missionaries and later explorers through the 18th and 19th centuries are spotty. It wasn't until the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake on April 18, 1906, that the United States established the Coast and Geodetic Survey to track and research earthquake activity.

In 2017, collector David Silver made an almost miraculous find at a San Francisco flea market: a long-lost roll of film showing San Francisco immediately after the 1906 quake. Amazingly, the 9-minute reel was intact, although at the time Silver came across it, the seller was holding the fragile, highly flammable nitrate film and "looking through a length of it with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips," as Silver told SFGate.  

The footage of a devastated city was shot by the Miles Brothers and pairs with their most famous work, "A Trip Down Market Street," shot from a cable car just days before the earthquake. Film historian historian David Kiehn made a digital copy of the footage, which was screened at several venues this past spring. It will be shared publicly online through the Library of Congress. You can get a glimpse of it here: https://youtu.be/Fm1XSX8Un5Q

The release of the footage was reported in many news outlets. Our thanks to Dick Eastman, who wrote of the find in his blog, where it came to our attention.

Copyright © 2018 by California Genealogical Society

Ready for a Genealogy Party?

by Janice Sellers

Image courtesy of Janice Sellers

Are you familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society?  It's one of the great genealogical societies in the Bay Area.  It has an upcoming indexing project that will help genealogists researching their San Francisco ancestors, and you can be part of it.

San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society

Jewish Records Indexing Party

Sunday, February 19, 2017, 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.

Oakland FamilySearch Library

4766 Lincoln Avenue

Oakland, CA 94602

Pay it forward, fellow genealogists! If you've ever enjoyed finding records easily by using a search form on JewishGen, FamilySearch, Ancestry, or many other genealogy sites, you have been a beneficiary of indexing. Indexing is the result of volunteers reading images of old records and typing the information into a searchable format.  You know how FamilySeach has an annual worldwide indexing event to make a big push on transcribing their online records?  We're doing the same kind of thing, but on a smaller scale.

The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society has taken on the task of creating an index for the old burial records from San Francisco's Sherith Israel synagogue for the 1850s through 1906. We expect that these records will uncover currently unknown death dates for this period, one that is notoriously difficult to research due to record destruction after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. So we need REAL PEOPLE to read the records and type the information into Excel spreadsheets.

We will provide the snacks, computers, and instruction on this valuable and essential service. The records are handwritten, but we'll help you learn how to read them. If you can't stay for the whole afternoon, we will be happy to have you for as long as you can help. We will be giving out prizes for most records entered, longest time spent working, and a few more categories we have yet to think of. Don't miss this opportunity to make burial records accessible to genealogists around the world! The ancestors you find may be your own!

We would like to have an idea of how many people will be coming (so we can buy the right amount of food!), so please send a message to vicepresident@sfbajgs.org to let us know that you'll be there.

Copyright © 2017 by California Genealogical Society

Amazing 1906 Footage: San Francisco After the Quake and Fire

Thanks to Tim Cox for sending the link to this spellbinding video of San Francisco just after the Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire from Red Channels. It is a documentary compilation of actual footage from various parts of the city showing people getting on with their lives amidst the devastation. Especially interesting are the sections showing demolition of the burnt-out buildings and the temporary housing set up in tents.

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire from Red Channels on Vimeo.

1906/2009. 17 minutes. Film/Video. Silent.
Edited by Dan Meyerson and Matt Peterson.


Update: In case you missed it, on October 16, 2010, Morley Safer of 60 Minutes, the CBS News show, aired a full investigative report about the origin of the film.

The 60 Minutes site features lots of extras. Fascinating stuff!

 Copyright © 2010 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library

YouTube Video of San Francisco Pre-1906 Earthquake

Member John Bedecarre sent the link to this amazing historical film recorded just days before the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The footage was shot from a cable car running down Market Street towards the Ferry Building seen in the distance. John informs us that while electric street cars crossed Market, the transit system at the time had only cable cars on Market. He also notes that there were no traffic rules, no paved roads, no traffic lights or pedestrian crosswalks and that the people were pretty adept at dodging autos. Thanks, John, for sharing!

