Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday
Reading Wall at the CGS Library

Photograph courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey, 10/3/2009, Oakland, California.

At the Library: A New Reference Homepage for Patrons

Something new has been added to the CGS computers. Designed to give welcome visitors and give them a starting place, "At the Library" is another innovation to make the technology as user-friendly as possible.

The first thing our patrons see is "Welcome To Our Library."

We are glad you are here! We will make every effort to make your visit to the California Genealogical Society Library comfortable and successful. If you have any questions or need help with equipment, please don't hesitate to ask.

Is this your first time here? If so, please ask for a tour of the library.

At the library, we offer access to subscription internet sites (to the left), the library catalog and reference indexes.

You many recall that the computers themselves are a new purchase for the library thanks to the generosity of our members.

It's the volunteer members of the CGS Computer Committee who keep hardware and software humming along and who handle any problems that may arise. The current members of the committee are Al Clark, Paul Mayer and Kathy Watson. Each Monday, one or two of them are at the library performing maintenance activities and fixing any reported problems. Paul has undertaken the effort to clean up the old computers. Al is the mainstay of the committee with the longest participation and history of the computer environment at the library.

Kathy gave me a quick tour of the "At the Library" features and she also showed me the special Desk Duty version installed on the computer at the reception desk. Calling it her brainchild, Watson informed me, "When there was talk of revamping the reference notebook for the Desk Duty Committee, I was inspired to deliver an electronic version rather than another paper version."

The reception desk version of "At the Library" is password protected and is designed to become an online procedure manual. Kathy's plan is to create a web version of everything in the CGS desk manual so volunteers will have every piece of information "at their fingertips."

Both versions of "At the Library" feature links to the CGS Library Online Catalog and to the following databases:

American Memory: California
Ancestry Library Edition
California Genealogy
Family History Archives
Family Search
Footnote.com
Historic American Newspapers
Information Wanted
Library of Congress Catalog
NewEnglandAncestors.org
Newspaper Archive
Rootsweb
S.F. Genealogy
World Vital Records
Vital Search-CA
Vital Search-World

Shelf Reading: A Top to Bottom Review

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 was Shelf Reading Day at the California Genealogical Society Library. Marianne Frey organized the event and provided a review of the Library of Congress call number system so volunteers could check their shelving skills.

Every book on every shelf was examined to insure its proper placement by the fourteen volunteer members who donated their day to the cause.

The industrious volunteers were: Diana Demeter, Mary Beth Frederick, Marianne Frey, Sandy Fryer, Evelyn Gray, Steve Harris, Arlene Miles, Kirsten Netterblad, Dick Rees, Craig Siulinski, Pat Smith, Laura Spurrier, Betty Walker and Bill Whitson.

CGS President Jane Lindsey wanted to publicly thank all the volunteers who came forward and sent this:

I am so pleased we got all the shelves read – a huge project done and all in one day. It was nice to see some new faces and some long-time members, too!

CGS Library cataloger Laura Spurrier added this:

I want to thank everyone for turning out too. Each time we do this, fewer cataloging problems turn up. That is not to say we're anywhere near perfect, but I can see a difference. It takes dedicated people like yourselves to identify problems so I can fix them. You're an integral part in making the books more and more findable and the library catalog more and more accurate. Thank you!

Photographs courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey, 7/22/2009, Oakland, California.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday
Shelf Reading at the California Genealogical Society Library
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Photograph courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey.

Shelf Reading Day - July 22, 2009

Help Put Our Books in Order!
California Genealogical Society Library
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Marianne Frey sent this notice:

If you've been to the library you probably have admired our books on their nice new shelves (no more mismatched hand-me-downs), clearly marked and easy to find. But - are they perfectly arranged? No. Like cars on the freeway, the books bunch up in one place and are generously spaced in another. And books are occasionally re-shelved in the wrong place. With your help we can get every book in the right place.

