There's a National Subway Day, You Say?

Novoslobodskaya Station, Russian Metro
by Alex 'Florstein' Fedorov, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46392339

I was talking with a friend a couple of months ago and we started comparing notes on which subway systems we had each traveled on.  Somehow my mind went from that to thinking that could be a fun subject to blog about, then to wondering whether there was any sort of official "national subway day."  I Googled it and found that yes, indeed, someone had declared a National Subway Day on November 3, 2015.  That also seems to have been the only day it was celebrated, but I took it as an excuse to blog on the topic anyway.

I'm not sure that subways are my favorite form of transportation, but I don't mind using them, and I've been on several.  In no particular order:

Moscow, Russia Metro, 1982:  At the time I was there, it was still the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, one constituent member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  And the Metro (pronounced mye-tro) was beautiful.  Each station was a work of art, and we were told that was the intention.  I don't recall that it ran late.  One incident that happened to me when using the system was when a friend and I were leaving the station and standing on the escalator as it gently took us back to fresh air.  For some reason I had my friend's passport in my hand and was looking at it in detail, when one of the people ahead of us, who appeared to have been drinking heavily, suddenly stumbled backward and fell onto me.  Not only did I catch him and not fall myself, I didn't even drop the passport.  But my friend and I took a few steps backward, just in case it should happen again (it didn't).

Paris, France Métro, 1983:  I don't remember as much detail about the Métro in Paris, probably because whlie I was there I was dead broke and walked almost everywhere rather than pay for transportation.  But I did ride it a couple of times.  I don't recall that it was awful or great, just kind of there.

London, England Underground, 1996:  The Tube, as it is commonly called, has a reputation all its own.  People ride it just to say they've done so.  I rode it to get from one point to another, but I did notice the signs saying, "Mind the Gap," which are well known.  When I was going from the Prime Meridian to the Tower of London, I should have taken the Tube, but I didn't realize how far I was going to have to walk.  By the time I got to the Tower, it was closing for the day, and all I did was walk around it.  So that was one time I really blew it by not taking the subway.

New York City Subway, 1997 and 2005:  Another transportation system famous in its own way, the New York City Subway has the most stations and is one of the busiest and longest in the world.  In 2005 I wanted to visit a cousin who lived in the heart of Manhattan, and she convinced me not to even think of driving but to take the subway instead.  So I did.  It was a nice trip there and back.  I also took it once with my sister when I was visiting her in New Jersey, because she found out I had never been on it.  So we rode into The City and walked around for a while.  We somehow fortuitously ended up on 57th Avenue and I was able to show her around The Compleat Strategist, an adventure games store that carried products from the company I was working for at the time (this was in 1997).  She is still the only family member who actually got excited to see my name in print, jumping up and down in the store.

Washington, D.C. Metro, 2000 and 2011:  The outstanding feature of the Metro in DC is how huge the tunnels are.  They are absolutely cavernous.  I was told that the reason for their ridiculous size is that they're supposed to be emergency shelters for people if something really horrible happens outside.  But that doesn't make sense, unless the people are supposed to stand on each others' shoulders, because most of the space is up.  So I suspect the real reason is something else entirely.  But it's a nice system, and I definitely enjoyed riding it.

Montreal, Quebec Metro, about 1999:  I traveled to Montreal once for work, and while there I learned about the underground transportation systems.  Not only is there a subway, but there are underground walkways between buildings so that people can move around in the dead of winter.  I thought that was pretty smart of them.  I don't remember anything in particular about the Metro, so it couldn't have been bad.

Boston, Massachusetts Subway, 1991, 1992, 1993:  The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) looks and feels ancient, or at least it did when I was using it.  I used to go to Boston at least once a year and took the subway a lot.  The cars always felt rickety, and when they careened around curves you worried whether you were going to go airborne.  The cars seem to just barely fit in the tunnels.  I heard rumors (never substantiated) that some people who were working had been crushed.  Not a friendly system.  I have one friend who knew the system inside out, backward and forward, to the extent that he could figure out in his head that if we went two stops past where we wanted and then came back one stop, we could walk far fewer stairs to get to the street.  He was amazing.

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit:  The subway system with which I am most familiar is BART (I love acronyms!).  Not only did I live in the Bay Area for 28 years, but I worked as a train operator at BART.  I have to admit, I loved riding BART around, especially in San Francisco, because I hated driving in San Francisco.  BART is a great system.  I even wrote two blog posts about using BART to get to genealogically important research sites (in San Francisco and in the East Bay)!

