Research Links

Recommended Sites for California:

  • sfgenealogy.com is the site for information and free databases concerning San Francisco family history, and now expanded to other California counties.
  • Southern California Genealogical Society was organized in 1964 to foster interest in genealogy, preserve genealogical materials, and train researchers in effective and accurate techniques.

Library links:

  • CA State Library catalogs covers both Sacramento and the Sutro branches. Plan ahead for your personal visit to either branch of the California State Library, or request a title via interlibrary loan (although this can be very slow).
  • WorldCat.org let you search many library catalogues. CalCat searches many libraries in California.
  • California GenWeb links to each county’s GenWeb site. Different volunteers manage each site so their depth and complexity vary. Do check them out!
  • The Huntington Library Early California Population Project.
  • The Digital Public Library of America provides a portal to the HathiTrust, the New York Public Library, Harvard University Libraries, the National Archives and Records Administration, and many other useful research libraries and databases.

Newspaper links:

  • Jim Faulkinbury’s Genealogical Research Services site has several useful resources including.
  • San Francisco Call Database – Index, 1869-1900, birth, marriage and death data in San Francisco. This is a good substitute for records destroyed in the earthquake. Also has an index to 1872 foreign-born California voters. For more detail, you can order copies of the complete information for a fee of $12, or less.
  • The California Digital Newspaper Collection is another newspaper archive (it’s a beta version in 1/2008) covering some early issues of the newspaper San Francisco Call and the Daily Alta California. You may be surprised to find a mention of your ancestor.
  • The Tombstone Transcription Project, State of California page.

Look at society websites – they often have local data right there! For example:

Forty-niners and more:

  • California Bound contains passenger lists for ships and wagon trains traveling to California between 1848 and 1873 … and more. Did you lose an ancestor on his/her way to California? A surname and ship name search box searches the whole page.
  • Maritime Heritage Project–Search Captains, Ships, News and More than 20,000 passengers arriving in San Francisco during the 1800s.
  • Golden Nugget Library–California databases for genealogical research.
  • Lahontan Images Presents–Exploring Northeastern California History..

Looking for something genealogical to do this week?