By Liz Chew, CHCP Secretary

If you ever had the desire or passion to find out about family history, NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) is one of the fabulous places to research information and get resources. Living in the SF Bay Area, we are fortunate to have one of the facilities located in San Bruno.

Did you know it is quite easy to get an appointment to visit the facility to get information for your research? This is one of the bits of valuable information that came out of the BACGG (Bay Area Center for Genealogy Group)/CHCP joint field trip on Monday, August 19, 2024. Sixty eager participants from both organizations descended upon the NARA Facility for a well-organized day with an informational overview session and tour of the records facility. Lunch (provided by CHCP) was enjoyed by all including the NARA Staff.

Here are a few comments from the attendees:

• The BACGG Team and NARA Staff planned and implemented an amazing event! The NARA staff gave an excellent and very informative presentation and behind-the-scenes tour. Showed us the many ways to research our family histories. Resources were provided to all the participants. - Dave

• The trip was nice, but in-depth information was generally not there. However, one must be prepared to go in and get information. I learned to have an appointment if I wanted files pulled from the facility. - Willy

• Very informative. After the presentation, I found additional information on my father at home. Always wanted to visit NARA and this trip provided me with the opportunity. - Mona

• The NARA trip was very valuable because I did not understand the many details and sources of information that can be found. The genealogy search was more difficult and was a high challenge regarding the Chinese search as so many Chinese had similar names. It was a fun field trip. – Brenda

• A fun, informative, valuable field trip for all participants. The tour showed the massive files in storage and how most are retained and discarded. – Liz

• Going to NARA is always like a treasure hunt for me. I’ve been doing genealogy research since 1995 and have been to NARA. Now it is so much easier to get information. I have found so much information on my father, my father-in-law, and my mother and mother-in-law. This place is a wealth of information. It was great going there. – Sue

A huge THANK YOU to BACGG Ron Chan, Gail Chong, Jeannie Young, CHCP Dave Yick, and NARA Stephanie Bayless for the opportunity to visit the National Archives and Records Administration.

There are several ways to make individual appointments for research. Contact information:

• Regular Mail: Attn. Archival Operations, National Archives & Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco), 1000 Commodore Drive, San Bruno, CA 94066-2350

• Telephone: 650 - 238 – 3501

• Fax: 650 – 238 – 3510

• Email: sanbruno.archives@nara.gov

• Website: https://www.archives.gov/san-francisco

5 appointments are accepted each day and one can spend the entire day from 9am-4pm to do research.

Happy family history hunting!