Come to the library on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. for a review of the Library of Congress call number system and a chance to check your shelving skills. Then you can get to work putting the books in order.

We hope to have at least 20-25 people so this project can be completed in one day.

Volunteers who know how to read shelves can come earlier and begin reading at 8:00 a.m. Our librarians will be available for questions as shelves are checked.

Bring your own lunch or purchase one nearby and take a break with other members (dessert, iced tea and coffee will be provided.) Want to have some fun? E-mail Jane Lindsey if you can help!

SCHEDULE
08:00 a.m. Early Bird Shelf Readers - need no orientation
10:00 a.m. Orientation class on shelf reading
11:00 a.m. until done - read shelves, break for lunch, work in teams or alone. Stay as long as you can so we can complete this project in one day.

How Do You Do Genealogy? SAASC Tour November 18, 2008

The California Genealogical Society will be hosting members of the San Jose State University Society of American Archivists Student Chapter (SAASC) on Tuesday, November 18, 2008.

Laura Spurrier and Dick Rees will be talking to students about how to untangle family trees and how to help people trace and uncover family histories. Students will take advantage of the CGS Library resources and stay and research their own family histories after the lecture.

Christina Fidler, Library Assistant at the University of California, found CGS in a directory of local libraries. She acts as event coordinator for the northern student chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) at San Jose State’s School of Library and Information Science. Christina arranges group visits as a way to connect SJSU archival students with the "amazing collections around the Bay Area" and to "provide students an opportunity to meet each other outside of their digital classrooms and gain a strong sense of community."

The volunteers at CGS are looking forward to the day!

Come One, Come All - Used Book Sale & Fundraiser for CGS

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!

Wordless Wednesday

Photographs by Kathryn M. Doyle
California Genealogical Society Library
Oakland, California, 18 June 2008.

Marin County Genealogical Society's Field Trip to CGS

Members of the Marin County Genealogical Society have journeyed to Oakland as a group twice in the last month. Jim Robinson, who is a member of both societies, organized the field trips, first to the CGS March Membership Meeting at the Oakland Regional Family History Center to hear Margery Bell's update on the changes at the Family History Library. On April 5, 2008, a group of six came from the MCGS for First Saturdays Free to spend a day at the CGS Library to do a day of research.


The group included (L. to R.) Shirley Genetin, President; Jim Robinson, Vice-President; Pam Saulter; Doris Salvisberg, Director of Hospitality; John Bowman, Past Treasurer (also a CGS member) and Will Deady. The Marin County Genealogical Society was formed in May 1977 in Novato, California.

CGS welcomes interested groups to come and tour the library and spend some time exploring our resources. Contact CGS at (510) 663-1358 to schedule a field trip.

Book Recommendations from Steve Danko

CGS Librarian, Laura Spurrier, sent word that new books were ordered for the CGS Library in anticipation of the workshop this Saturday, April 12, 2008, "Eastern and Central European Genealogy." Specialist Steve Danko of Steve's Genealogy Blog suggested several titles. These are now available at the CGS library:
In Their Words: a Genealogist's Translation Guide to Polish, German, Latin and Russian Documents, Volume I: Polish by Jonathan D. Shea and William F. Hoffman.

In Their Words: a Genealogist's Translation Guide to Polish, German, Latin and Russian Documents Volume II: Russian
by Jonathan D. Shea and William F. Hoffman.

Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy
edited by Sallyann Amdur Sack and Gary Mokotoff.

















Where Once We Walked : A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust, revised edition, by Gary Mokotoff and Sallyann Sack with Alexander Sharon.

Additional books on Polish, Ukrainian and Galician genealogy have also been ordered.

The workshop is free for CGS members and there are still a few slots open. Reservations are required; no walk-ins will be permitted. There is a sign-up fee of $10 for non-members. (The fee can be applied toward membership on the day of the workshop.)

Please call (510) 663-1358 to reserve a space.