Source: Flixxy's San Francisco in 1906

CGS and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

The topic for the 77th Carnival of Genealogy, hosted by Miriam Robbins Midkiff at AnceStories, is Disasters. For the California Genealogical Society and Library that can only mean one thing: the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

The California Genealogical Society, founded February 12, 1898, was only in its eighth year of existence when disaster struck. In an unpublished history of the society, the late Dorothy Fowler described it thus:

In 1906, the books--which by that fateful year numbered more than 300 – were housed in the apartment of the librarian, Mrs. Walter Damon Mansfield, in the California Hotel, Bush Street, between Kearny and Grant, San Francisco. The earthquake/fire completely consumed the fledgling library.

Amazingly the society survived and thrives today, but the disaster of over a century ago still remains always in the foreground. The significant loss of source documents presents a serious challenge to anyone researching 19th century San Franciscans. The work-arounds are the subject of the society's publication, Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for Pre-1906 San Francisco Research. Author Nancy Peterson describes the problem:

This was not the simple courthouse fire with which many of us with southern ancestry are familiar. Over one-fifth of the population of California lived at this time in San Francisco. Within three days 4.7 square miles of the city had burned, and about half the city's population was left homeless. Although the "official" death toll was set at 478, it has since been shown that at least 3400 lives and likely more were lost in a city that then was home to over 400,000. Losses in lives and property far exceeded those lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Not only were the documents genealogists are accustomed to accessing destroyed, but also the personal effects of a large part of its citizenry were lost. Marriage records, birth and baptismal certificates, deed and naturization documents were aboandoned and later destroyed as residents fled in terror to the outer reaches of the city or to its suburbs.

I've written before about A Most Dreadful Earthquake: A First-Hand Account of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire – with Glimpses into the Lives of the Phillips-Jones Letter Writers.  Both books were published by the society in 2006 to coincide with the centennial of the earthquake and fire.

What is less widely known, even to our own members, is the role that the California Genealogical Society played during the rebuilding years right after the earthquake and fire. The Panama Pacific International Exposition [3] of 1915 was a way for the city to showcase how far it had come in less than ten years.

The Panama Pacific International Exposition was the 1915 worlds fair held in San Francisco, California. Taking over three years to construct, the fair had great economic implications for the city that had been almost destroyed by the great earthquake and fire of 1906. The exposition was a tremendous success, and did much to boost the morale of the entire Bay Area and to help get San Francisco back up on its feet.

Officially, the exposition was a celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal, and also commemorated the 400th anniversary of the discovering of the Pacific Ocean by the explorer, Balboa. San Francisco was only one of many cities hoping to host the PPIE. New Orleans was its primary rival, but in 1911 after a long competition of advertising and campaigning, President Taft proclaimed San Francisco to be the official host city.

Exposition planners left no stone unturned in their quest to insure a world-wide audience. Building exhibits were elaborately designed from every state and many countries. Railroads and shipping companies were alerted to make preparations for vast numbers of visitors and the city fathers encouraged organizations from every walk of life to hold meetings in San Francisco in 1915.
Using newspaperARCHRIVES.com I was able to locate several article touting the Exposition from around the country in 1913 and 1914. Their headlines differed but all carried the same text, presumably taken from a press release with wide distribution, and beginning with these two paragraphs:

Reports received at the headquarters of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, from all parts of the world, indicate that the year 1915 will see more great congresses and convention assembled in San Francisco than have ever gathered together in any one city during a single year.

Throughout the United States, in South America, and in Europe, the greatest interest is being evinced by members and official of conventions, learned societies and congresses of all kinds. This is true of educational and scientific bodies, as well as of fraternal, church, civic, labor, social service, commercial, agricultural, athletic and other organizations. More than one hundred great congresses and conventions have already voted to meet in San Francisco.

This article [4] is from the July 7, 1914 issue of the Oakland Tribune.


The International Congress of Genealogy was held in San Francisco July 25-30, 1915, under the auspices of the California Genealogical Society.





