Juan Bautista de Anza Traveling Exhibit: Discover the Diversity of Early California

CGS Vice-president Ellen Fernandez-Sacco visited the de Anza exhibit at Oakland City Hall and sent this report:

A small bilingual traveling exhibit on the de Anza Expedition of 1775-1776 was on view at the City Hall in downtown Oakland. Organized by the National Parks Service and the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, it also included a film screening of “The Anza Expedition” and a panel discussion by representatives of the Oakland Black Cowboy Association, the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park and the Juan Bautista de Anza National History Trail part of the National Park Service. 

The De Anza Expedition led 240 men, women and children over 1200 miles and was intended to populate and colonize Alta California and establish a supply route between Sonora to the San Francisco Bay. The settlers founded San Francisco and San Jose. The De Anza National Heritage Trail extends from Nogales on the U.S. Mexico border through Southern California, through the Coast region to San Francisco. Native people guided the expedition over their trade routes comprised of trails and landscapes they knew for centuries. Profound changes ensued. 

Eventually, the establishment of the Mission system destabilized and destroyed Native ways of life in California. Settlers and Native people interacted and intermarried to create a unique California culture.

Of particular interest to readers interested in California genealogy and family history are the documents on the National Parks Service Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail website, which includes a 268-page Historic Resource study with a bibliography and an Ethnography of the settlers of San Francisco.

Some primary source documents (original journals) and other resources are on the Web de Anza site.

California Spanish Genealogy at SFgenealogy chronicles the story of the soldiers of the De Anza Expedition.

A free, 22-page downloadable supplement on impact of the expedition on Native peoples along the trail, Native People, the Anza Expedition, and the Settlement of California, was originally published in 2008.


Photographs and links courtesy of Ellen Fernandez-Sacco.


Copyright © 2013 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library.

Honoring Our Past Presidents

Congratulations, members and volunteers!

One hundred fifteen years ago today, 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.

Dr. Edward Stephen Clark was elected the society's first president. Today President Jeffrey Valliant is the thirty-sixth to hold the office. Today we honor those who came before.

Past Presidents of the California Genealogical Society

Dr. Edward Stevens Clark     1898–1900
Col. Adolphus S. Hubbard  1900
Mr. Herbert Folger  1901–1903
Mr. Zoeth A. Eldridge  1904
Mr. Herbert Folger  1905–1907
Mr. Orville Dwight Baldwin     1908–1909
Mr. Henry Byron Phillips  1912–1920
Mr. Delmar Leon Thornbury     1921
Mr. George Henry Andruss  1922
Dr. Charles Francis Griffin 1923–1931
Mr. George Arthur Merrill 1932
Mr. Charles Hancock         1933–1941
Mr. Robert T. C. Head  1942–1944
Miss Margaret Griffith     1945–1948
Mrs. Heward Armstrong 1948–1962
Mr. H. Lewis Mathewson 1963–1964
Mrs. Scott Rountree          1965–1970
Mrs. John Peirce  1971–1973
Dr. Albert Shumate     1974
Mr. J. Roger Jobson  1975–1976
Mrs. Charles C. Bowen  1977–1978
Mr. John Hale  1979–1982
Mrs. Constant Vaughn  1983
Mr. David Adams     1983–1977
Mrs. Jane Steiner     1987–1988
Mr. James Schuyler 1989
Mr. David Mason Adams  1990
Mrs. Mary Sweetman  1991
Mrs. Mary Lou Grossberg     1992–1993
Dr. Frederick S. Sherman  1994–1997
Mr. David Wilma  1998
Mr. Vernon A. Deubler  1998–2001
Mr. Glen S. Schimelpfenig  2001–2004
Mrs. Jane Knowles Lindsey     2004–2010
Dr. Stephen Harris  2010–2012

Copyright © 2013 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library.