The California State Information File

JOIN
VITALSEARCH
NOW
!!

Welcome to the California State Information File Database.

The California Information File is regarded as one of the most important research tools for California history and biography. The original card file was begun in the early 1900's. It contains over 785,000 cards with some 1.4 million references to information in California newspapers, periodicals, county histories, and biographical encyclopedias, as well as the California Section's manuscript collections and vertical files. Material cited dates from the 1840's to 1985. The card file was closed in 1985, and the citation cards were reproduced on microfiche.

The California Information File has been continued as an online database of over 50,000 records. References are added regularly from newspapers, periodicals, books, manuscript collections, vertical files, and other parts of the collection.

First time viewers should visit the About This Database section below before continuing. Otherwise please choose from the following:



* Premium Search Members are allowed a much wider flexibility of search. Please visit the Premium Search Membership Advantages page for pricing and more information.

About This Database

First time users are encouraged to view this link: First Time Users Document.

The images are organized in subject subgroups shown in red eg. "ADAMS,CHARLES - AERONAUTICS". Each subgroup contains 238 images and each image is a photograph of six 3x5 cards of each file entry. The total number of cards in each subgroup totals 1320. This total is mathematically less than 1428 (6 x 238) because of scanning overlap. Thus the viewer should be prepared to see card repetition.

The viewer should not make the assumption that the images are alphanumerically sequenced, therefore the viewer should search all 238 images within a subgroup.

NOTE: Pages which display only "Image Here" are situations where the microfiche image count was less than 238.



- Return to the California State Home Page -