Sources:

1. Fowler, Dorothy. "The California Genealogical Society's Library – A Century of Growth," Oakland: California Genealogical Society, 1996, unpublished manuscript.

2. Peterson, Nancy. Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for Pre-1906 San Francisco Research. Oakland: California Genealogical Society, 2006, xi-xii

3. Zoe, San Francisco Memories, "The Panama Pacific International Exposition," sanfranciscomemories.com, (http://www.sanfranciscomemories.com/ppie/panamapacific.html : accessed 31 August 2009).

4. "Genealogists to Hold World Meet," The Oakland (California) Tribune, July 7, 1914, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, newspaperARCHIVE.com, (http://newspaperarchive.com : accessed 24 July 2009)

Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library.

CGS in the News: Family Tree Magazine - July 2009 issue

The July 2009 issue of Family Tree Magazine is out and some CGS researchers are featured in "Changing Gears" an article by Maureen A. Taylor, the Photo Detective, about "reverse genealogy" – finding living relatives to further your research.

Among the five reasons to research forward in time, Maureen counts "grow your family tree" and two of her examples come from the California Genealogical Society. CGS President Jane Lindsey is sited for her use of newspaper research to sidestep San Francisco record gaps after the 1906 earthquake and fire. One of Jane's clients was able to make a Mayflower connection "through the work of researchers on three continents."

CGS example two sites the work that Lavinia Schwarz, Judy Bodycote and Richard Rees did on the Peralta Project and the database they created of some 700 descendants of Luis Maria Peralta.

It's great to see the fantastic research team at CGS acknowledged for their excellent work! Thanks, Maureen.

A Tribute to Dorothy Fowler (1927-2009)

"We were awaked by a most dreadful earthquake." Those words written by Sarah Phillips on April 18, 1906, were lost to the world until Dorothy Fowler brought them back to life one hundred years later with the publication of A Most Dreadful Earthquake. Researcher, editor, author and long-time volunteer and friend of CGS, Dorothy Helen Fowler died on February 26, 2009 in San Francisco. Dorothy's entire life was a testament to the art of writing and it is an honor to write this tribute to her.

A native of Clawson, Michigan, Dorothy came west to California with her family when she was seven, before settling in Grants Pass, Oregon. She obtained a B.A. in English from the University of Oregon in Eugene.

High school graduation, 1948

Dorothy's first taste of the publishing world came early when she served as editor of her high school year book. After college she moved to New York City and held a number of jobs in advertising, publishing and editing before returning to California. Dorothy once labeled herself a "job hopper" but her work was always about the written word. Her thirty year career with the State of California was spent working in research and report writing for the Departments of Public Health, Employment and Industrial Relations.

Dorothy joined CGS in 1984 and for over twenty years she was one of the reliable "Thursday group" who came in weekly to volunteer. Dorothy served on both the Library Committee and the Membership Committee and she was involved in various indexing projects. For the society centennial in 1998, Dorothy combed the archives and wrote a history entitled The California Genealogical Society's Library – A Century of Growth.

1998 was the same year that the long-lost packet of forty letters was discovered in a misplaced box after the society's move to a new location. Like many genealogists, Dorothy enjoyed mysteries so a small preservation project evolved into a full-blown research endeavor which ultimately resulted in the publication of A Most Dreadful Earthquake: A First Hand Account of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire – with Glimpses into the Lives of the Phillips-Jones Letter Writers.

Shirley Thomson worked closely with Dorothy on AMDE. She shared these thoughts:

In the process of preparing the manuscript of A MOST DREADFUL EARTHQUAKE for its eventual form as a book, I worked with Dorothy over some months in 2005. As an author, she was a joy: thorough, careful, documentation-perfect, attitude flexible, always willing to listen to suggestions, ready to go the extra mile to provide whatever was needed. She told me very clearly that her ego was not embedded in the words on her page; she could deal with—even appreciate—editorial help. Wow! That’s a rare and much-appreciated talent. She was ever generous to CGS, a kind and thoughtful friend.

