Physical Collections
The Sutro Library’s Genealogy Collection offers wide geographic coverage with resources from all over the United States as well as from international regions like Canada, Europe, Mexico, and the West Indies. While the collection does have California-focused resources, the California History Room has a more robust collection for California research.
Materials in the collection are non-circulating; however, pending the Library Director’s approval and any restrictions, some materials may be eligible for InterLibrary Loan with the condition of In-Library Use. The public is always welcome to visit the Reading Room during business hours. If you are unable to visit, we can perform look-ups (for example, if you’re looking for a specific ancestor in a specific book in our collection) and send the scanned pages to you. Feel free to contact us through Ask A Librarian.
Tips for Searching the Catalog
- Searching by an ancestor’s name may not return any results so broaden your search.
- Try searching by subject or location and record type,, e.g. “San Francisco” and “passenger lists”.
- Use an * to search variants of a word, e.g. “director*” will pull up results with “directory” and “directories” in the records.
- To see specifically what is at the Sutro Library, use filters on the left-hand side and click on “Library,” then select “Sutro Library.” If it’s not listed, it means none of the results are located at the Sutro Library.
Census
The census began in 1790 and occurs every 10 years. Due to privacy laws, census records aren’t released to the public until 72 years later. The latest census available to researchers is 1940. The 1950 census will be released in April 2022.
Researchers can access our census collection on microfilm, as an index, or via our subscription to Ancestry.com (on-site only).
Family Histories
Also known as genealogies, family histories are privately published books containing genealogical research. These books often begin with the Library of Congress call number of “CS71.”
Our family history collection is truly a special collection, and we are often the only library in California to have a physical and/or microfiche copy.
Local Histories
Also referred to as city, county, town, or geographic histories, these sources can provide contextual as well as genealogical information. Local histories can be biographical dictionaries which focus more on the people of the area, such as Who’s Who, and they can also be guides which focus more on the places.
These are available on microfiche and physically in the stacks.
Surname and Locality Catalogs
Arranged alphabetically, these card catalogs index the surnames and locations that are mentioned in each book in the Reading Room. Think of it as an index of all the indexes. While it only indexes what we had in the 1990s, it is still an invaluable source and a great place for researchers to start.
Currently only available on-site or as microfiche which can be loaned through InterLibrary Loan.
City and Telephone Directories
The collection has many types of directories such as social registers and business directories. Thousands of city directories exist on microfilm and microfiche as well as scattered throughout the stacks. We have as early as 1665 to as late as 1986.
Our telephone directories are mostly on microfiche and only accessible on-site, for the years 1970s–2000s. A database to this collection is coming soon! Physical copies of earlier years are also scattered throughout the collection.
Vital Records
Birth, marriage and death records can be found as abstracts, transcriptions, and indexes in the collection not as originals.
In addition to vital information from church records, the Library also has various parish histories.
A resource worth highlighting is the Southwest Louisiana Records by Rev. Hebert. Sutro Library is the only library west of Salt Lake City to have all 52 volumes.
Other County Records
The collection contains mostly secondary sources for county records. Try searching the catalog with the city and county name. If no results appear, then broaden your search to include neighboring counties.
Land & Property sources include deed abstracts and grant indexes, property and tax records, atlases and plat books.
Sources with court records include abstracts, indexes, transcriptions about various cases, including cases that deal with debt, conflicts over land, and probate matters.
Society Publications
There are hundreds of genealogical, historical, lineage and surname society publications in the collection. Mostly in the form of periodicals, these may contain information researchers can’t find anywhere else.
Societies of note include the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of Mayflower Descendants.
Researchers may receive scans of articles if they can provide the title and issue date.
Newspapers
While the Library does not have full runs of newspapers, there are abstracts and clippings scattered throughout the stacks as well as a selection of newspapers on microfilm.
A resource worth highlighting is the genealogy column of the Boston Evening Transcript. These were published at least twice a week from the late 1890s to 1941 and were a place where researchers queried, answered, and theorized in this column.
Available as physical clippings which are organized alphabetically by surname and on microfiche which are organized chronologically by publication date. For California newspapers, check out this free database, the California Digital Newspaper Collection.
Archival Collections
Special collections and family papers are often noted in the catalog by the location of “Vault” instead of “Sutro Library Reading Room” as shown in this catalog record.
For searching the finding aids (aka inventories) of our archival collections, visit the Online Archive of California.
These collections are not immediately available in the Reading Room and require two business days advance notice. If you find something you’d like to see in-person, please contact us through Ask A Librarian.