Help from America, please.

With the help of a distant cousin, I have managed to track and complete my family tree back to 1540. One thing is bugging me and that is during the early 1850's some of my relatives emigrated to California during the early years of the gold rush. Obviously English records do not hold any information about their descendants.
I have tried several methods of tracking the family name from this time and none of them, especially the online genealogy sites have provided any useful information.

If someone could give me any help in pointing me to the relevant government department, city records office etc. who may have historical details on record, I should be able to contact the specific town authorities and pick up the trail from there.

Many thanks in advance.

I don't know who to contact about that, but my aunt may. I'll try to get in touch with her and ask.

Thanks for the offer, Nate. I think I may have to look for someone in the County Records Office in the specific town or city. As far as I am aware, the US does not have a central record office for the country like there is in the UK; and I don't fancy trying to hack the FBI or CIA databases

I've tried several on-line people searches but they are expensive, not very accurate and, in the case of one phone number I tracked down to an appartment building, about 10 years out of date. :sad:

This will probably sound terribly cliché, but maybe plaid would be able to help with this... The Mormons have the most complete and gigantanormous genealogical records in the whole world, or so I've heard, maybe she would know who to contact to request access...

ms. katcal is right! i've been meaning to get doing my family history like every good mormon girl should... I'll see if I can gain any fabulous insights talking to my sister next week. she does this stuff all the time.

for the moment, you could look around at FamilySearch.org - Family History and Genealogy Records--it's free and I know they try to keep it as up to date as they can, with as few confusing redundancies as possible.

there might be church family history centers in your area where you could for sure find a few experts. you can search for one on this page

good luck to you. it's pretty awesome you've gotten so far back. I wonder if any of your ancestors met any of my ancestors in the 1850s. there were lots of mormons in california back then. well, there still are. we're pretty much everywhere.

Plaid and Kat, thank you both very much. I found about 80 records dating from around the 1850's to the 1920's. Plenty of stuff to look at especially as I found two of the forenames as well. I just hope our peculiar family trait of daughters outnumbering sons won't mean too many branches of the family to look for. It's taken me twenty odd years to get the English side sorted.

One of these days I'll publish it on my web site. Then the truth will out

Two ancestors deported to Australia for stealing a horse... A mad aunt who was sent to an asylum... Three ex Chiefs of Police... Four or five river pilots at various ports and even a distant cousin who ran off with an itinerant musician in the 1820's. (That sounds a bit like the Mikado).

Once again... thanks folks.

Additional - the second link has turned up a centre at Sunderland. My home town. Talk about looking for things under your own nose.

Success... I think I have found the missing link. One of my ancestors, William Otterburn, actually emigrated to the US in 1820. (Did I say my history was good, or was my handwriting to blame?)
An entry in the 1880 US Census records, thanks for that link Plaid, show a William Otterburn (Jnr) as being born in New York in 1824. His father William is listed, but interestingly his birthplace is not. This makes me think places outside the US may not have been accounted for on the census form . The dates seem to fit, a father at 24-25 (b.1799), a farmer - he was originally a farm worker in Yorkshire.
It also appears that junior married and moved to Wisconsin where William H Otterburn was born in 1860.

Hmm... I think the chase is afoot. Now to get in touch with the county records offices.

Thank you everyone for the help.

so exciting. glad I could help.

now, if you meet any missionaries in or around or connected to that family history center, make sure you ask them where they're from and report back to me, just in case i know someone who knows them.

Will report as soon as I've made contact

Having checked back through the UK side, I definitely think I've struck gold with the first search. It's not a common name and there are only a couple of records with the exact spelling around that date. I only hope none of the variations are connected. That makes things complicated. :redface:

Sorry, I've got to ask... Was he some sort of 'cologist'?

Bad Joc. Bad. Go to your corner.