Dorothy Fowler (1927-2009)

Members and friends of Dorothy will gather at the California Genealogical Society on Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. to remember Dorothy and to meet her brother, Walter Henry Fowler, his wife Etta Mae and their daughter Lisa.

Photographs courtesy of Lisa Fowler.

Submitted to the 68th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: A Tribute to Women.

Joseph Durocher and 83,232 Other Reasons to Search Pre-1905 San Francisco Deaths

Words like "coincidence" and "synchronicity" crop up rather frequently in genealogy blogs. Usually they are used to describe ancestral finds of the Psychic Roots variety like the ones I've labeled serendipity on the CGSL blog. But today I had one of those weird, unexplainable connections with someone I've only met once and who lives about 400 miles away.

Pam Wiedenbeck and I met briefly last summer at the California State Genealogical Alliance breakfast on the second morning of the SCGS Jamboree. She started our little journey to the Twilight Zone from her home in the southern end of the state. Pam has been trying to break down one of her French-Canadian brick walls by systematically reviewing all of the pertinent documents and data. She stumbled upon my CGS business card just after reviewing an early San Francisco death and sent me this email:

Hi Kathryn,

We had a fairly lively discussion of death records in San Francisco for times prior to 1905. I had actually had fairly good luck in Salt Lake City finding one of my Michigan ancestors who died in San Francisco in 1902. Since I am working on a family mystery right now, I came across the record. It was in the "Mortuary Book of the City and County of San Francisco". This must have been indexed. Anyhow, the film number where I found my ancestor in SLC was 0975834. I found this record in 1998 -- and it unlocked alot for me. With this record, I was able to get a death certificate from SF County.

Anyhow -- thought you would like to know where I found this. If your society is indexing and publishing, this might be a road to travel.

Thanks again for last year's great discussion,
Pam Wiedenbeck, President, SCGS

What Pam didn't know is that CGS has traveled this exact road. After months of work, a new database – Pre-1905 San Francisco Deaths – is finally up and running. It's part of The California Names Index and I've been working on a series of blog posts about the CGS Research Committee and this collection of indexed records which can be searched on the society website.

Needless to say, I was surprised at the timing and I wrote back to Pam to ask her to put our new database to the test. I sent her the link to our website's California Names Index search page.

This is her result:


Joseph Durocher was a wooden ship builder who came to San Francisco to work and was killed in an industrial accident in 1902. Entry 7209 is the record number of the coroner's entry.

What I learned from Pam is that Joseph left his family behind in Michigan to look for work. He spent his whole life there but he died here. His death record is one of the 83,233 Pre-1905 Deaths that somehow managed to survive the devastating 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire which destroyed most of the vital records of the city.

Joseph's death record was found by a descendant 96 years later who told me today so I can tell you to go and search The California Names Index. And let me know if you find something unexpected.

Peralta Hacienda Banquet

As reported in August, CGS has been involved in an extensive research project of the Peralta family over the last several months. The research team – Judy Bodycote, Dick Rees and Lavinia Schwarz – was honored at a banquet hosted by the Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park (FRIENDS) on Sunday, October 12, 2008. The dinner was held in the Victorian-style home on the grounds of the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park.

Lavinia Schwarz and Judy Bodycote
arriving at the Peralta Hacienda Victorian.

Lavinia Schwarz sent this report:

Last Sunday the three CGS volunteers (Judy Bodycote, Dick Rees and myself) who have worked on the Peralta family tree for Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, were feted at a banquet in the dining room of the Victorian built by Antonio Peralta's son near where the original land grant adobe was built in 1820. It was the first non-native dwelling in the East Bay. A second adobe, constructed in 1840 when the family outgrew the original, smaller structure, was later destroyed by an earthquake. The family moved back into the 1820 adobe and started building the Victorian home where we enjoyed our dinner.

Time for some conversation before dinner.
(Note the antique Peralta trunk.)


Chris Pattillo, Ken Talken and Judy Bodycoat with
the portrait of Ken's great-grandmother, Tonita –
Maria Antonia Peralta Lehmann (1877-1954).