So that comes to eight systems.  Hmm, I thought it was more than that.  I guess I need to get out there and ride a few more!

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Late Addition, December 31, 2024

San Francisco Muni Metro:  For some reason, it recently occurred to me that I had ridden not only BART in San Francisco, but also San Francisco's Muni Metro, the light rail vehicle system that is partly a subway and partly above ground.  So in the interest of completeness, I'm adding it now.  The main reason I used the system was when Sutro Library, the genealogy-focused branch of the California State Library system, was moved from a location to which you almost had to drive to two floors in the CSU San Francisco library, which was reachable by, you guessed it, Muni Metro.  And as I mentioned above when writing about BART, I hated driving in San Francisco, so given an option to avoid that, I very quickly did so.  I was never a fan of Muni buses, but I liked the rail system.  I probably took it about half a dozen times out to Sutro.  And it is a totally different system from BART, so that brings my total to nine.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Your Life Story in Two (or Even Five) Minutes

Talk about ourselves?  No genealogist likes to do that.  We love to talk about our ancestors!  But that's what Randy Seaver wants us to do tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Everyone has a life story, and mine is still ongoing.  Tell us your life story — start with today and go back to your birth.  Do it in 200 to 500 words, so you could tell it in two to five minutes.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

And backward, no less!  Let's see how I do.

My name is Janice Marie Sellers, and I am 59 years old.  I live in Gresham, Oregon.  I am not married and never have been, but I have two "stepsons" from a former significant relationship.  Through the older of the two I also have five grandchildren (with very complicated interrelationships that would drive a genogram designer crazy), and I stay in touch with both of my former daughters-in-law, who live in Vancouver, Washington (15 miles away, with three of the grandchildren) and Lebanon, Oregon (95 miles away, with two of the grandchildren), respectively.

My daily activities are family history research, taking care of my two cats and three macaws, and (still!) trying to finish unpacking everything from when I moved to Oregon in 2017.  The latter was delayed because I came here with a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder and then proceeded to tear the cuff in the left shoulder (I guess I wanted a matched set).  After surgery on the left shoulder in summer 2020, I am much more able to move things around again, although I have to be careful not to push it.  I try to get six hours of sleep each night, which I am getting better at accomplishing.

My last regular job was as a train operator at BART in the San Francisco area (that's the job that gave me the torn rotator cuff in the right shoulder).  I was an employee there for five years.  Recent employment before that was transcriptionist, "office manager" (really a door guard) at an upscale daycare in a poor neighborhood, and more than 35 years as an editor for various companies and print publications.  I also was able to travel for business as an editor, primarily in the United States but a few times internationally.

My formal education ended several years ago with courses in computer programming, music, and library science, none of which culiminated in a degree or certificate.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (emphasis in French), which functionally was a B.A. in French with minors in Spanish and Russian, from the University of Southern California in 1983.  I attended Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida for my diploma.  I detailed my pre-high-school education for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post a few years ago; suffice it to say that I attended schools in many locations.

I was born in 1962 in East Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County hospital (prior to its association with USC), the first child of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler.  Both my parents were born on the East Coast, my father in New Jersey and my mother in Brooklyn, but they met and married in Miami and then drove to California to start their life together.  My family lived in multiple locations in east Los Angeles County until we moved to Australia in 1971, living there for two years before returning to the United States in 1973 and going to Florida.  In California, we saw my mother's parents often, as they lived relatively close by in Las Vegas.

The highlight of my life has been my grandchildren and their parents.  I did not have children of my own but always wanted a family, and I love being a bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother).  I wish I could spend more time with the kids and parents.

Did I go over my five-minute limit?

I Started Learning to Read Hebrew!

I've been wanting to learn to read Hebrew for many years.  As a Jewish researcher, I've always known it would be a useful skill.  In addition, as an officer of a Jewish genealogical society, though it isn't a requirement, I thought I really should know something about the language.

So I've had it on my (very long) list of things to do for several years, but there were always reasons I didn't manage to do it (like money, time, and all those other things that get in the way of getting things done).  But then I read about a free (!) five-week class at Congregation Beth Israel–Judea in San Francisco.  And I figured out that I could take BART to the synagogue and didn't have to drive (because I hate driving in San Francisco).  It was perfect!

The Hebrew Reading Crash Course (yes, that's really what it's called; look at my little diploma up there) was a lot of fun.  It teaches one letter at a time and has you practice syllables, then starts putting the syllables together into words.  The next thing you know you're actually reading Hebrew.  I even recognized some of the very few Hebrew words I know (such as the prayer over wine!).

