What To Do When There Aren’t Any Vital Records

Ted Gostin will present “What To Do When There Aren’t Any Vital Records” at the Saturday, February 15th monthly meeting at the First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance at State Street, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm.

When public vital records are not available, where can one go to obtain the necessary data? Mr. Gostin will discuss the available sources of birth, marriage and death records, including early published newspapers; probate and divorce records; church & synagogue records; cemetery records; local city and county histories and personal memoirs; census records; and voter registration records. He will also explain how these sources fit into the concepts of direct and indirect evidence, and primary and secondary sources. Many examples focus on California since the public recording of vital records did not begin right away when California became a state in 1850.

Mr. Gostin has been conducting genealogical research since 1980, and has worked as a full-time professional genealogist since 1994. He has twice been President of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Los Angeles, and has taught genealogy for several adult school and university extension programs. He has helped plan and organize three national genealogical seminars, and has been a featured speaker at a half-dozen such conferences.. Mr. Gostin is the author of Southern California Vital Statistics: Volume 1, Los Angeles County 1850-1859, and the owner of Generations Press publishing company. He was featured on UK version of Who Do You Think You Are? He is very active in the international Jewish genealogical community, and maintains contact with genealogists throughout the world.

Special Interest Groups meet at 9:30 am for New Member & Beginning Genealogy, Civil War Genealogy, Writers’ Support Group, German Ancestry, Italian Genealogy, Jewish Genealogy, French Canadian Genealogy, Scandinavian Genealogy, Computer Genealogy, and DNA.  The Society Monthly meeting starts at 10:30 and the featured speaker starts at 11:00am.

Come join us. You do not need to be a member to enjoy this wonderful free presentation.

A calendar of genealogical events can be found at the Society web site (http://sbgen.org/eventListings.php?nm=216).