Have You Seen Our New Facebook Timeline?

Facebook is updating their look again and "Pages" are being moved to the new "Timeline" format. Non-profits have the opportunity to use new features to jazz things up and present an historical perspective. Like most genealogical societies and libraries, we don't have a marketing budget so we've completed the transfer with volunteer time and "creativity on a shoestring."

The Publications/Marketing Committee discussed cover photo options at the March 6, 2012 meeting. After weighing several options, the group unanimously chose Judy Bodycote's great black-and-white photograph of our volunteers at work in the library. Judy is also responsible for editing and enhancing the photograph of the California Genealogical Society's first president – Dr. Edward Stephen Clark – for the start of our timeline.

Changes implemented so far:

1. Cover photo and thumbnail of the CGS seal as our inset photo.
2. Milestones – "founded" in 1898. Only 114 more years of CGS history to record!
3. Pinned posts – featured the Insider's Guide to California Research.
4. Applications – featuring our YouTube and Twitter pages.
5. Message inbox is activated for fans who want to contact us privately.

Please take a look and be sure to give us a Like if you approve!

Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library

Happy Birthday to Us! - 113 years

 

On Saturday, February 12, 1898, at 2:00 p.m., the California Genealogical Society was founded in San Francisco.

A half dozen or so San Franciscans interested in genealogy gathered at Dr. Edward Stephen Clark's office at 16 Geary. They pooled their knowledge of family history research and shared the materials they'd separately gathered. In fact, they held the first meeting of what would become the California Genealogical Society, the state's first organization of family history researchers.

Well over a century after the events described by the late Dorothy Fowler in A Brief History of CGS, more than 1000 members continue to share a common zeal for all things genealogical.

Congratulations to our members and volunteers as we celebrate 113 years of helping people find their roots!


Copyright © 2011 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library

There's One in Every Family: The Wanderer

They call me the wanderer.
Yeah, the wanderer.
I roam around, around, around, around.

There's one in every family. You know the one I mean – the wanderer – the one who can't seem to put down roots and who will never settle down. From our earliest days, the California Genealogical Society has been a wanderer!

CGS has never owned a building so housing our books has been a challenge. An evening spent perusing decades of newsletters and journals revealed countless hours spent by society officers dealing with this issue, over and over again. Throughout its 112-year history, the California Genealogical Society has moved around – a lot!

Up From the Ashes

The society was founded February 12, 1898, in San Francisco, where it was headquartered for the first one hundred years. In the early days, the books collected by the society were kept in members' homes or offices – until disaster struck in 1906. At the time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, the collection of over 300 volumes was housed with the society's librarian, Mrs. Walter Damon Mansfield, in her apartment at the California Hotel on Bush Street. The hotel was completely destroyed and the entire library went up in smoke.

Mrs. Mansfield escaped and she continued to be the guardian as the society rebuilt its collection. I've written before about how CGS solicited donations from across the country and received books from individuals and institutions, including the Newberry Library. By 1910, Mrs. Mansfield, and the books, moved to the Fairmont Hotel, where in 1912 a special "Library Room" was established for the CGS collection.

The Many Homes of CGS

After Mrs. Mansfield's death in 1916, the CGS Library shared space with a series of illustrious institutions and groups. In 1917, the State Library in San Francisco was established to house the private library of Mayor Adolph Sutro, who stipulated in his will that the collection remain in the City. CGS was allowed to shelve its books at the first Sutro location on the third floor of the Lane Medical Building at Sacramento and Webster Streets. In 1923, Sutro (and CGS) moved to the San Francisco Public Library in the Civic Center.

That arrangement ended with the Depression. In the early 1930s the society was forced to remove its books from the SFPL due to funding cuts. CGS shacked up with the Sons of the American Revolution when they moved into their quarters in Room 327 in the newly constructed War Memorial Building in the San Francisco Civic Center in 1933. Things were stable for more than a decade until the SAR and CGS were forced out in 1945. World War II was coming to an end and the federal government took over that building for the United Nations.

Most of the CGS books were put into storage for a couple of years while the society was homeless until CGS moved in with the SAR again in June 1946, this time in offices at the DeYoung Building at Market and Kearny Streets. Things were stable for many years.

Partnership with the California History Society

In 1962, the California Historical Society acquired title to the CGS collection and for the next twenty years the library was housed at the CHS building at Pacific and Laguna Streets. The relationship with the California Historical Society lasted until CGS leased a new headquarters in the Flood Building at 870 Market Street, Suite 1124, San Francisco, and moved in on November 1, 1983. After months of negotiations, the society reached agreement with the California Historical Society and reacquired 85% of the genealogical collection sold in 1962. More than 60% of the membership voted to approve the CHS/CGS agreement in December 1983.

In 1986, CGS moved again – to the fourth floor of 300 Brannan Street, San Francisco – where the library and headquarters remained for twelve years.

Across the Bay to Oakland

Facing skyrocketing rental rates in San Francisco, the society's leadership explored several options before making the move to the Latham Square Building, Suite 200, on Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, in 1998. After the initial five-year lease expired, the society signed on for three more years and moved down one floor to Suite 100.

In March 2007, CGS moved to its present site in the historic Breuner Building at 2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland, California. We're staying put – at least for now!


Written for the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy,

Sources:

1.  Eric Maresca, "The Wanderer," Lyrics. Originally recorded by Dion, 1961. Lyrics Freak, accessed Dec. 1, 2010.

2.  Dorothy Fowler, "The California Genealogical Society's Library – A Century of Growth" (unpublished manuscript, California Genealogical Society, 1996).

3.  Dorothy Fowler, "Where the Books Were – CGS Library 1898 to 1998," The Nugget 9, no. 1,   (1998): 3.

4.  "Latham Square Building – the New Home of the California Genealogical Society," The Nugget 9, no. 2, (1998): 3.

5. "At the Society – Library Settled in New Location," CGS News 38, no. 2, (2007): 3.


COG poster courtesy of footnoteMaven.


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

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.