The instructor (the Rebbetzin of the synagogue) warned us that Hebrew as taught in the course is very formal and somewhat archaic, and also that the extremely helpful vowels which are used throughout are not usually found in everyday Hebrew writing.  But I figure I'm off to a great start.

The class is offered through the National Jewish Outreach Program, which also has a Hebrew Reading Crash Course II.  Everyone in the class told the Rebbetzin that we'd love to take the second course.  And there's even a Hebrew Writing Crash Course!

Of course, everything in the textbook is printed Hebrew.  At some point I know I'll have to learn to read handwriting, and eventually I hope to learn to read Yiddish also (which uses the same alphabet but is definitely not the same language, the same way that English and French use the same alphabet).  One step at a time . . . .

Genealogy Research in the East Bay via BART

A death certificate from
the Oakland History Room

I've previously written about using BART to travel to genealogical research locations in San Francisco.  It's time to give equal attention to the East Bay.  Since I live in Oakland I often drive to these places, but parking in downtown Oakland and Berkeley is comparable to San Francisco, so being able to take BART lets you avoid that mess.

The first stop on our East Bay research tour is Lake Merritt station.  Follow the exit signs toward 9th Street, and you'll see a very large sign that says "Superior Court."  Exit at that corner, and when you come up above ground, you'll be at the corner of 9th Street and Oak Street.  That puts you five blocks from the main branch of the Oakland Public Library, four blocks from the Alameda County Administration Building and Superior Court, and three blocks from the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder.

If you're taking a train from Pittsburg/Bay Point, Millbrae, or SFO, you need to transfer to a Fremont or Dublin/Pleasanton train get to the Lake Merritt station.  Instead of waiting for a connecting train, you might want to get off at the 12th Street/Convention Center station, though it's a longer walk.

Similar to the San Francisco Public Library, the Oakland Public Library has two important resources for genealogists:  the Oakland History Room and the Newspaper and Magazine Room.  The History Room is on the second floor of the library and has information and records primarily about Oakland, but also for other cities in Alameda County.  Probably the most significant items are original Oakland birth and death certificates from 1870–1904, before the state of California began collecting vital records, but you can also look at a complete collection of Oakland city directories (1869–1943); Alameda County voter registers (1867–1944); Tax Assessor's block books for Oakland (1877–1925); various Sanborn fire insurance map books from between 1882–1951; photographs of Oakland, Piedmont, and Emeryville; vertical files of newspaper clippings; several local high school yearbooks; information on the origins of street names for Oakland and Berkeley; and more.  There are indices to several local newspapers and to articles in books and magazines.  Staff will do free look-ups and will mail you copies of items for a small fee.  The Newspaper and Magazine Room, which is at the other end of the second floor from the History Room, has the complete historical run of the Oakland Tribune on microfilm, along with many other local newspapers, including a significant number of black newspapers.

The Alameda County Administration Building houses the Superior Court records office and the Tax Assessor.  The records office, on the basement level, holds probate and civil indices and microfilms.  If the records you want to look at have not been microfilmed, they'll have to be retrieved from storage, which can take several days.  Unlike San Francisco, there is no charge to request records from storage.  Also, some records may be housed at different courts.  Criminal records apparently are treated similarly.  The Tax Assessor's office is on the first floor.  You can walk in and ask the nice people there to look up who owns a property.  I've been told it's possible to get complete tax records for a property, but I haven't done that myself (yet).

The Alameda County Clerk-Recorder holds birth, marriage, and death records from 1905 to the present and land records dating back to the 19th century.  There are no restrictions on who can order an informational copy of vital records in California, but more recent records may have some names, such as the medical examiner on a death record, redacted (privacy laws).  The Recorder section has computerized and microfilm indices and records for land transactions and fictitious business name registrations.  A computer with an in-house index for vital records includes records that occurred after the published indices end.

The 12th Street station is the closest one to the African American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO).  Exit toward Ogawa Plaza and then head west on 14th Street.  AAMLO is about four blocks away.  AAMLO is a great resource for researching the black communities of the Bay Area and California.  It has diaries, oral histories, videos, newspapers, and other materials relating to local people and organizations.  It also has general resources relating to black history in the United States and important historical individuals.

