Amazing New Offerings at the Family History Library

CGS March Membership Meeting

Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 1:30 p.m.

Oakland Family History Center
4766 Lincoln Avenue
Oakland, CA 94602

NOTE THE CHANGE IN MEETING LOCATION!

Those who have signed up for the CGS Research Tour to Salt Lake City in April won't want to miss the March Membership Meeting. Margery Bell, Assistant Director of the Oakland Regional Family History Center, will update us on the new projects that the LDS Church is working on from new.familysearch.org to the results of the massive indexing program that is underway. Currently more than 100,000 volunteers are indexing over 1 million names a month and they are rapidly coming on-line with links to the original records. Some of the new technologies can be seen at FamilySearch Labs. Marge will also show us the family history center portal that is the gateway to the member websites available in the Family History Center and demonstrate how their favorites list is organized to provide easy access to some of the choice websites for genealogical research.

An avid genealogist for thirty-eight years, Margery Bell is the author of "Line Upon Line: A Beginner's Guide to Genealogy" that is published with Ancestral Quest software.

San Francisco Coffee - April 2, 2008

The next California Genealogical Society Membership Coffee will be held on Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 10 a.m. - 12 noon, at the Mechanics' Institute Library cafe in San Francisco's Financial District. Members who live in San Francisco will be receiving personal invitations by phone or email and will be encouraged to bring a friend who is interested in genealogy. Immediately following the coffee, at noon, the regularly scheduled public tour of the Mechanics' Institute Library takes place. The Institute is private and only members are allowed inside the library, so this will be a unique opportunity to tour this historic facility. Reservations will be required since space is limited. The society acknowledges the generosity of Mary Beth Frederick who is a member of the California Genealogical Society and the Mechanics' Institute and who graciously made the arrangements.

Plans are also underway for a membership coffee at the Belle Cooledge Branch Library in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Members in greater Sacramento area will be receiving their invitations in the coming weeks.

CGS President Jane Lindsey is looking for a member who lives in the Los Angeles area to help organize a membership coffee to coincide with the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree 2008, which will be held June 27-28-29 at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.

Top Ten reasons to go to SLC with CGS

#10 - The Family History Library is vast and going alone for the first time can be intimidating. Come with two experienced leaders who will save you hours of time learning what is where and how best to use the overwhelming number of resources.

#9. - Arrangements for hotel, breakfast, shuttles and three dinners have already been made for you. Accommodations are at the Shilo Inn - three blocks from the Family History Library and the rooms have free wireless internet.

#8. - Spend time with like-minded individuals. No one will roll their eyes when you start rattling on about your great-great whoever. Where else can you spend a week with other people who are just as nutty about genealogy as you are?

#7. - You will finally have time to organize your papers. Catch an early flight and throw everything into an extra suitcase. Spend Sunday afternoon in your hotel room without distractions and get ready for a week of research. (Believe me, we have all done this!)

#6. - Take advantage of advanced assistance. Jane and Nancy will review your research goals and objectives and make suggestions before you even go to Salt Lake.

#5. - The tour is a perfect blend of togetherness and alone time. Three dinners are planned with the group (don't miss Saturday night at Lamb's) and the other evenings are free to do with as you please. Groups meet informally in the library lobby for lunch and you can join them, explore on your own or stay and work through lunch.

#4. - Nancy Peterson, C.G., has donated her time and expertise to assist you. Nancy is the CGS Research Director and has taught numerous genealogy classes. Private appointments with her during the week are included in the price.

#3 - Jane Lindsey is a mother hen who logs miles and miles running up and down the library stairs making sure that we are all finding what we need. She has been researching in Salt Lake City for over twenty years and has led all of the CGS tours.

#2 - The company is fantastic. I've made friends that I only see once a year but we pick up just where we left off. And there is always someone in the group who has the experience in an area that you don't.

And the number ONE reason to go to Salt Lake City with the California Genealogical Society is...

It is the perfect way to get away from life's distractions and concentrate on researching your family. Imagine a week without any responsibilities except to your ancestors.

More bookmark photographs

Lois Elling, creator of the CGS 110th anniversary bookmark, contributed two of her own family photographs to the project.








The first is Lois' grandmother, Caroline (or Karoline) PERRSON, who came to America from Sweden with her cousin Ida in 1902, at the age of 20. She worked as a domestic in the Boston area, where she met and married William A. ROBINSON, Jr., who was working as a chauffeur. After the death of their first child at just 11 months, the couple moved to Southern California to live near one of Caroline's sisters. They settled in Los Angeles and in 1912 had a son, Herman, and a daughter, Alice, in 1915. William made a living as a machinist and auto mechanic.


Lois' second photograph is her father, Herman ROBINSON and sister, Alice, taken at a studio in Los Angeles in 1918. One of William Robinson's hobbies was photography, which is how Lois came to have a good-sized collection of photographs of the young family.

