Genealogy is Not Just for Genealogists

Whether you are interested in researching your family history or not, you have stories, family mementos and photographs in your home, some that have been passed down, generation to generation. This talk will give you an awareness of what you can do to ensure your family treasures are available for your descendants.

This is the description of a lecture that California Genealogical Society President Jane Knowles Lindsey keeps in her back pocket. Well, not literally, but it's ready when the opportunity presents itself as it did recently when she was having a conversation with a new member. As Janiece Nolan tells it, "I just mentioned I had Rotary meeting right after I met Jane for first time and she asked if she could speak sometime and I said sure."

Janiece Nolan, Steven Shagrin and Jane Lindsey.

Janiece is a long-time member of The Rotary Club of Rossmoor. The group meets every Wednesday at the Hillside Club House for a social hour, lunch and a speaker. Janiece made the arrangements with Rossmoor Rotary President Steven Shagrin and Jane spoke to them this week on Wednesday, September 10, 2008.




The Rossmoor group is the largest Rotary Club in the area, and among the most active. They have 75 members who are retired, semi-retired or are local business people from the surrounding community. Many in the audience were in the special position of remembering their grandparents and also having children and grandchildren of their own. As Jane pointed out, they possess knowledge of five generations - valuable genealogical information, even if they had never thought of it in those terms.

You may not be interested in genealogical research but you may hold the key to help others unlock family mysteries.

Lindsey told members that even if spending time in a library or at a computer researching their ancestry doesn't appeal to them, there are simple things they can do to help forward the research of others, and more importantly, to pass down all that precious family information to their descendants.

Jane had several specific things that audience members could do but I won't disclose them here - you'll have to schedule her talk for your own group to learn the specifics. What I can give you is Janiece Nolan's report: "Everyone enjoyed Jane's talk and there were many questions and comments. People came up to Jane afterward to ask about CGS and express their appreciation."

Jane Knowles Lindsey, a native of Massachusetts, received her R.N. degree from Boston University and practiced nursing until 1983. She is a past trustee and council member for the New England Historical and Genealogical Society and is president of the California Genealogical Society and serves on its board of directors. Under her capable leadership, CGS membership has grown and its circle of activities has been significantly enlarged. Jane's specialty is events planning. She has arranged genealogical research cruises to Alaska, Canada and the Caribbean. In addition, she leads annual group research tours to major genealogical libraries in Salt Lake City, Boston and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

If your group is interested in hearing "Genealogy is Not Just for Genealogists" or another talk related to genealogy, please contact the society at 510-663-1358.

Photographs courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey.

A Crash Course in City Directories

Location: Latino/Hispanic Room, San Francisco Main Library
Address: 100 Larkin Street, at Grove, San Francisco
Event Date: Saturday, 27 September 2008
Event Time: 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

CGS member Lisa B. Lee is presenting "A Crash Course in City Directories" - a free class supported by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Long before phones and phone books, local publishers were printing city directories for thousands of metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada (and elsewhere). These directories were usually published every year and contained a listing of most of the residents as well as businesses, churches, elected officials, newspapers, etc., in larger cities and towns and often the surrounding areas. This workshop will show how you can use city directories to determine family relationships, land ownership, occupation, spouse's name, race, address, nearby relatives and much more, and why using city directories should be a part of every genealogical project. We'll look at city directories in print, in microform and online.

Wordless Wednesday

California Genealogical Society Library
Book Repair - Second Tuesdays
Marianne Frey, Richard Rees and Lorna Wallace

Photographs by Kathryn Doyle, Oakland, California, September 9, 2008.

Tuesday Tales From the Road - Vermont

Mary Mettler is still on the road. Here is installment six:

Greetings from Vermont I drove from Suffield, Connecticut through Massachusetts and up the middle of Vermont on Saturday. After the horrible Route 95 drive across the George Washington Bridge a week ago, the Vermont drive was wonderful! I loved the rolling green hills, steepled churches and “Moose Crossing” signs. Of course, I could not resist a stop at Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory.

Monday, I journeyed to Westford, a tiny town about thirty minutes from Colchester, where my 3rd and 4th great grandparents and 2nd great grandmother lived. Birth, marriage and death records were not required until 1857, so one needs some luck to find information. I liken the search to an Easter Egg Hunt! You’ll never guess where I found the 1809 marriage record for my 3rd great grandparents – buried among land entries in the Third Volume of Land Records! I spent the day digging out gems from the Charter Book and the Land Record Books. Early settlers would come in to record this information, and I guess the Town Recorder would just put them in whatever book happened to be open!

