San Mateo County Genealogy

Lookup Help

GUIDELINES FOR REQUESTING LOOKUPS

Feel free to request a look-up from the generous volunteers listed in this section.

These wonderful helpers provide their time and effort for free.

However, they can reasonably expect that you reimburse them for costs

they incur for such things as photocopying or postage.

Please use the following guidelines when making your request:

Please DON'T ask the volunteer to do more than they have offered to do.
Limit your request to one or two items or names. Be considerate of the volunteer's time.
Put the words "San Mateo County LOOKUP" in the subject line of your request to insure the message is not overlooked.
In the first line of the message please put the name of the book or type of record from which you are requesting the lookup.
If you have a spam filter, either turn it off or add the volunteer's email address to accept your email!
Be sure to thank the volunteer for their time!
Please DON'T ask the volunteer for a lookup that would violate copyright laws.

Volunteers are wanted and appreciated!!

If you own or have access to records and books relating to San Mateo County and are willing to do look-ups, please let us know. Any source relating to San Mateo County history or families is wanted! Look in the attic, the basement, in the corner of your closet. Do you have:

Books on San Mateo County history or residents?

Old school yearbooks or class pictures with names?

An old family Bible with San Mateo County names and dates?

Old club membership rosters?

Back issues of old monthly neighborhood newsletters?

Diaries, letters, journals, scrapbooks?

Old phone books or directories?

? ? ? ? ?

Dust them off!

Please share them with us by offering to look up a name for someone. Just imagine the interesting records we would all have "access" to if we each volunteered to do lookups in just one item we may have laying around the house! Tell us about the San Mateo County resource you'd like to share!

(We will be happy to list any type of limits to what you would be willing to do next to your name. For example, if you only want to do lookups on the third Tuesday of every other month, that's fine! We wouldn't want to have any volunteer feel overburdened.)

Please join this growing list of wonderful volunteers! Thank you to every one of you!

Index of San Mateo County Lookup Offers

Cemeteries

Census

City and Telephone Directories

County History & Genealogy Related Books

Great Register of Voters

Marriage Indexes

Miscellaneous History & Genealogy Related Books & CDs

Newspaper Obituary

School Yearbooks

Spanish-Mexican Families 1769-1852

Vital Records Indices

For other possible help with lookups, consider "trading" lookup offers with other researchers looking for help in YOUR geographic area or in books/records YOU own. If you are willing to help other genealogists, in exchange for the help you receive, consider some of these wonderful resources:

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness is another group of lookup volunteers who provide help all over the country. In return for this help, you are asked to do one lookup per month in your own area for another researcher.
Books We Own is a list of resources owned or accessible by people willing to look up genealogical information for others.
NORCAL Library has many lookup offers for numerous Northern California resources, all offered by generous volunteers.

There are also specific mailing lists that have volunteers for that specific resource:

CASANMAT-L for researchers with a specific interest in San Mateo County.
CA-CENSUS-LOOKUP-L for researchers who will look up census records for California. (Note: San Mateo County was part of San Francisco County in 1850 and those federal records are not available.)
CA-DEATH-INDEX-L for researchers who will lookup dates of death in the California Death Index (CADI) as well as obits and certificate transcriptions.

Before you take advantage of any volunteer resources, please be willing to return the favor. Remember that every one of these wonderful volunteers are taking time from their OWN research to do YOU a favor. We will all benefit if we're all willing to pass those favors along to somone else.

San Mateo County Cemeteries
Each cemetery is different on the amount of information they give out. One might give only the location while others give birth date, death date, who purchased the plot and when. It also depends how busy they are when the information is requested.
Cemetery	Location	Lookup Volunteer
Catholic Cemetery	Half Moon Bay	John Gravance
I.O.O.F. Cemetery	Half Moon Bay	John Gravance
Pilarcitos Cemetery	Half Moon Bay	John Gravance
Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery - name, date of interment, plot number and headstone information (if available)	Menlo Park	Alden Tagg
St. John's Cemetery (1892 to ~1949) - burial date, age, nativity (country, but may be town in CA), plot location, and headstone information (if available).	San Mateo	Alden Tagg

San Mateo County Census			Lookup Volunteer
1850 - 1920 Federal Census for California (other years and states on request) Note: 1850 and 1890 federal census records are not available for San Mateo.			Donna Note: If you have a spam filter, either turn it off or add my email address to accept your email!

San Mateo County - City and Telephone Directories
Year	Name of Publication	Lookup Volunteer
1880-1881	Pacific Coast Directory	Nancy Melton
1898	California Telephone Directory	Nancy Melton
1916	Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, San Francisco & Counties Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo & Palo Alto Exchange Telephone Directory	Nancy Melton
1921-22	City Directory - includes Palo Alto, Mayfield, Runnymede (a poultry colony) and Stanford University (includes students, faculty, employees & residents),	Carolyn Feroben
1925	City Directory - includes San Mateo, Burlingame & Hillsborough; pub. by Coast Directory Company	Nancy Melton
1927	Polk's City Directory - includes Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Ravenswood*, Stanford (includes students, faculty, employees & residents) and Menlo Park	Carolyn Feroben
1927, 1929, 30, 31-32, 36, 37, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47-48, 49-50.	City Directory - includes San Mateo, Burlingame and Hillsborough; Millbrae is included in the 42, 43, 44, 45, 47-48, and 49-50; pub. by Coast Directory Company	Nancy Melton
1936, 1940, 1942	San Francisco Telephone Directories - includes San Mateo County	Nancy Melton
1941-42	Polk's City Directory - Redwood City	Nancy Melton
1944	Polk's City Directory - includes Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Ravenswood, Stanford ( only faculty, employees & residents)) and Menlo Park	Carolyn Feroben
1947	San Francisco Telephone Directory - includes Bayshore, Brisbane, Colma & Daly City	Nancy Melton
1948	Polk's City Directory - includes Redwood City, Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, San Carlos	Janet
1951, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1963, and 1966	San Francisco Telephone Directories, has listings for Bayshore, Brisbane, Colma & Daly City	Nancy Melton
1963	Polk's City Directory - Burlingame	Nancy Melton

San Mateo County Great Register of Voters
Name of Publication(s)	Lookup Volunteer
California Great Register of Voters, 1890 The index the name, age, birthplace, residence, registration date, and if not naturalized.

