Soccgs Home Page
Vol 3 No 2 Editor: Pat Weeks February 1996
South Orange County California Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 4513, Mission Viejo CA, 92690
SOCCGS EVENTS
Monthly meetings are scheduled for the third Saturday of each month and are held from 10 a.m. to Noon at the Norman P. Murray Community Center, 23932 Veterans Way, Mission Viejo.
17 February 1996 The guest speaker for this meeting is Judith Swan, speaking on "Researching Military Records".
16 March 1996 Richard Clift, former director of the Family History Center here in Mission Viejo will present his program of the "Overview of the Local Family History Center".
20 April 1996 features Kathleen Voshall of the Southern California Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society who will talk about 'Ohio Canals"
OTHER EVENTS
3 February 1996, Carlsbad LDS Family History Center is sponsoring a "Festival of Americana" conference. There will be
antiques, crafts, family history classes to choose from, to be held at the corner of Chestnut and Monroe streets in Carlsbad, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. followed by a music program at 7 p.m.
16-18 February 1996 Conference of the California Historical Society at Ontario CA.
16-18 February 1996, Scottish Festival at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the ship.
24 February 1996 Whittier Area Gen. Society seminar with Craig Roberts Scott of the National Archives on Military Records, 7604 S. Greenleaf Ave., Whittier CA, 8 a.m. registration
13-14 April 1996 Annual Genealogical Jamboree of So. CA Gen. Soc. at 300 E. Green Street, Pasadena CA. For further information call (818)The-SCGS.
MEMBERSHIP
New Members joining this past month are:
Barbara B. Nash R0166
Glenn & Sally Henderson R1067-1068
Eileen Gibson R0169
Membership renewals were received this month from Hope Luedeke, Mildred Malmquist, Iris Graham, Shirley Fraser, Ruby White, Judy Deeter, Norris J. Cole, Karen Malone and Margaret Axlund.
Our guest sheet overflowed at the January meeting with 20 guests in attendance. These were Alice Lipsky, Carol Oldroyd, Martha Burgess, Emily Bowers, Edwin M. Vines, Linda Henry, Connie Olson, Zoe Jensen, J. Merriles, Barbara Nash, Freda Covington, Hilda Fuentes, Carol Skydell, Paula Mimbs, Glenn Vitea, Ruthelyn Plummer, Barbara Schumsby and Nancy Palmer.
IN MEMORIAM
Founding member, Dorothy Cibulk, has passed away on January 5, 1996. We sadly extend our sympathies to her husband, Roy Cibulk.
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Did you notice the street name of the Community Center has been changed to
Veterans Way from Oso Viejo? We're still meeting at same building and room, just using a new address.
1996 EXECUTIVE BOARD & COMMITTEE HEADS
Just in case you get ambitious and wish to volunteer your help, here are the names of the 1996 Board members and Committee Chairpersons:
President: John Smith
Vice-President: Judy Deeter
Recording Secretary: Roseann Orewyler
Corr. Secretary: Mel Kinnee
Treasurer: Ruby White
Public Relations: Herb Abrams
Membership: Iris Graham, assisted by
Shirley Fraser
Librarian: Pat Stafford
Historian: Pat McCoy
Mailing Committee: The McInnises
Newsletter Editor: Pat Weeks
LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS
The periodical, New Orleans Genesis
1988 through 1995, has been donated by Louis Markel. Mary Ellen Lytle has donated the newly published book "The Yorba Linda Star", a collection of obituaries of persons from Orange County and Los Angeles County, 1920 - 1929
SOCCGS Genealogy Classes
Mary Ellen Lytle reported 10 persons showed up for her first basic genealogy class in January. Next class is 9:30 a.m., 1/2 hour before the regular meeting, on 17 February, and the subject will be the archives and other resources and census research. Mary Ellen reminds those interested to be there 9:30 sharp.
EARLY SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY RESEARCH
Anyone doing research in Early San Bernardino County CA should contact Mary Lewis in San Jacinto at 909-654-0953. She has around 80 2-inch binders of family group sheets extracted from all kinds of records. (Past Finder 11:95 via Gen. Soc. of North Orange Co CA newsletter, Jan 1996)
QUERY
Through the Internet, a non-member has submitted this request for help:
I am trying to scale a brick wall in Orange Co. CA. The John Hanson family lived at 292 S. Orange St., Orange CA. on 1 Aug 1927. Wilheline Minne Krueger Hanson died 3 July 1838 and is buried in St John's Cem. They had 3 children; Mary, Emma and John Peter Hanson. I have a nice photo of them as a young family. Minne is my g-g-aunt and we have lost track of this line of the family. Can anyone locate any living members of this family for me? Contact Richard Douglass, <[email protected]>, or mail to Rt 1 Box 185 Cortland NE 68331
SOCCGS Annual Donation to the National Archives
SOCCGS donates $1 of every membership collected each year to the local National Archives to help in purchasing new film. This year the Archives suggested our donation be included with money that has been donated by patrons to purchase an index to the Northern District of California Naturalizations, 1852-1989. Although titled Northern District of California, the naturalizations of Southern California are included in this index covering the years 1852 to 1887.
LOCAL HISTORY
Since the vast majority of us have come from some other location and spend our time researching out of California we sometimes forget the rich history here in our own Saddleback Valley. I recently stumbled across a jewel of a book that I recommend to any of you interested in our local history. It is titled "Rancho Santa Marguerita Remembered" by Jerome Baumgartner, a descendant of
Richard O'Neill who owned the Rancho Santa Marguerita Ranch in 1882. After our various lectures on "how to write your family history" I am now very in tune with format and style, and Mr Baumgartner has done an excellent job. I recommend you check it out of your local library for two reasons: an excellent example of presentation of family stories; and the wonderful and colorful history of this local area at the beginning of this century.
TO PONDER: By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books, an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust. Julian Huxley (Readers' Digest, May 1995)
Note: This month's pedigree chart was supplied by Fred Sandell. Fred presented our library with two binders of charts of his and his wife's family, and a floppy disc of his research. Fred didn't wish to write a short story, and that is OK, we are happy to have his pedigree chart. Thank you Fred.
DO YOU REMEMBER?
"When he handed me that letter edged in black", so went the words of a popular song of the late 1800's, when stationery and envelopes with a black border were part of the mourning period after the death of a relative. The illustration is the first page of a letter sent from London, England, in 1882 by William Chapman to his sister, Elizabeth Brooking, in Dakota Territory after the death of their mother. He also made full use of this paper to save postage. Letters edged in black were used in the United States and other countries as recently as the 1930's when this song was still being sung in the rural areas of this country.
I was standing by my window yesterday morning
Without a thought of worry or of care
When I saw the postman coming up the pathway
With a smiling face and jolly air.
He rang the bell, then whistled as he waited,
And then he said, "Good morning to you, Jack"
But he little knew the sorrow that he brought me
When he handed me that letter edged in black.
With trembling hands I took the letter from him,
I opened it, and this is what it said,
"Come home, my boy, your dear old Daddy needs you,
"Come home, my boy, your dear old mother's dead."
The last words that your mother ever uttered
Were, "Tell my boy I want him to come back".
My eyes are blurred, my poor old heart is breaking,
As I'm writing you this letter edged in black.
Those angry words I wish I'd never spoken,
You know I didn't mean them, don't you, Jack?
May the angels bear me witness, I am asking
Your forgiveness in this letter edged in black.
(Clermont Co. Gen Soc, Ohio, Newsletter Oct 1985)