Book Donations Build the Library

The donation of books accounts significantly for the growth in holdings of the California Genealogical Society Library over the past 100 years. The reliance on the generosity of members and others dates back to 1906 when the society, founded in 1898, lost everything in the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. In order to rebuild, CGS actively sought and received book contributions from many individuals and organizations from around the country. The CGS archives hold a formal, printed announcement dated 20 June 1908:

Donations of books, histories and other genealogical matter, are solicited for the new library of the CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY to assist in a measure to replace those destroyed in the great fire of April 18-20, 1906, when the library of over three hundred volumes, charts of members and archives of the Society were lost.

According to early records, in 1913, the Newberry Library in Chicago gifted several cartons of its duplicate books which were from the library of the late Lieutenant Governor Murphy of Pennsylvania.

The History of the California Genealogical Society, written in 1998 by long-time member, Dorothy Fowler, lists several of the larger donations to the library:

Henry Byron Phillips, CGS president 1912-1920, left his comprehensive research on the New England Phillipses to the CGS archival collection following his death in 1924.

Dr. Charles Francis Griffin, CGS president 1923-1931, left his genealogical library to CGS upon his death in 1950.

Margaret Griffith, who served as the Society’s first woman president, 1945-1947, donated books and a great deal of manuscript material when she died in 1965.

Mrs. Wm. J. Lindenberger, an active member of CGS and the California Historical Society for over 30 years, provided literally hundreds of books to the genealogical collection, many of them especially rare and valuable. Her name is prominent on bookplates throughout the collection and in old records of the Society.

The largest single gift to the library was the collection of George R. Dorman, added in 1984. Mr. Dorman, a CGS member for 47 years, served in various capacities on the Society’s Board. A dedicated genealogist, his research on the signers of the California Constitutional Convention was published as a long-running series in the Society’s newsletter and later in The Nugget. The Dorman Collection is housed in a separate room in the library.

Throughout his membership with CGS from 1972 until his death in 1995, Stanley Ross steadily and without fanfare provided books to strengthen specific parts of the collection. For example, he donated a total of almost 200 books to the New York and New Jersey sections alone and also contributed the microfilms of the Kentucky vital records.

The offering of materials to the library continues today. In fall, 2007, five boxes of books were gifted from member Joan Soo. Electra Kimble Price donated some of her African-American and Native-American collection. Theresa Smith sought out the society seeking a good home for her late mother's books. Theresa's not interested in genealogy herself so we are grateful that the four boxes of books on early California during the Spanish era, especially southern California, have found their way to the CGS bookshelves.

The most recent gift comes from long-time member, Dorothy A. Koenig, an expert on early Dutch settlers in "New Netherland" in the 17th century and editor of the quarterly journal, New Netherland Connections. Dorothy has donated volumes 1-14 of the set Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Procured in Holland, England, and France by John R. Brodhead and others. They were published in Albany, New York, 1853-1883.

CGS Librarian, Laura Spurrier, notes: "The reason they're important is they contain the authorized transcriptions of original documents about the founding of New Amsterdam and later English-controlled New York. And, they're indexed, making the volumes accessible for genealogists."

CGS Ancestral Chart Project

Like most genealogical societies, CGS has received many donated items over the years, and as is usually the case, things sometimes get "lost" in the archives. One of the benefits of moving last year was the rediscovery of some 100 ancestral charts of assorted size and vintage. Volunteers had carefully labeled each chart with a primary surname title and stored them alphabetically in eight long boxes. Many hours had been spent creating a surname index of all names found on the charts. A card file is available in the CGS Library where one can look up a surname of interest and find a card listing each of the donated charts that feature the surname in question.

Despite the elaborate surname index, the charts were a seldom-used resource in the library. Unless a surname is extremely rare, there is little practical reason to use the index cards or to examine a chart, based on surname alone.

