Blog

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 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.

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.