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: 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: 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: 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 979.4 H23c)

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: 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

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
Blog: http://scgsgenealogy.blogspot.com/

Carlsbad City Library

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

California Online Records

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Links to online databases and indexes that may include vital records, biographies, cemeteries, censuses, histories, immigration records, land records, maps, military records, naturalizations, newspapers, obituaries, or probate 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.

Guides

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. (Family History Library film 962744.)

Directory of Archival and Manuscript Repositories in California. Redlands, California: Beacon Printery, 1975. (Family History Library book 979.4 J54d; film 1036038 item 3.)

References