Inquirers: The California State Library is in Sacramento. There are numerous county and city libraries as well, including the San Francisco, the Huntington (Pasadena) and the universities. Newspaper abstracts are now posted online via the RootsWeb list system. Most CA communities and counties have a Genealogical Society with local researchers, including San Luis Obispo County and Paso Robles Area. Bancroft's series are a good resource for 1800's CA research of the pioneers, expeditions, gold rush and immigrant waves, and there are numerous collections of journals, diaries and correspondence around. Have not seen many of these on the net. More recent records found online- California Birth Records (1905-1995): http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/birth/search.cgi California Death Records (1940-1997): http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi Social Security Death Index: http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi These could be a logical starting point. Sorry I could not provide specific answers to earlier inquiries. Richard