Activities

Mary Ann Tortorich, Activities Committee Chairperson
wagonwheel@volcano.net

 Hi, I am Mary Ann Tortorich, Chair of the new CA-NV Activities Committee. I am a charter member of CA-NV Chapter and of OCTA. Shann Rupp, Mary Mueller, and Tom Fee were among those coordinators in the past that have organized some great activities. I would like to try to fill their hiking boots and do a great job, too. However, to do a good job, I will need the great support you gave them all those years of doing a super job and I really need your help with some ideas for outings.

Want to see a special trail or trail segment; do some trail clearing, or perhaps mapping; even be asked to do some library research for the chapter? Would you be interested in leading a tour; heading a mapping party; or need some research done? I will do all the paper work for you as leader. You just have to show up with your project ready for participants. You can limit the number of participants and ask for fees to cover your printing, postage, etc., expenses. Please, let me know your interests and I will try to put it together.

New this year – to help outings leaders, I offered to be the registrar and initial contact person for the outings, instead of the leaders who would prefer I take over that task. You are most welcome to contact me at 209.296.7242 or wagonwheel@volcano.net

To keep up with changing activities calendar between Trail Talk mailings, check the chapter website www.canvocta.org or sign up with me for E-News, for chapter’s email updates and other messages.

   A note of support for OCTA: keep track of travel time and expenses and hours donated to OCTA for Jeanne and Bill Watson. They gather this information for needed reports to qualify OCTA for project funding from the NPS and other government sources.

Awards

Virginia Hammerness

COED

Shann Rupp s one of the CA-NV Chapter's COED Representatives.
She is also a surveyor and the Documents Assignment Coordinator for the national OCTA COED committee.
As of 2006 Shann has personally surveyed OVER 1000 documents for COED (a third of the whole project). 
 syr50@sbcglobal.net. 

COED stands for Census of Overland Emigrant Documents, a National OCTA project in which volunteers survey pioneer diaries and journals and enter names, places and dates in a database. 

A little about what my work is with COED? Well, basically, I keep track of which documents have been surveyed. I assign the documents and follow through until the surveys have been completed. In the process, I come across documents which are not suitable for surveying at present, and those are kept track of on the Assignment List.

Part of the job calls for looking for surveyors and unsurveyed material, plus contacting the various libraries. Formerly, it was the responsibility for surveyors to find their own material to survey. Of late, it has become harder to find those documents in libraries, although we urge people to check in their areas periodically for new additions. Also, some people cannot do the travel to find new surveying material. Therefore, I now have a list of all the Mattes documents not yet surveyed and at which libraries they can be found, with the intention of finding OCTA members in those areas to either do the surveying at those repositories or to copy the documents for others to survey. As I find new material, with the help of such members as Don Buck, Milt Otto, and Dick Rieck, I am providing survey documents for surveyors.

I have traveled all over the U. S. to find documents. Most have been found at the California State Library, The Huntington, Denver Public Library, Nebraska State Archives, and Beinecke's Rare Book Library at Yale University, plus a sprinkling in NY, GA, AR, KS, and NV. 

For more information: see the COED Section at OCTA's national website. 
Also, an Emigrant Names CD containing 70,000 names in 3263 documents is available at the online OCTA Bookstore.
The price is $39.95 plus shipping and handling. The CD has been enhanced to give a list of all names mentioned in each doument. It also includes images of all surveys, which often contain notes not in the database -- locations, routes, etc.

Genealogy 

Carol March chairs the chapter's Genealogy Committee. 
chmarch@aol.com 

Did your ancestor come west on an overland trail? There were at least nine trails leading into Central and Northern California and others by the southern route. The earliest was the Truckee route but the most used was the Carson route. Others which led directly into Northern California included the Nobles, Lassen and Beckworth Trails, plus there were other routes down from Oregon and up the Sacramento Valley. 

To discover how your ancestors came to California, start your search in the area where they settled. Check the local library for county histories and visit the county court house for official records. For example, if your ancestor settled in Chico, Butte County, California, visit the library at California State University Chico where there is a collection of maps and old newspapers. And go to the Butte County seat at Oroville where county offices are located. You should also check information on county records on the Internet. 

The California Section of the California State Library in Sacramento has local history and genealogy collections, including an extensive collection of early California newspapers and an early settlers file. In special collections at the State Library, the Oregon California Trails Association also has books and other information about trails to California. 

The best place to start gathering information about your family, of course, is from talks with family members and from letters, diaries, photos and other family papers. Often information about an ancestor on the overland trail is found in the areas where the family lived before leaving for California. Old newspapers may tell of their going west, county land records may record when they left and where they went. And obituaries in both their new community and where they formerly lived may tell of their trek west. 

Good luck in your searches! 

For more information: see the Western Overland Trails Collection at the California State Library in Sacramento. 
You also may find your ancestor's name in OCTA's COED (Census of Overland Emigrant Documents) database.
See the CA-NV Chapter's COED page. 
Here's another website you may find interesting: http://www.pt5dome.com. It contains passenger lists for ship and wagon train passengers traveling to California between 1848 and 1873. The lists are taken from microfilm of the New York Daily Times, New York Herald, New Orleans Picayune, Panama Star, Panama Herald and Boston Daily Evening Transcript.

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Membership - Patty Knight

knightpa@worldnet.att.net

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