Our next stop is the 19th Street station in Oakland, the closest station to the California Genealogical Society and Library (CGS), as Kathryn Doyle pointed out in my post about San Francisco genealogy locations.  You can follow the exit toward Broadway and 20th or the one toward 20th; either way you'll have to cross a street (20th for the former, Broadway for the latter) to get to the corner with the beautiful green I. Magnin building.  Then walk up Broadway two blocks, cross one more intersection, and turn left to enter the old Breuner Building, where you will find CGS on the lower level.  CGS has resources not only for California but for the entire United States, as so many people came to California from other places.  Its extensive library includes books, manuscripts, and microfilm.  It also offers genealogy classes throughout the year, including an introduction to genealogy the first Saturday of the month.  Several databases are available on the Web site and in the library.  The library is open to all, but nonmembers must pay a $5 user fee, except for the first Saturday of the month.

Continuing further up the Richmond line (but passing MacArthur and Ashby stations), the Berkeley station puts you not too far from Bancroft Library on the University of California campus and in easy walking distance of the Berkeley Public Library and the Berkeley Historical Society.  If you're going to Bancroft, exit the station via the plaza escalator.  Go east on Center Street, cross Oxford, and enter the campus on Grinnell Pathway.  Turn left on Campanile Way.  After about three "blocks" distance, you'll come to Doe Library; Bancroft is on the east end of the building, with the entrance on South Hall Road.  Bancroft is primarily an archive, with collections of Western Americana, Mark Twain papers, the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, and the university archives, among others.  It also has a significant photograph collection, much of which is being digitized.  Generally, you need to page materials ahead of time (which is a whole separate post!), but some reference materials are on the shelves.

To go to the Berkeley Public Library, follow the signs at the Berkeley station to exit at Shattuck and Allston on the west side of the station.  When you come up above ground, walk south one more block and you'll be at the library.  The big attraction for researchers here is the Berkeley History Room, which has city directories and phone books, Berkeley High and University of California yearbooks, Sanborn insurance maps, the Berkeley Daily Gazette from 1894–1983, oral histories, photographs, maps, and more.

For the Berkeley Historical Society, exit the Berkeley station through the plaza escalator and head west two blocks on Center Street.   The society's History Center has a library and an archive.  I've been told it has Berkeley High School yearbooks (including some years that the Berkeley History Room doesn't have) and a photograph collection, but I haven't actually made it there yet to see for myself.

One very important genealogical location that BART doesn't reach directly is the Oakland FamilySearch Library.  The closest station is Fruitvale.  When you exit the station, to the right is a large board listing the AC Transit buses that leave from the station.  The board also has a handy map showing the bays from which each bus departs.  Currently the #39 bus will take you to the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Monterey Boulevard (but AC Transit has changed this route several times, so the specific bus line might be different when you go).  From there walk back down the hill a little to the entrance of the LDS temple campus and follow the signs to the Visitors' Center/Family History Center (the former name of the FamilySearch Library).  The library is on the lower level of the building.  Before you walk in, make sure you enjoy the beautiful view of the bay.

The Oakland FamilySearch Library is a branch of the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah (the mother lode of genealogy libraries).  It is a noncirculating genealogy library with almost 10,000 print items, 38,000 microfilm reels, and 10,000 microfiche.  The collection has a strong regional focus, so you will find lots of records about California (particularly the Bay Area Portuguese community), but there is something for almost everyone here.  The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society (SFBAJGS) regularly donates publications and microfilm, so the library has a significant number of Jewish research resources.  The 75 computers have access to more than a dozen subscription genealogy Web sites, including Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.co.uk, NewspaperArchive.com, and Fold3.com.  Classes are offered regularly, and several genealogical groups, including SFBAJGS and CGS, hold meetings, classes, and events in the library.

A really interesting set of records is at another location that requires you to take an extra step after getting to the BART station.  Go to the Hawyard station and take the shuttle to California State University of the East Bay.  In the university library's special collections is a set of original Alameda County voter registration forms from 1875–1925.  Most of this type of record around the country were destroyed, so these are unusual survivors.  This particular set includes a record for author Jack London.  The library also has collections of historical slavery documents and World War II Japanese relocation materials.

So far I've only discussed Alameda County locations, but Contra Costa County is also in the East Bay.  I don't know of anything you can get to directly by BART, but some core repositories are reachable by BART and a bus connection.  The Contra Costa County Clerk, Superior Court, and Historical Society are all in downtown Martinez.  The best way to get there by BART is to go to the Walnut Creek station and take the County Connection #98X (express) line to the Amtrak station, which is only a short walk from the three locations.  You can also take a bus to Amtrak from Pleasant Hill (#18), Concord (#16, #19), and North Concord (#28/627), but the bus lines from those stations take significantly longer.