Lavinia Grace Schwarz contributed this photograph of her Granddad, Andrew Bruce Cresap, who ran away from home, lied about his age and joined up as a medic.

Finally, the front bookmark photograph is from the California Genealogical Society and Library manuscript collection. The photograph, part of the HUTCHISSON family collection, is an image of the three children of Harry Hutchisson and Anna Bertha Merrick, taken about 1903. They are (from left to right) Wallace, Hester and Elmer (first name Lawrence, but he never used it) Hutchisson.

Many thanks to all of the contributors and special kudos to Lois Elling.

110th anniversary bookmark

The 110th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday was a resounding success. Steve Danko has posted a detailed report on the day at his blog: Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective. I was struck by Maureen's incredible talent and passion for her subject, which we learned is a fusion of her expertise in history, photography and genealogy. I came away with a new appreciation for the value of photographs -- not just as a supplement to our family history but also as a research tool. We all have to become "photo detectives" to make sure we have gleaned all of the clues lying in wait in our own family photographs.

All 140 attendees went home with a special souvenir of the day. CGS President, Jane Lindsey, planned early on to create a bookmark to commemorate the anniversary but it was CGS News Production Editor, Lois Elling, who thought to merge the idea with the theme. She combined her design skills and love of ancestral photographs to create a keepsake that perfectly complemented Maureen's presentations.

Several CGS members submitted photographs for the bookmark. I promised that I would include a personal "thank you" to each and give a bit of background and biographical information about the CGS ancestors featured. I'll start with the two photos that I submitted.

The first is a photograph of my uncle and mother taken in 1938 in Sendai, Japan. My uncle, Iwao OKAMOTO, was graduating from high school and had been instructed by his mother to stop by the local studio to sit for a graduation photograph. He took along one of his younger sisters, Miyako, age 8. My grandmother was surprised to find that all of his portraits included his sibling! Iwao was unconcerned. He told his mother that if she didn't want to include his little sister she could be cut off. I'm so grateful that she wasn't.


The second is from my husband's extended NICKLES family. It is of two siblings, Pauline and George Nikolaides, taken about 1928 in the village of Tsintzina, near Sparta, Greece. The brother and sister spent their childhood years in two villages - summers spent in the mountains in Tsintzina, where it is cooler, and the winters in Zoupena; migrating back and forth, up and down the mountain each spring and fall, as has been the custom for hundreds of years. They came to the U.S. with their father and siblings in 1937; their mother remained in Greece throughout her life. Pauline Nickles Poulos died in 1986. George P. Nickles died November 22, 2007. May their memories be eternal.

This is one of only three photographs taken on the wedding day of Clare and Alta McAllister THOMSON, parents of Thomas Thomson who is the husband of Shirley Pugh Thomson, CGS board member and recording secretary. The young bride and groom (she only 18, he age 19) were photographed 4 June 1916, in Sullivan County, Indiana. In the back seat are their best friends and witnesses, Paul and Lena Sharpe. The car was the groom’s father’s Buick.

Two photographs were contributed by CGS member Lisa B. Lee. David Moses LEE was born in 1847 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, the son of William Barnard Lee and Eleanor Jane Smith, and descendant of William Lee, a black Loyalist who fought in the Revolutionary War on behalf of the British Crown. In his early 20s, he moved to Buffalo, New York with his mother and worked first as a blacksmith and then as a male nurse, a position he held for over 50 years. For much of his adult life, he worked in Dr. Pierce's Hospital, an institution on Buffalo's Main Street. Lee died in 1936 in Buffalo at the age of 89.



Lisa's second contribution was the photograph of the MILLER Family. William Miller was born in Pennsylvania about 1811 and escaped slavery to Ontario and settled in the Wellington County area around 1835. He and his wife, Mary Ann Clement (a Canadian native) had at least 11 children. Those pictured in the photo are William Miller's grandson John Sylvester Miller, John's wife, Amanda Cromwell (whose grandfather was a black Loyalist in Nova Scotia) and their children, Joseph, Jane, William and Cecil.

I have a few more details to gather for the remaining photographs so stay tuned.

The year was 1898

The year was 1898.

William McKinley was president and declared war on Spain.

Madame Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered radium.

The Hawaiian Islands became a territory of the United States.

Folks were trying a new soft drink called "Pepsi-Cola."

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, died and C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, was born.

And, on February 12, 1898, the California Genealogical Society was created.

[Photo of William McKinley from the Library of Congress Digital Collection.]

Great Registers of Voters - SF 1890

Several genealogy blogs have commented on the recent release of a new database on ancestry.com - California Voter Registrations, 1900-1968. This collection is a portion of what is more commonly known as the "Great Registers of Voters" which date back to 1866. Legislation was enacted that year to combat voter fraud and bring order after the massive population influx that came with the Gold Rush. The registers are compiled lists of voter names and addresses arranged by district. Additional information was collected which varies by year.

