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.