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CGS is pleased to have such wide support for our ongoing virtual classes ever since the pandemic put in-person classes on hold. We have some wonderful classes coming up in October, all accessible from the comfort of your own home.

Saturday, October 2: Intro to Genealogy! Our monthly basics class. This month: Using the Census.

Jonathan Burgess

Tuesday, October 5: “BIPOC Genealogy and African American History in California’s Gold Rush” Jonathan Burgess offers a series of 3 classes on the history of California’s Black, Indigenous and people of color. On October 5, he discusses The Importance of Family Oral Narrative in BIPOC Genealogy. The following week, on October 12, he talks about the California African American Gold Rush Association. On November 9, he discusses Hidden Figures During the California Gold Rush. Don’t miss this special series!

Saturday, October 9: Monthly Board Meeting. All welcome. Please pre-register.

Stewart Traiman

October 16 & 19: “Excel for Genealogists.” Stewart Blandón Traimon reprises his popular course on using the Excel program to further your genealogy research and organization. Did you know October 17 is National Spreadsheets Day?

Saturday, October 16: “Spooky Family History: Ancestral Graveyards” (Family Tree Maker Special Interest Group). The SIG’s monthly meeting has a Halloween-oriented theme. We’ll also be discussing latest FTM updates, recent changes at Ancestry, and much more!

Alec Feretti

Saturday, October 23: “Italian Genealogy: Tracing your Immigrants in the US and in Italy.” Alec Ferretti leads this in-depth, day long seminar on researching Italian immigration to the US and records in the old country.

Ron Arons

Tuesday, October 26: “Finding Living People on the Internet.” It can be done! Ron Arons offers tips and techniques on using the Web to track down and contact long-lost cousins.

Saturday, October 30: “Rethinking Passenger Lists.” Karina Robinson explores some of the many types of passenger, immigration, and customs lists available to family history researchers.

You can find these and all our upcoming events listed on our website. Classes often fill quickly, so make your reservations now!

Bryan’s Rest, Humboldt County, California, from Swanlund Baker photograph collection at Humboldt State University. https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/swanlund_baker/184/

By Maureen Hanlon

In hindsight, we always could have found a shorter path to our genealogy finds.  But what’s the fun in that?  And taking a class is also always a great way to get fresh eyes.

After attending Melinda Kashuba’s first source-packed lecture on maps last Saturday, I turned back to some research from a 2015 trip to Humboldt County. I had found a photograph then of “Bryan’s Rest,” identified as the home of my great-grandfather, John Wesley Bryan (1854-1924), but I had no idea where it was. Census and voter records from 1890 to 1920 gave his residence variously as Larabee, Hydesville, Shively, Prairie Bluff, Peppertown, and Scotia, but I knew he had pretty much stayed in the same place. At that point I just kind of gave up.

Now, armed with Melinda’s guidance, I went back to the sources and looked more carefully at them for mention of landmarks, distances and alternate names. Using the topo map she pointed us to, I found I could narrow down the likely place even more, using the railroad set of icons and where bluffs and the lowlands were located, and the right side of the Eel River.

Then, with a much smaller possible area, I went back to an online property map from California State Humboldt (Melinda also mentioned colleges and universities as a great source) and there was his name! I had missed this section of the map the first time, not knowing where to focus. There was the railroad, the tunnel, the Eel River bottoms and a reasonable location from the school house the children went to on horseback. Also were three of the six village/town names from the census and voter records (a fourth place, Bluff Prairie, is now known as Shively.)

Belcher Atlas of Humboldt County, California : compiled from official records and private sources and surveys. Author: Belcher Abstract & Title Co., ©1921-1922 https://library.humboldt.edu/humco/holdings/sheet13.pdf

Melinda offers a second class, “Hands-On Map Tools,” this coming Saturday, September 25, when she will demonstrate how to created layered historical maps. Don’t miss it!

Are you searching for publications that may have your ancestors’ surnames and information about the family?  Well, the CGS California Surname Index may help in your search. Even if you’ve used the Index in the past, we greatly expanded this database in the past year, thanks to our generous volunteers. During the Covid closures, our current group of volunteers more than doubled the number of entries in the database – we’ve added so many new entries that printing out the list would require about 2,000 pages! That’s a lot of Californians. So give it a try and see what you find.

How Do I Search the Index?

The Surname Index search box can be accessed on our website from the pulldown menu on Research. Look for Names Search (Look Ups), read the introductory information and scroll down till you find the SEARCH box. Enter a name and see what pops up.If you find someone you are looking for you then send a request to our Research Committee and they will find, print and mail the information to you for a modest fee.

I did this last night hoping to discover something new I could impress you with but unfortunately the only entry for Pattillo is a probate record for my grandfather’s brother which includes the records from the time Elmer was a guest at San Quentin State Prison. Nothing on my other family names but I’ll keep trying because this is an ongoing project.

There’s Great-Uncle Elmer in the Surnames Index

What’s in the Index?

The index is a database of biographical information on California residents – both natives and those who migrated to California from other states – found in 83 books in our library.   The database generally includes first and last names with birth date and place – enough for a researcher to identify specific ancestors. The index provides the name and call number of the book and page number where the entry appears.

Many of these books include high-quality photographs. Some entries provide basic facts only while others offer pages of narrative on their lives. Currently we are focusing mostly on city and county histories where we hope to add names of persons who may not have been included in state level references. The team has also indexed several specialty categories like:

•  Artists in California 1786-1940 Vol.1 and 2, 
• Shadowcatchers: A Directory of Women in California Photography Vol. 1 and 2, 
• Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley,
• History of the Bench and Bar of California.

Who Created the Index?

The California Surname Index was started by CGS member Barbara Close and published in 2000. Barbara identified 46 books that included biographical information on California residents, which could be searched online via our website.  

When COVID-19 forced the closure of our library, members of the Website Content Committee kicked into gear and identified several indexing projects that our fabulous volunteers could do at home while waiting for the library to re-open. Most of these volunteers appreciated having something to do to fill the excess leisure time. Who would have guessed that a year and half later those same volunteers would still be going strong on indexing for CGS?

Several CGS members have contributed to this effort including Jean Alderson, Liz Summerhayes, Kristi Wessenberg, Cindy Thomas, Barbara Kridl, Janet Anderson, Evan Wilson and Laura Jones. This team has added 37 more books to the tally and they are still going strong.