The Contra Costa County Clerk's office has birth, marriage, and death records, land records, and fictitious business name filings.  Searchable indices are online and on computers in the clerk's building.  The Superior Court records office holds records for closed cases, which are what genealogists usually deal with.  The Contra Costa County Historical Society's History Center is an archive with photographs and original documents relating to the history of the county.

I realize it seems as though I'm giving Contra Costa County short shrift, but I don't know of other genealogy research locations that are easily BARTable.  For example, the Plesasant Hill branch of the Contra Costa County Library has a genealogy collection, and members of the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society volunteer at the library and help people with their research—but the closest station is a mile away on the other side of the freeway, and I didn't see a direct bus connection.  If you know of other BART connections, feel free to post a message letting us know!

Wordless Wednesday

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Genealogy Research in San Francisco -- via BART!

Tank photo from the
"Mexican Expedition"

This is a slightly different take on research in San Francisco.  I'm going to approach it from the perspective of getting there.  I live in Oakland, which is on the other side of San Francisco Bay, so any research trip has to take into account getting across the water and into and out of San Francisco.  I love to drive, but I don't like driving in San Francisco.  The streets are narrow, parking is expensive and hard to find (especially near the research locations), and you have to pay a toll to cross the bridge just to get into the city.  So my preferred way to go to San Francisco is by BART!  And conveniently, BART can take you to some of the most important research locations in San Francisco.

The first stop on our BART research tour is Civic Center station.  If you exit the station by following the signs to 8th Street and then to Civic Center, you come out right across the street from the San Francisco Public Library and a mere two to three blocks from the Department of Public Health, City Hall, and Superior Court.

The San Francisco Public Library has two excellent research resources:  the San Francisco History Center and the Magazines and Newspapers Center.  The History Center, on the sixth floor of the library, is the official archive for San Francisco and has a wealth of information available.  There are Sanborn insurance maps for several years, a magnificant photograph collection, annual municipal reports dating back to the 1850's, vertical files with clippings on people and events, and a staff that really knows the holdings.  While you need to visit in person to see much of the material, more and more of it is being placed online, which not only makes it easier for researchers but also helps preserve the originals.  Online resources include a growing collection of the photographs, San Francisco city directories, the Sanborn maps, and a request service for obituaries.  At absolutely no charge, library staff will search San Francisco newspapers for obituaries for you, to a maximum of five requests per month.  If you want to search for yourself, or if you have more than five to look for, the Magazines and Newspapers Center on the fifth floor has microform for many San Francisco newspapers, indices for several newspapers, San Francisco and Oakland city directories and telephone books, and criss-cross directories with listings by street addresses.  Another benefit to going in person to the library is that any California resident can get a library card, which then allows you to use HeritageQuest, the historical San Francisco Chronicle, and the historical New York Times from the comfort of your home.

The Department of Public Health holds birth and death records for San Francisco County for the past three years.  In California anyone can purchase an informational copy of a birth or death certificate; these are marked clearly "not valid for identification" across the faces of the certificates.  And the information is all we need for research, right?

San Francisco City Hall has several offices that can be useful in your research.  The most commonly used are the County Clerk, which holds San Francisco County birth and death records older than three years, and the Assessor-Recorder, which has San Francisco County marriage licenses/certificates and property records.  For the County Clerk you need to know the name and date when you request your record; they don't have an index available.  The Assessor-Recorder has indices for both marriages and property records, so you can do your search on site if necessary.  I have also gone to the Tax Collector and the Small Business Center in search of records.

The Civil Division of San Francisco Superior Court handles probate, divorces, and lawsuits.  The records viewing room is where you head for research.  If you're looking for older records, you'll need to plan on two visits -- one to find a reference for your file, and the second to come back after it has been retrieved from storage (for which you pay a fee, by the way).  If you want to avoid a third visit, remember to bring a self-addressed stamped envelope with you the second time, because you can't get copies on the spot; you have to return the file and request your copies, and they'll be done within the next ten business days.  If you forget the envelope, you're coming back a third time to pick up the copies.

