California Genealogical Society blog: Our Library Collections: North Dakota

One of many photos found in Walsh Heritage,
a Bicentennial book

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

Our North Dakota collection, like that of other states, begins with a set of journals – The Dakota Homestead Historical Newsletter, compiled by the Bismarck Mandan Historical and Genealogical Society. We have issues starting in 1999 and continuing to 2007. Compared to other journals in our library this one is a bit thin but the quality of the content appears to be on par with others.

Next on our shelf are two multi-volume histories – both donations from the very generous Mr. Dorman. The first is History of North Dakota by Lewis F. Crawford, published in 1931. These volumes are a combination of history and biographies of notable people. Chapter 17 deals with the coming of the railroads and includes a very clear fold-out map showing the locations of railroad lines and the year each was added to the train system.

Multi-volume histories we have for North Dakota

The second set is History of the Red River Valley, published in 1909. The introduction begins with this quote, “Genuine history is brought into existence only when the historian begins to unravel, across the lapse of time, the living man, toiling, impassioned, entrenched in his customs, with his voice and features, his gestures and dress, distinct and complete as he from whom we have just parted in the street.” Both of these sets of books are well illustrated.

We have two volumes of Walsh Heritage: A Story of Walsh County and its Pioneers. This is one of many similar books that were compiled for the nation's Bicentennial in 1976. I love these books and have succeeded in finding some of my ancestors chronicled in them. Walsh Heritage follows the format of other bicentennial publications. They are organized chronologically starting with a history of the county, followed by short histories of families or individuals submitted by local people. These books, like others in the series, include lots of photos of individuals, family groups, school and civic buildings, and anything else that was important to that community at the time.

Nice fold-out map of North Dakota railway lines,
in History of North Dakota

Reviewing our online catalog you will learn that we have 29 print books, 26 articles, several journal magazines and two images for North Dakota – so don’t give up after you’ve exhausted what is on the main shelf. Consult the catalog for other items' locations in the library.