There were fourteen people at the banquet including members of the FRIENDS board – Justin Brown, Ken Talken, who is also a Peralta descendant, Chairman Dale Hagen and Treasurer Mike Falk and his wife Lynne; Deborah Cooper, Collections Curator (retired) of the Oakland Museum; L. Thomas Frye, Curator of the Gold Rush exhibit at the Oakland Museum and former director of the museum; CGS board member Chris Pattillo and her partner Dianne Sierra; Holly Alonzo, Executive Director of FRIENDS and the three of us.

Deborah Cooper, Holly Alonso, Lynne Falk and Justin Brown.

The food was of the time – delicious chili stew, tortillas, mustard greens, potatoes, grapes, figs, bread pudding, champagne, wine, sherry, and chocolates. We were told that at the time the food of the poor and the rich was basically the same. The difference was that the wealthy enjoyed wine and spirits.

Judy Bodycote, Ken Talken, Lavinia Schwarz, Tom Frye and Deborah Cooper.

Dianne Sierra, Dale Hagen, Chris Pattillo and Mike Falk.

The company was delightful and the food was great. We swapped Peralta stories and a good time was had by all. Chris Pattillo and her firm PGA Design did the original landscape design for the park and it was she who thought of getting CGS involved with the Peralta family history. It's been a nice collaboration. Judy Bodycote has done most of the research. Her husband is a DeAnza party descendant (four ancestors) so she was up to speed right away with researching the early Californios. Judy also figured out how to print out a large color-coded family free.

Based on our work, graphic artist Gordan Chan will create a wall mural of the first five or so generations of Peraltas in California. In addition, our CGS research team has created a genealogy database of 700 plus descendants. We hope visitors to the park will be able to access the database to look up ancestors. The banquet was a thank-you beyond anything we imagined.

Photographs courtesy of Dick Rees.

Report on the First 24 Hours of the Mortuary Indexing Project

Rose Pierson of FamilySearch Indexing sent some statistics on the San Francisco Mortuary Project. She will be sending reports weekly.

The project includes 38,837 total images in 3,883 total batches.

After 24 hours:

814 total images have been indexed (81 batches)
1560 images checked out for A indexing (156 batches)
1140 images checked out for B indexing (114 batches)

I found time to process a couple of batches. The records were from 1895 (pre-earthquake!) and included one child who died at age 8 of tubercular meningitis. With the missing 1890 census, this is a child who never appeared in a U.S. census. The record gave her mother's name, another name that may be a sister and a note that she was placed in a vault in May 1895 and shipped to Albuquerque, New Mexico the next January (1896). Good stuff!

S.F. Mortuary Records Rise From the Dead

In a cooperative effort with SFgenealogy.com, the San Francisco Public Library, the Genealogical Society of Utah and FamilySearch Indexing, the California Genealogical Society is pleased to announce the start of the San Francisco Mortuary Records Indexing Project. The project is the culmination of two years' work by the entities involved, to bring the digital images of thousands of mortuary records, stored by the Halsted Gray Mortuary in San Francisco, to researchers all over the world. The records are a significant genealogical find because of the richness of their detail and the miraculous way they survived the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

The records include the complete holdings of the first mortuary in San Francisco, undertakers N. Gray & Co., from the day it opened - July 1, 1850. In all, the project includes the surviving records, up to 1920, of several mortuaries that merged with either Halsted or Gray, over the years. The records include notations from financial ledgers, cemetery records, removal records and headstone notations. Many have obituary clippings.

Rose Pierson of Family Search Indexing has been working diligently to ready the project for volunteers. The CGS project is now listed on the Current Projects page (scroll down to the bottom and look for the CGS logo.)

The Project Home Page gives three digital examples of how the records look and has a link to project-specific indexing instructions. Please take advantage of the training tutorials located under the "Help" tab.

I'll have more to say about the project in the coming days and I will report on my own indexing experience. (I did some beta testing and I guarantee you will be thrilled with the kind of information you will find.) I encourage everyone to use the comments section at the bottom of this post to let us know about your experience in the project.

