Category:Sources of historical biographies
The five main biographical sources for persons living in Santa Cruz County before WWI are:
- E. E. Elliott, Santa Cruz County, Calif. Illustrations, with Historical Sketch (1879 book),
- The Santa Cruz chapter of the Society of California Pioneers. Its member biographies are collected in Santa Cruz County History Journal Number 4.
- Note that HJ4 includes biographies of Society members from the other four main sources, where available, in addition to the Society's own collection of member bios.
- E. S. Harrison, History of Santa Cruz County (Harrison-1892)
- James Miller Guinn, History of the state of California and biographical record of Santa Cruz...(Guinn, 1903)
- Edward Martin, History of Santa Cruz, California (Martin, 1911).
Later compilations of biographies (e.g. Riptide Centennial) tend to mainly refer back to one or more of these five.
With the exception of the Society of California Pioneers/HJ4, publication of these local history books was financed by selling subscriptions (sometimes to descendants, occasionally autobiographies) - a common and popular publication method in that era. The return to subscribers was inclusion of their "personal notice" (Elliot's euphemism for a short biography) in the book. Addition inclusion of a portrait presumably meant a larger subscription amount. Also, because much of the personal information was provided by the subscriber, historical accuracy is not guaranteed.
Another such book, not considered a "main source" because it includes fewer biographies of Santa Cruz County residents:
The number of biographies in these five sources provides a rough idea of a person's prominence during their lifetime, so additional categories include:
- Category:Persons with 5 historical-source biographies
- Category:Persons with 4 historical-source biographies
- Category:Persons with 3 historical-source biographies
- Category:Persons with 2 historical-source biographies
Subcategories
This category has the following 6 subcategories, out of 6 total.