Once again, history fans filled the Dona Benicia Room. This time, they came to learn about researching the history of historic homes from Wayne Eisenhart. Wayne has done extensive work in Merced and more recently Benicia. His focus has been on the lives of the families who have built and occupied the historic residences. He works lot by lot, block by block. He enjoyed learning about Merced, his home for some 45 years.

Now in Benicia, Wayne began with the neighborhood between West 3rd and West 7th Streets from the water up to West Military. As he described the web of family histories he has uncovered, he showed starting with Sanborn Maps and then proceeding with many online resources. These include Ancestry.com which has city directories, Newspapers.com which often show real estate sales, Internet Archive which has books with county histories, Findagrave.com, the US Census mortality schedule, and the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley. Local resources include the Museum of History Benicia online archives, speaking with long-time Benicians, and the Benicia Herald.

Wayne also noted that Benicia street addresses were changed in late 1950s. This address change has long confused local researchers and the Society hopes to put together a guide to help navigate future research. Creating that guide and many other subjects, is the focus of the Society's new research committee that is actively recruiting interested volunteers. If you are interested in learning more, or volunteering your time, please reach out to us.