Report On the First 24 Hours - July 22, 2008

Update - Friday, August 1, 2008


Update - February 11, 2011. Watch the YouTube video about our project!

Roberts: What We Found

CGS volunteer Dick Rees handles the mail at the society, so it was he who first read McMaster's request. Dick spearheaded the research efforts of a small group that included Verne Deubler, Nancy Peterson, Vinnie Schwarz and Pat Smith.

William Harold Roberts was the son of John and Elfreda Seifert Roberts, born October 14, 1895, in San Francisco. No official birth record exists because the ledgers were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The team gathered data from all the likely sources and also contacted the Episcopal Diocese Archives, the Lick-Wilmerding High School, the San Francisco Historical Society and the San Francisco Public Library and their Sixth Floor History Center.

But "Look-up" volunteer, Pat Smith, hit pay dirt when she followed the "no stone left unturned" approach and found a listing for William Harold Roberts in the San Francisco probate index.

The estate file includes a typescript of a letter that Roberts wrote to his father on July 4, 1918 from France. After Robert's death in November of that year, the letter became his last will and testament.

Harold's letter was started in ink but was finished in pencil when his fountain pen went dry. It was in the closing sentences, in pencil, that Roberts indicated that if he died everything should be left to his father's sister, Ida May Zeile.

Roberts, who was unmarried, left a war risk insurance policy, probably standard issue by the Army. The "will" was challenged by family members when Harold's aunt filed for probate in 1924, two years after the death of Roberts' father. An article from the November 18, 1924, San Francisco Chronicle, "Will of Hero Hit in Court - Relatives Attack Letter Written on Battlefield Leaving Estate" describes charges of forgery and the fight for the money.

Ultimately, Ida was named the executor and Roberts' $8000 estate was divided among the living relatives.

Read the entire series:

• Part 1 — Searching for Harold Roberts
  
• Part 3 — Roberts' Battlefield Letter
• Part 4 — A Face for Harold Roberts
• Part 5 — A Hero's Final Resting Place

A Most Dreadful Earthquake

One hundred two years ago today, at 5:12 a.m., the earth shook in San Francisco and Sarah E. Phillips was "awaked by a most dreadful earthquake.” Thus began a series of letters Sarah wrote to her fiancé in Schenectady, New York, chronicling the days and weeks of the aftermath.

Almost one hundred years later, a ribbon-bound packet of forty faded letters, still in their original envelopes, was found in a misplaced box at the California Genealogical Society, with little to identify the writers or explain how the letters came there.

Author Dorothy Fowler, a researcher and long-time volunteer at the society, happened to be on hand when the letters turned up. She took on the challenge of researching and editing the letters and was the sole author of a book published by the society to coincide with the earthquake centennial. The vast number of hours required in researching and writing the book were contributed by her to the society.

Dorothy is a gifted writer with long experience in various publications. Much of her work life was spent in research, writing and administrative jobs, mainly for the state of California. She is now retired and lives in San Francisco.

Two years ago when promoting the book, Dorothy was a guest of radio personality John Rothmann on his KGO Radio 810 AM talk show. Dorothy did several readings from A Most Dreadful Earthquake: A First-Hand Account of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire before Rothmann closed with these remarks:

"I'm going to tell you that every April 18th, for as long as I live, I'm going to pick up your book, and I'm going to re-read it. And the reason I'm going to re-read it is because of the vivid, powerful expressions. You've given us a great gift... and you've preserved history. And for that we are all very grateful, Dorothy."

We are indeed. Mr. Rothmann, have you done your reading this year?

Book Donations Build the Library

The donation of books accounts significantly for the growth in holdings of the California Genealogical Society Library over the past 100 years. The reliance on the generosity of members and others dates back to 1906 when the society, founded in 1898, lost everything in the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. In order to rebuild, CGS actively sought and received book contributions from many individuals and organizations from around the country. The CGS archives hold a formal, printed announcement dated 20 June 1908:

Donations of books, histories and other genealogical matter, are solicited for the new library of the CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY to assist in a measure to replace those destroyed in the great fire of April 18-20, 1906, when the library of over three hundred volumes, charts of members and archives of the Society were lost.