San Mateo County Newspaper Obituary
We currently do not have any volunteers for newspaper obituary lookups.

San Mateo County History & Genealogy Related Books
YEAR	Name of Publication	Lookup Volunteer
1892	The Bay of San Francisco - A History	Nancy Melton
1904	Biographical Record of Coast Counties - Ver. 1	Nancy Melton
1928	History of San Mateo County by Roy Cloud (Includes biographies)	Janet
1938	History of San Mateo County by Frank Stanger (Includes biographies)	Janet
1963	South From San Francisco - San Mateo County, Ca. - It's History and Heritage, by Frank M. Stanger, Library of Congress #63-21-2162 with numerous historical photographs of people & places. This book covers the period from 1769 to 1963.	Bob Brown or Pamela Storm
1967	Sawmills In The Redwoods - Logging on the San Francisco Peninsula 1849-1967 - It's History and Heritage, by Frank M. Stanger, Library of Congress #67-31056. Numerous historic photos of people and places. Covers the early settlement in southwestern San Mateo County 1849.	Bob Brown
1969	Heritage of the Wooded Hills-A Belmont History, by Ria Elena Dewing, Wadsworth Publishing, 1977.	Pamela Storm
1971	La Peninsula - History of the City of South San Francisco -- Journal of the San Mateo County Historical Association, May, 1971 Edition (Vol XVI No.2), written by Linda Kaufmann & Frank M. Stanger, with numerous historic photos, focusing on the people and places.	Bob Brown
1972	La Peninsula - History of the City of Millbrae -- Journal of the San Mateo County Historical Association, February, 1972 Edition (Vol XVI No.4), written by Audrey E. Harris, Historian, Millbrae Historical Society, with numerous historic photos, focusing on the people and places.	Bob Brown
1973	Gateway to the Peninsula - Official History of Daly City, California by Samuel C. Chandler, The City of Daly City, Publishers, 1973	Pamela Storm
1976	South San Francisco, A History by Linda Kauffman. Contains many interesting anecdotes of the city and it's citizens, as well as some biographical information.	Janna Hall
1982	From Frontier to Suburb - The Story of the San Mateo Peninsula by Alan Hynding. This book has many names and places mentioned	Janna Hall or Pamela Storm
1994	San Mateo, A Centennial History by Mitchell P. Postel, Scotwall Associates, Publishers, San Francisco, 1994.	Pamela Storm

San Mateo County Marriage Indexes
Name of Publication(s)	Lookup Volunteer
San Mateo County California Marriages, 1853-1899 Includes Bride and Groom names and date of marriage only	Pamela Storm

Miscellaneous History & Genealogy Related Books & CDs which may contain San Mateo County Information
Year	Name of Publication	Lookup Volunteer
1925	San Francisco Blue Book and Club Directory (Contains entries for the entire SF Bay Area including San Mateo County)	Nancy Melton
1956	Mother Lode Album, by the Stanford University Press, under the direction of the Stanford University Californiana Advisory Committee. Third (1956) Printing, Foreword by Otheto Weston. Covers all the gold-inspired settlements - big and small - in the Southern Mines and the Northern Mines along (and near) Hwy 49 between Downieville and Mariposa. 177 pages of photos and discussion of the places and people.	Bob Brown
1905 through 1995	California Death Index (Only request One Surname per email.)	Ron Stone

Spanish-Mexican Families 1769-1852
Name of Publication(s)	Lookup Volunteer
Various Comprehensive Sources for early Spanish-Mexican Families 1769-1852 Includes Spanish Mission Records, Anza Expedition descendants, etc.	Julia Christy

San Mateo County Yearbooks Please limit your request to one or two items or names. For requests beyond simply looking something up in a yearbook, you should contact the school district directly or their alumni association.
City	Year	Name of School	Lookup Volunteer
Atherton	1952	Menlo-Atherton High School	Janet
Atherton	1959-1965	Menlo-Atherton High School	Bob Brown
Atherton	1973-1976	Menlo-Atherton High School	Alice
Belmont	1961-1964	Carlmont High School	L. Shinazy
Daly City	1925-1990	Jefferson High School	Sidney Rasmussen
Daly City	1969-1971	Westmoor High School	Sylvia Wallgren
Daly City	1973-1976	Serramonte High School	Pamela Storm
Redwood City	1971-1972	Hoover Jr. High School	Alice
Redwood City	1949-1951	Sequoia High School	Janet
San Mateo	1955-1957	College of San Mateo	Janet
South San Francisco	1970-1972	Parkway Junior (Intermediate) School	Janna Hall
South San Francisco	1973-1975	South San Francisco High School	Janna Hall
Woodside	1961-1964	Woodside High School	Pat Smethurst

California Vital Records Indices
Some of these indices are available online for free.

Voter Records
1890 Great Register of Voters	Colleen Norby

Lookup Volunteer Email Directory
Nancy Pratt Melton	(currently on vacation) - please remember to state which resource(s) you want to be searched.