Archive for October, 2008

CGS member Penelope Curtis sent this notice of an upcoming workshop.

I have been involved with the preservation of the North Star Mine House, designed by Julia Morgan in 1905, for many, many years. Part of that preservation has been in-depth research into the lives of its primary occupants which led me to my own ancestors. The result is this workshop on November 15 that features a local historian who has written numerous accounts of female pioneers.

The North House was designed by Julia Morgan as a hospitality house for the North Star Mine. This photograph is from the Foote family collection. Arthur De Wint Foote took the photo in 1907 when he was superintendent of the North Star Mine and the new host of the house. [Photograph from Penelope’s SmugMug gallery.]

The North Star House docents present Grass Valley author Chris Enss.

Saturday, November 15, 2008, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the North Star Mine House, Grass Valley, California.

Join us in a workshop to learn from Ms. Enss how to unravel cold cases as an historical detective. She will share ten tips for conducting personal genealogical or historical investigations:

1. Prowling the courthouse; 2. Nosing around the archives; 3. Checking out the church; 4. Hunting through the home; 5. Tramping through the trades; 6. Delving into the dispensary; 7. Poking around the Pokey; 8. Roving over the reports; 9. Listening for clues; 10. Noticing the newspapers.

Workshop fee $45 will benefit the North Star House rehabilitation.
Bring your own lunch.
Workshop attendees limited to 25.

Make checks payable to: North Star Historic Conservancy, Post Office Box 578, Cedar Ridge, CA 95924

Ms. Enss is an award-winning screenwriter who has written for television, short subject and feature films and for stand-up comedians. She is the author of several books, including A Beautiful Mine: Women Prospectors of the Old West, Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and How the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier.

For reservations or more information e-mail Penelope Curtis or call 530-798-5955.

You may have noticed the “Find us on Facebook” badge on the right side bar of the blog. It’s been there for the past couple of months since I created a special CGS Facebook page for the California Genealogical Society and Library. Unlike individual profiles or groups on FB, you don’t have to be a member of Facebook to view the CGS Page. What you’ll find there is a nicely organized presentation of everything CGS – links to our Web site, blog posts, photo albums and the opportunity to become a “fan.” Facebook is not just for kids anymore. It is one of many social networking services that I’ve been experimenting with as a place to promote the society and post our events.

Photo Detective Maureen Taylor nudged me into joining Facebook back in June and I’ve been watching in wonder at the number of genealogists who have embraced this new way to share information and make friends. Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak started the genea-stampede to Facebook with Unclaimed Persons – a self-described “group of volunteer genealogists who donate their time and research skills to assist medical examiners, coroners and investigators to locate the next of kin of deceased individuals.” Smolenyak states she had “no idea about all these unclaimed people who are usually cremated and buried in unmarked graves, and that’s often after several months on a shelf in a morgue. We hear about abandoned pets, but you never hear about these abandoned bodies.” You can view a video on RootsTelevision showing how Megan got her start working with coroners’ offices.

By July 2008, hoards of genealogy bloggers had invaded Facebook and Thomas MacEntee of the Destination: Austin Family blog created a “Genea-Bloggers Group” on Facebook. The FB learning curve can be a little steep so Thomas also started the Facebook Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers and more blog to assist members “in becoming more familiar with Facebook functions.” The blog has evolved into a “how-to” manual for blogging in general.

Thomas posts a weekly Facebook update about the Genea-Bloggers Group. There are now 230 members, the vast majority of whom are genealogist bloggers who are writing about every aspect of family history.

Just in the last couple of weeks I’ve re-connected with several Internet acquaintances I’d met in years past through Rootsweb mail lists. Now that we are “Facebook friends” I’ve been able to put a face with the name and learn more about them and their other interests. I haven’t found any cousins yet but I know it’s only a matter of time.

Please take a look at the California Genealogical Society and Library page on Facebook. If you decide to join the fun, be sure to “friend” me.

Attention, bibliophiles!

The California Genealogical Society and Library invites you to come browse our book sale on Saturday, November 8, 2008 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The sale is part of the special Thanksgiving at CGS! event to honor our volunteers.

CGS Library Committee volunteer Arlene Miles reports that there are some great bargains among the wide variety of used genealogy books and periodicals set aside for the sale. Donated books continue to be a welcome source of materials in the library and the society is selling those which are duplicates of items already in our collection and some which do not meet the strict collection policy. Also priced to sell are older editions or printings of books on our shelves that have been replaced by newer versions.

The CGS Library recently received a donation totaling fourteen boxes of materials from one member. About half of the items are new to the library and will be kept for the society collection. The balance will be sold and I am told by volunteer Librarian Barbara Hill that “there is lots of good stuff.”

