A Most Excellent Day

The Northern California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists went on a most excellent adventure for our 2nd Quarter Meet-Up.  An opportunity that doesn't happen often - A tour of the Special Collections in Green Library at Stanford University.  Ben Stone, who is the Curator for American and British History, gave the presentation.  Mr. Stone seemed pleased to have us as guests and readily answered any and all questions we had for him.  He is also very tuned in to what genealogists are looking for in research materials - he was the Reference Librarian and Archivist at the Kansas State Historical Society before coming to Stanford.

A view from the front steps of the library

Special Collections is divided into 3 divisions:  Manuscripts, Rare Books and University Archives which includes the Stanford Historical Photograph Collection.  A finding aid by subject can be located HERE.

For an even better finding aid, head over to the Online Archive of California (OAC) and under the browse by institution you will find Stanford University.  Click on that link and you will find their holdings.  Under the category of US History Collections,  I found History of The American West to be very interesting.

Some interesting news:  David Rumsey has donated over 150,000 maps from his collection to Stanford University.  Many of you have probably used Rumsey's online digital collection.  Being the nosy, er I mean curious individual that I am, I wondered how or why Stanford University was gifted with this awesome collection.  A little poking around on the David Rumsey site revealed that Mr. Rumsey is a member of the Stanford University Library Advisory Board.  Well that answered my question.

From left to right:  Ellen Fernandez Sacco (front)  , Cath Trindle (back), Janice Sellers, Carolyn Ybarra (back), Linda Lorda (front), Sharon Hoyt and Jeffrey Vaillant.  I was the photographer.

Those who shared the afternoon learning extravaganza were:  Ellen Fernandez Sacco, Cath Trindle, Janice Sellers, Carolyn Ybarra, Linda Lorda, Sharon Hoyt, Jeffrey Vaillant.  Kay Germain Ingalls and Ron Cannon were also there for the tour, but had to leave before pictures were taken.

A huge thank you goes to Carolyn Ybarra who was the Hostess with the Mostess this time around.  Carolyn made all the arrangements with Ben Stone to make our field trip educational and enjoyable.  She chose a place called Tootsie's for our group to have lunch.  We dined al Fresco under beautiful sunny skies and had wonderful discussions about our current research projects and whether or not I should forgive my husband for buying a fishing boat without any discussion as to what my feelings might be concerning a fishing boat . . .um . .ok so I will save that for another post.

Same people as the photo above except insert me behind Ellen and Jeff Vaillant is the photographer