California Archives and Libraries

United States California  Archives and Libraries

National
National Archives Pacific Region (Riverside) 23123 Cojaico Road Perris, CA 92570 Telephone: 951-956-2000 Fax: 951-956-2029 Internet: http://www.archives.gov/pacific/riverside/


 * Has records of southern California, Arizona and Clark County, Nevada. California Indian enrollments, Asian immigrants, naturalizations, land records, Arizona taxes, sailors, all U.S. censuses, military post returns, Five Civilized Tribes, Revolutionary War, Civil War records, passenger arrival lists, Mexican and Canadian border crossings, passport applications.

National Archives Pacific Region (San Francisco) 1000 Commodore Drive San Bruno, CA 94066-2350 Telephone: 650-238-3501 Fax: 650-238-3510 E-Mail: [mailto:sanbruno.archives@nara.gov sanbruno.archives@nara.gov] Internet:http://www.archives.gov/pacific/san-francisco/index.html


 * Has records of California (north and central), Nevada (except Clark County), Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands, overseas Pacific naval bases, Asian-Pacific immigration, American Indians, and all U.S. censuses, Revolutionary War service records, bounty land warrants, and naturalizations, naturalization indexes for San Francisco, Honolulu, and Reno.

Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000 Telephone: 510-642-6481 Reference desk Fax: 510-642-7589 Website: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/


 * Premier Western Americana, and Latin Americana collections, including Native Americans, Spanish encounter and colonial settlement, exploration of western America, maps and atlases, the Mexican War, westward migration, the Gold Rush, mining, land surveys, religious and Utopian communities, and ethnic communities. This library has more about western North America than any other site.
 * Nearby Doe Library has a large collection of newspapers on microfilm.

State

 * California State Library (Sacramento) censuses, great registers, city directories, CA historical newspapers, genealogical periodicals, death index 1905-1995, marriage index 1949-1986.

California State Archives
1020 "O" Street Sacramento, CA 95814 Telephone: 916-653-7715 Fax: 916-653-7363 E-Mail: [mailto:ArchivesWeb@ss.ca.gov ArchivesWeb@ss.ca.gov] Internet: http://www.ss.ca.gov/archives/archives_e.htm 

California State Library
914 Capitol Mall Sacramento, CA 95814

Mailing address: P. O. Box 942837 Sacramento, CA 94237-0001 Telephone: 916-654-0261 Fax: 916-654-0241 E-Mail: [mailto:cslsirc@library.ca.gov cslsirc@library.ca.gov] Internet: http://www.library.ca.gov/

A helpful guide to the California State Library is Gary E. Strong and Gary F. Kurutz, Editors, Local History and Genealogical Resources of the California State Library and Its Sutro Branch. Sacramento, California: California State Library Foundation, 1983. (Family History Library book )

California Historical Society
North Baker Research LIbrary

The California Historical Society 678 Mission Street San Francisco, California 94105 Telephone: 415-357-1848 Fax: 415-357-1850

Website: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/

Society of California Pioneers
300 Fourth Street San Francisco, CA 94107-1272 Telephone: 415-957-1849 Fax: 415-957-9858 E-Mail: [mailto:info@californiapioneers.org info@californiapioneers.org] Internet: http://www.californiapioneers.org/ 

To learn more about the history and record-keeping systems of California counties, use the 16 inventories of the county archives produced by the Historical Records Survey around 1940. The Family History Library has 13 of these inventories.

Regional Collections and General Genealogical Libraries
See each county for local collections

California Genealogical Society and Library
2201 Broadway, Suite LL2 Oakland, CA 94612-3031 Telephone: 510-663-1358 Fax: 510-663-1596 Website: http://californiaancestors.org/ Blog: http://blog.californiaancestors.org/

San Francisco and Northern California Manuscript Collections

Southern California Genealogical Society Library
417 Irving Drive Burbank, CA. 91504 Telephone: (818) 843-7247 or (818) THE-SCGS FAX: 818-843-7262 Website:[Http://www.scgsgenealogy.com http://www.scgsgenealogy.com] Blog: http://scgsgenealogy.blogspot.com/

Carlsbad City Library
1250 Carlsbad Village Drive Carlsbad, CA 92008 Telephone: 760-434-2931 Internet: http://www.carlsbadlibrary.org

Two helpful guides to California archives and repositories are:

Coy, Owen C. ''Guide to the County Archives of California. Sacramento, California: California Printing Office, 1919.'' (.)

Directory of Archival and Manuscript Repositories in California. Redlands, California: Beacon Printery, 1975. (Family History Library .)

California Online Records
The Online Archive of California provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses. Many of the repositories listed below are included in the collections.

You can find computerized research tips and information about ancestors from California in a variety of sources at local, state, national, and international levels. The list of sources is growing rapidly. Most of the information is available at no cost.

Addresses on the Internet change frequently. Currently the following sites are important gateways:

The USGenWeb Project

A cooperative effort by many volunteers to list genealogical databases, libraries, bulletin boards, and other resources available on the Internet for each county, and state.

Cyndi's List - United States - California

www.cyndislist.com/us/ca/

Roots-L

http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/usa/

A useful list of sites and resources. Includes a large, regularly updated research coordination list.

FamilySearch™

http://www.familysearch.org The Family History Library and some Family History Centers have computers with FamilySearch™. FamilySearch is a collection of computer files containing several million names. FamilySearch is a good place to begin your research. Some of the records come from compiled sources; some have been automated from original sources.