According to early records, in 1913, the Newberry Library in Chicago gifted several cartons of its duplicate books which were from the library of the late Lieutenant Governor Murphy of Pennsylvania.

The History of the California Genealogical Society, written in 1998 by long-time member, Dorothy Fowler, lists several of the larger donations to the library:

Henry Byron Phillips, CGS president 1912-1920, left his comprehensive research on the New England Phillipses to the CGS archival collection following his death in 1924.

Dr. Charles Francis Griffin, CGS president 1923-1931, left his genealogical library to CGS upon his death in 1950.

Margaret Griffith, who served as the Society’s first woman president, 1945-1947, donated books and a great deal of manuscript material when she died in 1965.

Mrs. Wm. J. Lindenberger, an active member of CGS and the California Historical Society for over 30 years, provided literally hundreds of books to the genealogical collection, many of them especially rare and valuable. Her name is prominent on bookplates throughout the collection and in old records of the Society.

The largest single gift to the library was the collection of George R. Dorman, added in 1984. Mr. Dorman, a CGS member for 47 years, served in various capacities on the Society’s Board. A dedicated genealogist, his research on the signers of the California Constitutional Convention was published as a long-running series in the Society’s newsletter and later in The Nugget. The Dorman Collection is housed in a separate room in the library.

Throughout his membership with CGS from 1972 until his death in 1995, Stanley Ross steadily and without fanfare provided books to strengthen specific parts of the collection. For example, he donated a total of almost 200 books to the New York and New Jersey sections alone and also contributed the microfilms of the Kentucky vital records.

The offering of materials to the library continues today. In fall, 2007, five boxes of books were gifted from member Joan Soo. Electra Kimble Price donated some of her African-American and Native-American collection. Theresa Smith sought out the society seeking a good home for her late mother's books. Theresa's not interested in genealogy herself so we are grateful that the four boxes of books on early California during the Spanish era, especially southern California, have found their way to the CGS bookshelves.

The most recent gift comes from long-time member, Dorothy A. Koenig, an expert on early Dutch settlers in "New Netherland" in the 17th century and editor of the quarterly journal, New Netherland Connections. Dorothy has donated volumes 1-14 of the set Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Procured in Holland, England, and France by John R. Brodhead and others. They were published in Albany, New York, 1853-1883.

CGS Librarian, Laura Spurrier, notes: "The reason they're important is they contain the authorized transcriptions of original documents about the founding of New Amsterdam and later English-controlled New York. And, they're indexed, making the volumes accessible for genealogists."

Research director, Nancy S. Peterson, CG

Members of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) have been debating the definition of "genealogist" this month on their mail list and Randy Seaver of the Genea-Musings Blog weighed in with "Why does it matter? The fact is that those in the profession of genealogy research need to act like and be treated like professionals in other disciplines - they need to be educated, be unbiased, be thorough, be honest and truthful, and be respected." Randy didn't know it but he was describing CGS Research Director, Nancy Simons Peterson.

Nancy was a researcher long before she became a genealogist. After earning her baccalaureate and master's degrees in physiology at Stanford University, she was employed as a research physiologist at the university medical school for many years. Peterson later obtained a second master's in teaching before her interest turned to family history. While living in Washington state, Nancy taught beginning and intermediate genealogy classes. For six years she was the editor of the Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society quarterly publication, The Researcher.

