Black Family History Events

Researchers working on black family history can attend two upcoming genealogy events in the greater San Francisco Bay area.  The first is Black Family History Day, taking place this coming Sunday, February 16, from 1:00–5:00 p.m. at the Oakland FamilySearch Library, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, Oakland, California.  The event is free and is presented by the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (AAGSNC) and hosted by the Oakland FamilySearch Library.  This is the fourth year that AAGSNC and the library have worked together on the event, held in celebration of Black History Month.  Attendees can participate in genealogy how-to workshops and receive one-on-one assistance with their research.  More information, including a link to preregister (always a good idea!), is available on the AAGSNC Web site.  I will be one of the volunteers helping people with one-on-one research assistance.

Not too far away, on Saturday, March 8, the 9th annual African American Family History Seminar will be held from 8:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m. at the Sacramento FamilySearch Library, 2745 Eastern Avenue, Sacramento, California.  This event is sponsored by Sacramento City Council member Bonnie Pannell, the California Black Chamber of Commerce, the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau Juneteenth Committee, and the Sacramento FamilySearch Library.  It looks like there will be twenty classes this year covering a range of topics, from Reconstruction to newspapers to cemetery records and more.  The seminar doesn't have a Web site, but you can download the registration flyer from my site.  I'll be teaching two classes in Sacramento:  using online historical black newspapers, and finding women's maiden names.

Classes can be a great way to help you make progress with your research, and the different perspective another person can give in individual research sometimes makes a huge difference.  See if one or both of these events fits in your schedule, and maybe you'll be the one making a huge leap in your research this year!

Family History in Sacramento

Saturday I attended the Sacramento FamilySearch Library's annual seminar, with the theme of "Get a Clue."  I think they've held them for a few years, but this is the first time I've gone.  It was a well organized day with a good selection of talks.  There were five class periods and seven classes during each period.

I was invited to give two presentations (which is the reason I went), on online newspapers and women's maiden names.  Both of my sessions were well attended, and everyone was really enthusiastic about learning new methods to find answers to their research questions.  I love seeing people get excited about family history research!

I attended talks on military records, researching collateral lines, and adoption research.  By far the standout was the session on adoption, which I thought was appropriate, since November is National Adoption Month.  The speaker, Don Mencarini, has worked in the Adoptions Support Unit of the California Department of Social Services (DSS) for more than 27 years.  He gave lots of detailed information on how the Adoptions Support Unit can help with research and also about the limitations of what they can reveal.  The unit has records going back to 1928 and handles all of them under California's closed adoption laws, even though California didn't actually seal adoption records until 1935.  Mencarini was very surprised to learn, however, that before adoption records were sealed they were indexed with other civil cases in county superior courts.  (Yeah, I'm the one who told him that.)  He also told us that DSS has a record of all adoptions in California.  I am very happy I learned about this useful resource.