Arlene, Barbara, Laura Spurrier and Gloria Hanson are to be commended for their efforts. I admit I sneaked a peek at some items that Barbara was processing and I noticed a copy of Pennsylvania Line: A Research Guide to Pennsylvania Genealogy and Local History. This is a classic that went out of print years ago. I’m also told that one batch of donated items on sale is heavy on Virginia and Kentucky.

Please note that all sales are final. First come, first served. See you there!

As reported in August, CGS has been involved in an extensive research project of the Peralta family over the last several months. The research team – Judy Bodycote, Dick Rees and Lavinia Schwarz – was honored at a banquet hosted by the Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park (FRIENDS) on Sunday, October 12, 2008. The dinner was held in the Victorian-style home on the grounds of the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park.

Lavinia Schwarz and Judy Bodycote
arriving at the Peralta Hacienda Victorian.

Lavinia Schwarz sent this report:

Last Sunday the three CGS volunteers (Judy Bodycote, Dick Rees and myself) who have worked on the Peralta family tree for Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, were feted at a banquet in the dining room of the Victorian built by Antonio Peralta’s son near where the original land grant adobe was built in 1820. It was the first non-native dwelling in the East Bay. A second adobe, constructed in 1840 when the family outgrew the original, smaller structure, was later destroyed by an earthquake. The family moved back into the 1820 adobe and started building the Victorian home where we enjoyed our dinner.

Time for some conversation before dinner.
(Note the antique Peralta trunk.)

Chris Pattillo, Ken Talken and Judy Bodycoat with
the portrait of Ken’s great-grandmother, Tonita –
Maria Antonia Peralta Lehmann (1877-1954).

There were fourteen people at the banquet including members of the FRIENDS board – Justin Brown, Ken Talken, who is also a Peralta descendant, Chairman Dale Hagen and Treasurer Mike Falk and his wife Lynne; Deborah Cooper, Collections Curator (retired) of the Oakland Museum; L. Thomas Frye, Curator of the Gold Rush exhibit at the Oakland Museum and former director of the museum; CGS board member Chris Pattillo and her partner Dianne Sierra; Holly Alonzo, Executive Director of FRIENDS and the three of us.

Deborah Cooper, Holly Alonso, Lynne Falk and Justin Brown.

The food was of the time – delicious chili stew, tortillas, mustard greens, potatoes, grapes, figs, bread pudding, champagne, wine, sherry, and chocolates. We were told that at the time the food of the poor and the rich was basically the same. The difference was that the wealthy enjoyed wine and spirits.

Judy Bodycote, Ken Talken, Lavinia Schwarz, Tom Frye and Deborah Cooper.

Dianne Sierra, Dale Hagen, Chris Pattillo and Mike Falk.

The company was delightful and the food was great. We swapped Peralta stories and a good time was had by all. Chris Pattillo and her firm PGA Design did the original landscape design for the park and it was she who thought of getting CGS involved with the Peralta family history. It’s been a nice collaboration. Judy Bodycote has done most of the research. Her husband is a DeAnza party descendant (four ancestors) so she was up to speed right away with researching the early Californios. Judy also figured out how to print out a large color-coded family free.

Based on our work, graphic artist Gordan Chan will create a wall mural of the first five or so generations of Peraltas in California. In addition, our CGS research team has created a genealogy database of 700 plus descendants. We hope visitors to the park will be able to access the database to look up ancestors. The banquet was a thank-you beyond anything we imagined.

Photographs courtesy of Dick Rees.

It seldom happens that you meet someone in person whom you connect to genealogically, although it seems to be happening quite frequently at the CGS Library. First Marianne Frey, Dick Rees and Lavinia Schwarz discovered that they shared New England ancestors, then board members John Moore and Shirley Thomson found that they were fifth cousins, once removed.

Now it has happened again to member Dorothy Koenig, nationally-recognized expert on early Dutch families in New Amsterdam. On Saturday, November 11, 2008. Dorothy volunteered her services as a consultant as part of the California Genealogical Society October Family History Month activities. Laura Spurrier, one of our volunteer librarians, signed up for a one-on-one, members only session with Dorothy. Laura was pretty sure she had a Dutch line but needed help documenting a link in the early nineteenth century. Laura came to the meeting with charts to help explain the problem. Dorothy looked, looked some more, and came to the realization that one of Laura’s charts contained her own ancestors! The cousins connect via the Hegeman, Van Wyck, Polhemius and Rapalje families.

The story became even more astounding when another CGS volunteer librarian entered the discussion. Barbara Hill was also in the library that day and connects to both Dorothy and Laura through the early Rapalje line. Just like that – three instant cousins, instead of two.