In July 2007, 14 volunteers met at the home of CGS President, Jane Lindsey, for a potluck work party to search through the charts. The purpose of the session was to examine and abstract information from as many of the charts as possible with the intent of creating an online database so searchers could more precisely determine a chart's relevance to their research. Unfortunately, the work proved more tedious than anticipated and even a second session later in the summer proved inadequate to finish the job. Several more charts remain to be examined before the information can be collated and put into a database. However, a couple of the charts warrant further attention in the blog. Stay tuned.

CGS - Always a Happening Place

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.

CGS Annual Membership Meeting - 1/12/2008

The Annual Membership Meeting of the California Genealogical Society will be held on Saturday, January 12, 2008, at 1:30 p.m., at the CGS Library (2201 Broadway at 22nd, Suite LL2, Oakland, CA). Please join CGS President, Jane Lindsey, for a quick review of the society's accomplishments in 2007 and a look forward to what's in store for 2008, our 110th year of helping people find their roots.

This important session will include Colleen Huntley's power point presentation on the history of the society, an update on our Web site and blog, brief committee reports, approval of the society budget and election of new board members. There will be time for questions and answers.

The annual meeting is always well attended so arrive early to get a front seat, see old friends and meet some new ones. Light refreshments will be available before the meeting at 12:30 p.m.

Steve Harris - Collector of City Directories & Phone Books

Sometimes the best reason to belong to your local genealogical society is the help you can get from fellow members. It can be as simple as the clarity achieved just by speaking a research problem out loud to a willing listener or being able to informally consult with members who have the expertise you lack and are willing to share their resources. But Dr. Stephen Harris took sharing to a whole new level when he made his collection of city directories and telephone books available to CGS members.


Steve, who has a doctorate in psychology from U.C. Berkeley, worked for the Contra Costa County health department and is now semi-retired. He is also a CGS member and professional genealogist whose interest in family history dates back to the Oakland hills fire of October 1991. When Steve lost his home he also lost all of the family documents that he inherited from his parents. He admits he hadn't paid much attention to them before but after they were destroyed he began to wonder if it was possible to replace them and to reconstruct the history of his family. Things just took off from there.


Steve started his collection when he rescued some old phone books that were being discarded by an archive. He has found that most libraries don't like them because they are so fragile and that while city directories have been extensively microfilmed, telephone books seldom are. His collection, which now numbers over 5000 volumes, dating from the mid 1850's to the 1960s, is housed in a space down the hall from CGS in the lower level of 2201 Broadway, Oakland.

Dr. Harris has generously granted CGS members access to his collection two days every month: the second Saturday and the third Friday. Members are to check in at the CGS desk first. From there they will be directed to Steve's library. Dr. Stephen Harris can be reached at wizard848@earthlink.net.

Photographs by Kathryn M. Doyle, 27 Apr 2007.

Our library

Since its inception in February 1898, the California Genealogical Society has emphasized the sharing of relevant source material and the establishment of a library was one of its earliest goals. Our new home in the Breuner Building is located in a "lower level" (basement) suite that was renovated, painted and customized just for us.

This is a view of the library through the entrance door to our suite.

One of our dedicated volunteers, Gloria Hanson, at the reception desk.

A view of the stacks (notice the matching chairs - a
bargain negotiated by president Jane Lindsey.)

On the shelves and in the files are more than 30,000 reference aids and genealogical records including dozens of periodicals, 10,000 local and family histories, reels of microfilm, CDs and many unpublished manuscripts. The library has a wide variety of San Francisco and Northern California materials but is also generously stocked with regional, state and local references for the entire United States. New England, Mid-Atlantic states and the South are particularly well represented in the collection.

After hundreds of volunteer hours, a beta version of the CGS online catalog is now available and is also accessible from the society home page. Over 10,000 books are now searchable on this user-friendly site. By year end, input of the book titles should be complete and the process of loading the CD collection and periodicals will begin.

Photographs courtesy of Colleen Huntley and Jane Lindsey.