First Families Of The Pacific States

First Families of the Pacific States was an organization comprised of members who could prove descent from ancestors who arrived in Washington, Oregon or California in 1870 or before. These books are a compilation of the information submitted by the members when they applied to join. The information ranges from family pictures, marriage, birth, death certificates and obituaries, to family stories about the trip by wagon across the plains, and to short stories about family members. The submissions were as varied as the families submitting them. Most of the families included in the books, settled in Siskiyou County, California. Readers who are interested in cultural history will find the books provide a real sense of time and place, and readers whose families are included in the books will find pictures and other information well organized and easy to read.

First Families of the Pacific States was an organization comprised of members who could prove descent from ancestors who arrived in Washington, Oregon or California in 1870 or before. These books are a compilation of the information submitted by the members when they applied to join. The information ranges from family pictures, marriage, birth, death certificates and obituaries, to family stories about the trip by wagon across the plains, and to short stories about family members. The submissions were as varied as the families submitting them. Most of the families included in the books, settled in Siskiyou County, California. Readers who are interested in cultural history will find the books provide a real sense of time and place, and readers whose families are included in the books will find pictures and other information well organized and easy to read.

When L. Frank and Marina Drummer went on the road in 2002, they set out to visit as many people from different California tribes as possible. Crisscrossing the state, they taped hundreds of hours of interviews and collected copies of nearly fifteen hundred family photos. The documentary project, funded by the California State Library and LEF Foundation, paints an unprecedented portrait of California's indigenous people using their own words and photographs from their own family albums. In turns moody, beautiful, warm, and humorous, First Families is a one-of-a-kind book that combines extremely personal images with text that gives readers a broader, deeper view of Indian history and many complex living cultures.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1889.