A fifth generation Californian, Nancy is a relative newcomer to CGS. She joined the society in 2004 when she moved back to the Bay Area and has been an active member ever since. Nancy's search for her maternal San Francisco ancestors led ultimately to the publication of Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for Pre-1906 San Francisco Research, published by CGS in 2006 to coincide with the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Nancy explains: "I personally looked at and then included all useful FHL film numbers and tried to nail down exactly the years and record types of the surviving early SF church records. Since all records archived outside the city survived, I went quite deeply into military records -- doesn't matter that they aren't SF records, for they hold information on SF residents. I also went into a great deal of detail on exactly which land records survived and which did not. All of part 3 is devoted to what strategies work best and what pitfalls to avoid. "



About a year ago, Nancy inherited the CGS research position from past-president, Rick Sherman, who acted as primary researcher for many years and who continues to serve a couple of long-standing clients. Tuesday (when the library is closed) is Peterson's regular day at the CGS Library. But her day usually starts in San Francisco, where she travels to one of the following records repositories: Department of Health (for birth and death certificates), Hall of Records in City Hall (for marriage records and land indexes), Public Main Library (obituaries) or Superior Court (probate). Of course, she also spends time in the East Bay at the Oakland Public Library or at the nearby Recorder's Office and Courthouse. I'm exhausted just listing them all.

Nancy is a certified genealogist and author of numerous articles. She won the Society of Genealogists Scholar Award in 2003. Her narrative genealogy Guarded Pasts: The Lives and Offspring of Colonel George and Clara (Baldwin) Bomford was the winning entry in the 1998 National Genealogical Society Family History Writing Contest and is used as an example of quality work in the NGS Quarterly style on the Board for Certification of Genealogists Web site.

As Research Director, Nancy provides expert assistance for members and non-members alike. The charge is $20 per hour ($15 for members) which covers research time, analysis, documentation and a report. Rarely can one obtain the services of a certified genealogist at such bargain prices, and, as with the proceeds from her book, all monies collected benefit the society. No matter how you define it, CGS is fortunate to have such a talented and generous genealogist.

My Goal for 2008

Traditionally, January 1st is a day for New Year's Resolutions but many years ago I began instead to create a yearly set of Goals. Perhaps this is just semantics but while I am good at deciding or resolving to do something, it's usually the execution that is the problem. This "goal setting" exercise has evolved into a set of lists that I create for the various parts of my life. I've learned to set fewer goals but to include specific "actions" - a technique learned from David Allen's Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The "next action" is one of the hallmarks of Allen's GTD philosophy, and he defines it as: "the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion."

I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to get one of the local media outlets to do a piece on the California Genealogical Society and Library and so I am hereby making this my 2008 CGS goal. And in keeping with the GTD action step requirement, I've created a "Top Ten" pitch list to email to Bay Area newspapers and magazines. I will be modifying it to send to some of the local television and radio talk shows, as well. I'll keep you posted as I come up with new strategies for reaching my goal and I welcome any suggestions you may have (or the phone number of your brother-in-law who works for KTVU).

Top 10 Reasons to Feature the California Genealogical Society and Library in 2008:

1. The California Genealogical Society (CGS) was the first genealogy society in the state, founded February 12, 1898, in San Francisco. CGS has been located in Oakland since 1998.

2. The California Genealogical Society and Library blog debuted November 25, 2007.

3. A full 73 percent of Americans are are intrigued by their family roots according to a 2005 poll by Market Strategies, Inc. (MSI).

4. A Cal State Fullerton study showed that interest in genealogy spans a wide range of ages with the strongest interest being in middle age, most starting "at an average age of 40."

5. California Genealogical Society Research Director, Nancy Peterson, literally wrote the book on San Francisco research. Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for Pre-1906 San Francisco Research was published by CGS in June 2006.

6. In March 2007, CGS moved to its newest location in the historic Breuner Building in Oakland's Uptown District.

7. The California Genealogical Society maintains a library of over 30,000 genealogy reference materials and has released a beta version of its online catalog.

8. Long-time CGS volunteer Dorothy Fowler penned A Most Dreadful Earthquake, A First-Hand Account of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, with Glimpses into the Lives of the Phillips-Jones Letter Writers. The book was published in April 2006 by CGS to coincide with the centennial of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

9. The California Genealogical Society and Library (now 900 members strong) hosts monthly membership meetings and has a First Saturday Free policy of allowing non-members free access on the first Saturday of every month.

10. The Oakland Convention & Visitors Bureau list of 100 Things to Do includes tip #80: "Trace your family history at the California Genealogical Society."