The next day I moved down to the Montpelier area and stopped at the Vermont Public Records Center in Middlesex. They have the birth, marriage, death and land records on microfilm. The problem is each informational page costs $3! I spent the day copying some of the records by hand and printing only the most important. The next day, I discovered that I could print them out for twenty cents at the Vermont History Center/Vermont Historical Society (VHS) in Barre! So, Vermont researchers, go directly to VHS for birth, marriage and death records unless you need certified copies. VHS also has an extensive library of books and manuscripts, not only for Vermont but also for other New England states. Marjorie Strong, the Assistant Librarian, was very knowledgeable and helpful for my two days at the library. I would have loved a third day there, but today is a Vermont Holiday, the Battle of Bennington Day.

On a different note, I have a new “best friend,” Mike at Stone’s Auto Service in Barre. I lowered the passenger side window to tell the busy motel housekeeper to skip my room, but my window would not go back up. Yikes! It rains a lot in Vermont, not to mention that all my worldly goods are in my car. The motel suggested Stone’s Auto Service, and Mike took the door apart to discover a broken cable. A quick call to the only BMW dealer in Vermont, about an hour away in Burlington, yielded a frightening “about seven days” to get a new cable. Mike came up with an ingenious solution – he drilled a hole in the railing on which the window moves and put in a screw to hold the window up. I can’t open that window, but I should be able to drive home without any further trouble. However, I am now terrified to open any of the other windows and will pray each time I have to stop and pay a toll on the turnpikes. You didn’t think this trip was all fun, did you? Next week – Dorset, Rupert and Bennington.

From Your Roving Reporter,

Mary Mettler

Read the entire series:
Part One: Salt Lake City
Part Two: Indiana
Part Three: Pennsylvania
Part Four: More From Pennsylvania
Part Five: Washington D.C.
Part Six: Suffield, Connecticut
Part Seven: Vermont
Part Eight: Dorset, Vermont
Part Nine: West Point and Back to Pennsylvania
Part Ten: Some Final Thoughts From Home

CGS Member Spotlight: Barbara Close

Scores of volunteers at the California Genealogical Society work in the background to keep the library humming along. Whether they are shelving books, cataloging periodicals, opening mail, paying bills, maintaining computers or performing umpteen other tasks, members selflessly contribute their time to the overall running of the society.

Usually CGS volunteers do their work behind the scenes, without fanfare or public acknowledgment. But occasionally members step forward to significantly contribute to a published work that warrants placing their name on the cover of a book. If you scroll down the right sidebar of this blog you will see some of the publications edited by Barbara Close.



Barbara Ross Close directed the indexing of several society projects, including the San Francisco I.O.O.F. Crematory records, the S.F. Death series and the California Surname Index. Each work represents time spent by a team of members, gathering up raw data held by CGS, then writing and sorting it – imposing order by printing, proofing, formatting, finishing, publishing, marketing and distributing it along the way. Thousands of volunteer hours are the underlying reality of the CGS publication list. In addition to her contribution supervising specific indexing projects, Barbara also served as chair of the Publications Committee for the last three years.

Barbara is well-trained for her tasks at CGS. She holds a B.A. in English from University of California, Berkeley and has a Masters in Library Science from San Jose State. The twin skills of patience and perseverance required for indexing were honed during a career in education in Oakland, where Barbara taught grades four through nine, and was a school librarian.

Close has been a member of the California Genealogical Society since 1991. She was first introduced to the society by past-president, Rick Sherman, who shares another passion with her – folk dancing. (I'll have to blog sometime about the large number of CGS members who are involved in all manner of dance pursuits!) Barbara's interest in genealogy dates back to a conversation with her uncle just after her father's funeral in Redding, California. She realized that she knew almost about her father's family and the search began.

Barbara recently stepped down as chair of the Publications Committee. Thanks, Barbara, for all of your exceptional work.

CGS titles edited by Barbara Close:
California Surname Index: Biographies from Selected Histories, California Genealogical Society, 2000
San Francisco, California: I.O.O.F. Crematory Records, California Genealogical Society, 2001
San Francisco Deaths 1902-1904, California Genealogical Society, 2003
San Francisco Deaths 1865-1869, California Genealogical Society, 2004

Photograph by Kathryn Doyle.