If by chance your research leads you to the seedier side of San Francisco history, the Civic Center station is also the closest one to the Criminal Division of the Superior Court.  This is a little bit more of a walk from BART, maybe fifteen minutes, and from the opposite end of the station.  Room 101 is where you go to look up records and request copies.  Listings for more recent cases are in the main room.  If you want to research older cases, you need to have permission to go into the office area, and you can plow through the old, musty, dusty ledgers.  As with the Civil Division, older files must be retrieved from storage, which can take up to a month, but there's no fee.  So plan on two visits.  I haven't done any research on recent cases, so I don't know if copies of those records can be obtained on your first visit.  I also haven't found any files that I needed copies of, so I don't know if they'll make the copies while you're there.

Our next BART stop for research is the Montgomery Street station.  Here you should follow the signs toward New Montgomery Street.  You'll exit just off New Montgomery.  Head down New Montgomery, turn right on Mission Street, and soon you will arrive at the California Historical Society.  Its library, which is focused solely on California, is open to researchers at no charge.  The collection includes directories, books, photographs, manuscripts, and ephemera such as letters, diaries, and business letterhead.  Of particularly interest are photographs of many San Francisco locations after the 1906 earthquake and fire.  If you are researching people who lived in San Francisco, I highly recommend looking here to see what they might have.

You can't quite get to Sutro Library using only BART.  You can either go to Embarcadero station and take Muni light rail (M line) to San Francisco State University at 19th Avenue and Holloway Avenue, or to Daly City station and take a #28 Muni bus to the same corner.  From the Muni stop it's a short walk onto the campus and to the library.

Sutro Library is the genealogical branch of the California State Library system and has the largest genealogy collection west of Salt Lake City.  It holds city directories, local and American history books, and many genealogy and family history books, along with a special collection of Adolph Sutro's rare books and manuscripts.  Among the items in the special collection are two psalters that belonged to King James I of England, a book of drawings from one of James Cook's voyages on the Endeavour, maps galore, Torah scrolls, photo books (including one from a "Mexican expedition" in 1916, which included the tank at the top of this post), Japanese paintings, and Mexican government publications detailings events in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Unlike the California Historical Society, it is not just about California!  And now that Sutro has a permanent location, the staff would love for people to come and use the facility.

One of the best research facilities we have available in this area is the local branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  While it isn't actually in San Francisco (it's in San Bruno), its official name is the National Archives at San Francisco, so I'm including it here.  And it is reachable by BART!  Go to the San Bruno station and exit toward Tanforan mall.  Walk around the mall and cross El Camino Real at Commodore Drive, then continue down Commodore until you reach the Archives.  It's about a 20-minute walk.

This branch of the National Archives holds records from northern and central California; Nevada (except Clark County [Las Vegas]); Hawaii; American Samoa; Guam; the Marshall, Caroline, and Northern Mariana Islands; and U.S. Navy bases on foreign territory in the Pacific and Far East.  Along with censuses, ship manifests, ship log books, and naturalizations, there are records from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen's Bureau), Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Federal Aviation Administration, among many others.  There are also genealogy workshops offered.  The Archives has a so much information, and a staff that wants to help you discover information.  This is your tax dollars at work -- use it!

Researcher Forum at National Archives at San Francisco, January 28, 2013

This sounds like such a great opportunity, but I can't go!  (Let's see, at 4:00 p.m. I should be arriving at the West Oakland BART station as I operate the train on my return trip to Dublin.  I think someone would notice if I weren't there.)  I would love to hear from anyone who does attend on how it goes.

The National Archives at San Francisco (which is really in San Bruno) will hold a public researcher forum with National Archives Research Services Executive Bill Mayer on Monday, January 28, from 4:00-5:30 p.m.  Mayer hopes to meet researchers and constituents of our local National Archives branch and to gather feedback.  He oversees fifteen facilities of the National Archives nationwide, but this is his first visit to the facility in San Bruno.  This is an opportunity to meet our representative on the National Archives management team and to share customer experiences (positive, negative, and to-be-improved-upon).  Read more about Mayer at http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2012/nr12-117.html.

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National Archives at San Francisco
Researcher Forum with Bill Mayer
Monday, January 28, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.
Leo J. Ryan Memorial Federal Building
1000 Commodore Drive, San Bruno, CA 94066
(within walking distance of the San Bruno BART station)

Researcher forums are designed to gather feedback from researchers who visit National Archives facilities on a regular basis.  Mayer will answer questions and discuss issues related to the National Archives as a whole as well as the San Francisco archive specifically.

While the forum is open to the public, the National Archives staff need to know if you plan to attend this free event.  Please RSVP by e-mailing sanbruno.archives@nara.gov if you're going and type "Researcher Forum" in the subject line of the message.

Photo identification is required to enter the building.