CGS Research Director Nancy Peterson, who devotes a chapter to "Voting Records" in her book Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for Pre-1906 San Francisco Research, notes that "the Great Registers before the years that Ancestry digitized contained naturalization information." The 1866 legislation required voters to provide the country where they were born and "if a naturalized foreigner, when, where, and by what Court he was admitted to become a citizen of the United States." By 1900, when the United States began collecting specific naturalization information from individuals during the decennial census, the voters of California were no longer required to supply it.

CGS member, Jim W. Faulkinbury, gives the complete background of the Great Registers and has an online database index of Foreign-Born Voters of 1872.

The California Genealogical Society participated in the statewide indexing of the 1890 Great Register of Voters, chosen to provide a partial substitute for the lost United States census of that year. The massive project, which took eleven years to complete, was organized by the California State Genealogical Alliance, a consortium of independent genealogical societies throughout California, chaired by Janice G. Cloud of Santa Barbara. The California 1890 Great Register of Voters, a three volume set, indexes 311,028 men living in California in 1890 and includes significant personal information but not the naturalization data.

The California Genealogical Society separately indexed and published in 2002 a one-volume San Francisco, California: 1890 Great Register of Voters, edited by Jane Billings Steiner. It contains the names of 59,712 men living in the many precincts of the city and county of San Francisco in 1890, as well as their age, place of birth, occupation, home address and all naturalization details as found in the official record. CGS has a names search at our Web site which includes this records set, as well as many more. Results that include the code "FRAN" come from this database and can be purchased.

African American Lives 2

Dick Eastman wrote recently about the lack of genealogy-based television programming in the U.S. and the possibility of a new series. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is doing his part to fill the void. Gates, recently named editor of a new African-American online magazine with a slice of genealogy, The Root, is back at PBS this week and next with another of his genealogical treats, African American Lives 2. Gates builds on the previous success of African American Lives (2006) and Oprah's Roots (2007) and returns as the series host with a new cast of prominent and celebrity African-Americans who journey into the lives of their ancestors. This time around Professor Gates examines the ancestry of poet Maya Angelou, actors Don Cheadle and Morgan Freeman and singer Tina Turner, among others.

In case you miss the broadcasts, snippets are available on the excellent companion Web site, launched last week, which is also set up for K-12 teachers to use the program for classroom instruction.

One of the twelve featured "lives," comedian Chris Rock, had an unexpectedly tearful response when learning that his ancestor had served in the Civil War. Said an emotional Rock, "Let's just hope that everybody learns where they come from so their lives can make more sense."

AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 airs Wednesdays, February 6-13, 2008, 9:00-11:00 p.m. PST on PBS local affliate KQED, Channel 9.

Countdown to the 110th

Today is the last day to reserve your place at the 110th Anniversary Celebration, this Saturday, February 9, 2008, at the Concord Hilton. You won't want to miss this special day-long program with Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, who will present four seminars:

Tales from The Photo Detective
Identifying and Dating Family Photos
Preserving Family Photographs
Reading Immigrant Clues in Photos

$45.00 includes all seminars and lunch.

CGS News Editor, Jane Hufft, has organized a special silent auction as part of the festivities. Donated items include a set of champagne glasses in a carrying case, a basket of Irish coffee glasses and accoutrements, two sets of framed botanical prints, Fleetwood Mac wines, a handmade baby blanket, a set of two Malaysian baskets and much, much more.


The society is also honored to announce that our event is the book launch of Maureen Taylor's newest title, Capturing Memories (Your Family Story in Photographs). All of Maureen's books will be available for sale at the event.

President Jane Lindsey has been planning a couple more surprises for the day, including a special commemorative souvenir designed by the CGS News production editor, Lois Elling.

Back in December, George Morgan and Drew Smith, The Genealogy Guys, read the press release of our event on their podcast. George gave Maureen this glowing recommendation:

"If you've never heard Maureen speak about preservation of photographs, identifying photographs, identifying time frames... you're going to find this a tremendous, tremendous session."

Photographs of Maureen Taylor courtesy of Erik Jacobs Photography.

8th Annual SLC Trip: April 13-20, 2008

It's not too early to sign up for the 8th annual CGS Salt Lake City Research Tour, April 13-20, 2008. CGS President, Jane Lindsey and CGS Research Director, Nancy Peterson return again as volunteer leaders of this very popular trip to the Family History Library.

Accommodations are at the Shilo Inn, located three blocks from the Family History Library. The Shilo provides free high-speed internet access in every room.

Annette and Sandy at the Family History Library in 2007.