Dorothy wrote to let me know that the cousins share another coincidence: “All three of us – Laura, Barbara, and I – have retired from our careers at the Library on the University of California Berkeley campus. It must be the genes we share!”

So is there a statistician out there who can calculate the odds of finding a cousin at the California Genealogical Society Library? They’re starting to look pretty good to me!

Books in the California Genealogical Society Library are organized according to the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system, instead of the more commonly known Dewey Decimal Classification.

LCC is used by academic and special libraries across the United States since the Dewey system is considered suitable only for public and school libraries. The LCC system is criticized as being “U.S.-centric” but it is widely used in this country because of its ease of use and logic.

CGS Librarian Laura Spurrier recently created a hand-out for her talk on the library’s holdings which included a section on “How Call Numbers Work.” She agreed to let me publish it here. I hope you find it as informative and useful as I did.

How Call Numbers Work by Laura Spurrier

The Library of Congress Classification system divides up the universe of knowledge by one or two letters of the alphabet, followed by numbers up to 9999. Complex subjects are subdivided further. Then they are put in order by author (or by title if there’s no identifiable author) and date. For example, Nancy Peterson’s book about San Francisco research, Raking the Ashes, can be found under:

F – Category for local history subjects
869 – California cities
.S3 – San Francisco
P4 – represents Peterson
2006 – year of publication (tells it apart from the next edition)

The F category covers materials about places in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America, including gazetteers, church, cemetery and vital records, periodicals, etc. in each country, arranged by:

Region
Each state (or province) within the region
Counties within that state, in alphabetical order
Cities within that state, (capital city sometimes first)
Miscellaneous, including materials about local minority groups

Other call numbers of interest to genealogists:

BX – histories of religious groups
CS (low numbers) – how-to books and genealogical reference books, The American Genealogist, royal descents, compiled genealogies of multiple families
CS71 – genealogies of individual American families, including family newsletters, in order by surname
CS80-90 – Canadian materials (other Canadian materials are at F1001+)
CS420+ – British nobility and county histories, followed by genealogical materials about other European countries
E99+ – books about Native Americans
E184+ – books about immigrants to the U.S. by ethnicity or religion
E255+ – military and some service pension records (D.A.R. Lineage Books are shelved separately.)
Z – reference books, especially resources in other libraries.
The row ends with the American Genealogical & Biographical Index (Rider) volumes.

Laura J. Spurrier, M.A., M.A., M.L.S., 9/08

The November 2008 issue of the CGS News, Volume XXXIX, No. 6, has been mailed out and will be arriving in members’ mailboxes this week. This month’s issue is a scaled back version – only four pages:

• Membership Meeting – Thanksgiving at CGS! – page 1
• Proposed Changes in the Newsletter – page 1
• News for Family Researchers – page 2
• New Members Welcome – page 2-3
• Calendar of Events – page 4

The four-page newsletter was a cost-saving measure that the board took in September. The U.S. economic downturn was just beginning to make headlines so the board took some preliminary steps to curtail non-essential spending. Newsletter Editor Jane Hufft suggested the abbreviated newsletter as a way to save on production and postage costs.

The front-page article – “Proposed Changes in the Newsletter” – addresses some changes that the CGS board has been discussing about the way that the society communicates with its members. Included in the proposal is an exciting plan to resurrect a serial publication similar to the former Nugget. As these plans are finalized, I’ll be reporting them in future posts and in the CGS e-News.

The CGS News is edited by Jane Hufft and produced by Lois Elling.

Thanksgiving at CGS!

Wine Reception at CGS for Volunteers
Hear Their Stories and Visit the Book Sale
Saturday, November 8, 2008
1:00 p.m.

California Genealogical Society Library
2201 Broadway at 22nd, Oakland, Lower Level

Please join the CGS board of directors for a special wine and nibbles reception to honor our volunteers.

We are so thankful for all the wonderful volunteers at the society who carry out for CGS many kinds of significant and valuable projects, while serendipitously making many discoveries for their own research. Please join us for this delightful celebratory event. Volunteers will be entertaining us with stories of their greatest, best and most surprising discoveries as well as sharing how they assist the society and its members.

Our volunteers are perfect examples of the many rewards and benefits one can gain from being an active part of a genealogical society. Not only have the volunteers improved the society and helped many people conduct successful research, they have made their own discoveries while working at the library. They are the proof that there is so much more to genealogy than solitary online searching.

Everyone will have nametags listing areas of research to help us connect. To acknowledge our volunteers and all the work they do, we’re celebrating them with wine and nibbles and hearing their stories, and you are invited to be part of the fun!

***Please note: An encore presentation of Breaking Down Brick Walls had been scheduled for this date. The presentation has been postponed until early in 2009. If you would like to submit a research problem for consideration, please email Carolyn Steinberg.