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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 5: At The Library: Where I First Met My Ancestors

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

My first foray into genealogy happened at Sutro Library in San Francisco. Sutro Library is a part of the California State Library and holds the original collection of former mayor, Adolph Sutro, who donated the collection in 1913. It also has a huge genealogical collection and the collection is now housed in the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University.

When I visited the library in the 1990s, it was housed in its own building on Winston Avenue. My friend, Susan, took me there one day. I had been wondering about genealogy research. She went on a yearly trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, where she would spend six full days doing genealogy research. How could someone do that? I had asked.

At Sutro in those days, we looked at census records on microfilm. I knew that my grandfather’s family was from Montana, so she put the 1920 soundex reel for the surname HORK in soundex code H620 on the reader and I took a look.

Oh, what joy when I found Cyril Hork’s card on the reel, along with other Hork family members in the same household. She then showed me how to find the actual census page on another reel.[1]


That day was so exciting. I found the family in the 1910 and then 1900 censuses, too! On the way home, I said, “I’m going to Salt Lake City with you next year!”

I had caught the genealogy bug at the Sutro Library!



[1] 1920 U.S. Census, Ravalli Co, Montana, pop. schedule, Hamilton City, ED 182, sht 12b, dwelling 281, family 315, Julia Hork, digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com), NARA T25, roll 975. I don’t have copies of the soundex cards or even the census records. I dutifully copied the information into a notebook. At the time, there was only one microfilm reader that made copies onto that slicky paper.

Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

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