Genealogy Periodicals

The Santa Clara City Library Central Branch has a large collection of genealogy periodicals, including many major popular and authoritative journals, and various state and county journals. These holdings are not listed in the library catalog.

Popular titles include The American Genealogist, American Ancestors, American Spirt (DAR), Family Tree, Mayflower Quarterly, NGS Quarterly, Overland Journal, Der Blumenbaum and Avotaynu. The periodicals of many Santa Clara County and Northern California associations are held, as well as many state level genealogy societies, as well as many county societies.

If you are looking for a cited publication, check the inventory.

Some of the more obscure county journals contain cemetery and other listings that are not available on the web. So check your counties. Also many of the periodicals are indexed on PERSI - the Periodicals Source Index. (Heritage Quest Online has PERSI to 2009, and Findmypast has 2009 and on. See the library's Genealogy Databases web page.)

This collection is available to library patrons, and is located on the second floor, at the entrance to the Heritage Pavilion. The periodicals are arranged on the shelves in the following categories: Computer, International general, International by county, U.S. General, U.S. Regional, U.S. by state.

See the Inventory of genealogy periodicals

The inventory is a Google Sheets document. It is in the same order as the items on the shelves. A few codes bear explanation: "BR" means "broken run", that is, some issues in the given range are missing. "On going" means the library continues to receive this periodical, up to the current issue.

About half the volumes are kept in storage, as indicated in the inventory. Issues from storage may be requested at the reference desk, or by arrangement with the .

The collection is maintained by the Library Committee of the Santa Clara County Historical and Genealogical Society. The inventory was last audited July 2023.