The Tour Package includes:
* Hotel room (7 nights, double occupancy)
* Shuttle service to and from the airport
* Three group dinners (Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday)
* Orientation meeting and several lectures
* Optional assistance at CGS prior to the trip
* Computer assistance
* Hotel shuttle to library, if needed
* Continental breakfast included

The cost is $625 (airfare not included.) A deposit of $200 holds one space. The trip registration form gives the full details and a description of the cancellation and refund policy.

Photograph courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey.

Chinese-American Research

The January/Februay 2008 issue of Ancestry Magazine is a "special research edition" featuring twelve genealogy "superheroes" who have expertise in ethnic research including: German, French-Canadian, African-American, Italian, Chinese, Polish, Scots-Irish, Native-American, Mexican, Slovak, Scandinavian and Dutch. Each of the specialists had 600 words to answer a case-study research question pertinent to their area. CGS member, Jeanie W. Chooey Low, is the featured author of "From East to West: Researching Chinese Ancestry" on pages 28-29 of the magazine.

Low, a second generation Chinese-American and a native San Franciscan, wrote China Connection: Finding Ancestral Roots for Chinese in America, a compact guide for those interested in doing Chinese family research in the United States. She is bilingual and holds degrees in Library Technology and Chinese Studies and has presented workshops at conferences for the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Genealogical Society, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the Chinese Historical Society of America and San Francisco State University's Asian American Studies Department.

Ms. Low has been an active member of "Save Our National Archives" SONA, an ad hoc group formed in 1998 when the Regional NARA were threatened with closure. The group has spent ten years advocating for the preservation of the California Alien Files (A-Files) and Jeanie reports that their efforts were successful thanks to the support of Congressman Tom Lantos. Approximately one million Alien case files, which can each contain up to 100 pages of precious family documents, will be preserved and become available for research.

In addition to advocacy work, lecturing and research, Jeanie is also an award-winning quilt artist. She has developed her own techniques and finds that quilting allows for another avenue to express her love of family history. Pictured is one of her quilts which contains four generations of family photographs.

Jeanie accepts clients interested in her expertise in Chinese-American genealogy or in 20th century immigration research for any ethnicity. She can be reached by email at wongyen@comcast.net or by snail mail to: J.W.C. Low Company, Post Office Box 472012, San Francisco, California 94147.

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.

African American Research Workshop

CGS member and expert African American genealogy researcher, Electra Kimble Price, sent along this announcement of an on-going class:

The next African American Research Workshop will be held Thursday, January 24, 2008, from 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. at the Oakland Regional Family History Center, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, Oakland, California. The topic for discussion will be "Preparing the Search for 'The Last Slave Owner.'"

A portion of the anniversary film sponsored by the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH) will also be shown: Freedom's Song, 100 Years Of African-American Struggle And Triumph.

Price encourages workshop participants to come equipped with a three-ring binder for the handouts and to bring the names, location, and ages of five family members who were alive in 1900.

The African American Research Workshop meets the fourth Thursday of every month.

Steve’s Blog About the Annual Meeting

The California Genealogical Society Annual Membership Meeting was held yesterday at the CGS library - the first of the yearly January "state of the society" gatherings to be held at our Broadway address. In addition to the various committee reports and election of board officers, President Jane Lindsey reported on the planned events for 2008 and presented a history of the society slide show created by Colleen Huntley.

Among the approximately 60 members in attendance was Stephen Danko, who is creating a national name for himself with his excellent Polish research blog. Steve brought his camera to the meeting and has posted a wonderful report with photos on Steve’s Genealogy Blog today.

Update: Steve Danko also visited and blogged about the Stephen G. Harris City Directory Collection which is adjacent to the CGS library.

CGS - Always a Happening Place

I've been distracted by a couple of CGS projects that came my way and were too important to ignore. The first was this month's issue of the CGS e-News - the January 2008 email newsletter - which went out this past weekend to [drumroll, please!] 924 members. CGS e-News was started last year by Jane Lindsey with the technical assistance of Kathy Watson who set us up with Constant Contact, the email, marketing and survey tool also used by NEHGS for their e-News. Our goal is to send the electronic news every month as a supplement to the CGS News, edited by Jane Hufft and produced by Lois Elling, which is published bimonthly in January, March, May, July, September and November.

The second project is a Family Tree Magazine survey for libraries with genealogical collections. FTM is planning a feature article "that will honor libraries with outstanding genealogical collections across the United States." Anyone who has been to the California Genealogical Society library knows that it fits the definition so the article would be a great way to shine some light on our hidden jewel.

Unfortunately, the FTM questionnaire is extremely detailed, requires quantitative answers and came at the worst time, just before the holidays. CGS librarian, Laura Spurrier and research director, Nancy Peterson stepped up to the challenge and the emails have been flying back and forth in an effort to meet the January 14 deadline. As Nancy noted, "No single one of us appreciates all facets of our holdings" so the challenge is to gather input from several more member volunteers in the next few days.

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."