Our Library Collections: Great Britain

A sampling of introductory books for Great
Britain

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

The books for Great Britain begin with an assortment of introductory how-to books. They include titles such as: Tracing Your Family Tree, Tracing Your Ancestors, In Search of Ancestry, Genealogical Research in England and Wales, Genealogical Gleanings in England, British Research, The Genealogist’s Internet, English Genealogy, Family Tree Detective, the Oxford Guide to Family History, and it goes on.

Within this section we have a four-volume set published by Cambridge University Press in 1994. Volume One is From Family Tree to Family History, followed by From Family History to Community History. Volume Three covers Communities and Families and Volume Four is Sources and Methods: A Handbook. Apparently this set of books was written as part of a university course series. They appear to be excellent, well researched references.

This four-volume set was written as part of a class curriculum

Next on our shelves are an odd couple – Records and Record Searching: A Guide to the Genealogist and Topographer by Walter Rye (published 1888), and Instant Information on the Internet: A Genealogist’s No-Frills Guide to the British Isles (1999). Written 111 years apart, these two offer a classic perspective on how genealogical researched has evolved.

An odd couple, written 111 years apart

We have five shelves of books on royalty and peerage, many of which are massive tomes with ornate, gilded covers. There are five volumes of The Blood Royal of Britain. These are devoted to the descendants of Kings Henry and Edward of England and James III, King of Scotland.

We have four volumes of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage – a genealogical and heraldic history. Our copies include volumes published in 1906, 1923, 1935 and 1957. These are some of the largest books in our library – the 1923 volume has 2790 pages of very fine print and nice illustrations of family heraldry symbols. Sadly, my English family name does not appear anywhere in the set.

Our shelves offer a number of books
on blue blood and peerage

I was surprised to find the books on peerage followed by a large collection of Avotayne: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy. I checked with library volunteer Phil Hoehn, and after some discussion, he found the journals had been misfiled. The library committee soon rectified the situation. Just a reminder that even the most careful volunteers can go astray–and that there's a reason we request you leave the reshelving to our experts!

An assortment of vital statistics books comes next, with books on marriages, wills, censuses and such things. Among these is The Yorkshire West Riding Poll Book 1835 – a gift of Dorothy Fowler, which provides the names of individuals eligible to vote and in some cases a few more facts on these early voters.

If you claim royalty or have British ancestors you won’t be disappointed with our offerings. 

Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society

Our Library Collections: International Books Introduction

Two beginner guides published in 2007

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

Today I decided to start a series on our international books. I’ll begin with a confession – until I started writing this series, I hadn’t known we had such a large collection of books on places outside the United States. I’m guessing that I am not alone in this gross misconception. For others like me I want to tell you about our wonderful collection of books from places beyond our national boundaries. We have a very large collection for Great Britain, a good number from Germany, and collections for Canada, Sweden and more.

Our international books begin where the Family Histories end. There you will first find an assortment of books for Canada and a few from Baja California, Barbados, Bermuda, Canada, Cuba . . . You get the idea. I found a pair of books published by Ancestry Publishing in 2007. One is Finding Your Canadian Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide and a similar book for Mexican Ancestors. Each of these books is a how-to-find-records source. The one for Canada has twenty-six chapters and four appendices that cover such topics as libraries and archives of Canada, Canadian geography, immigration, Aboriginals, Acadians, and each state within Canada.

Two volumes on Scots research for Canada

We also have two volumes of Some Early Scots in Maritime Canada by Terrence M. Punch published in 2011. For anyone with Scottish ancestry these may be books you’ve missed and may want to check out.

CS-400 is where you will find books on Great Britain and Ireland. Like other sections this one begins with several sets of journals. One is The English Genealogist. We have ten years of these covering 1976-1985. Next is The Genealogist New Series, for which we have issues spanning the years 1906-1921. A bookplate inside the oldest copy indicates it is a loan to CGS made in 1916 . . . I wonder if the donor may want them back soon. The covers on these journals are quite tattered but the content is intact. (Yes, I added a blue ribbon to alert our book repair team that help is needed). In total we have about five shelves just for various journals for Great Britain. Next week I’ll tell you more about our books for Great Britain.

One of several journals in our collection for British researchers

Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society