The Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society will hold its monthly general meeting from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, 21 E. Constance Ave. at State Street.

The originally scheduled presentation — on the historical significance of the Gaviota coast — has been changed due to illness.


Instead, this month’s speaker, John Woodward, will present an extensive collection of photographs depicting Santa Barbara’s past. Among them are stereographs taken in the 1870s by Hayward and Muzzall. These are the earliest known images of Santa Barbara and the surrounding area. Woodward has been working to catalog all of the stereos surviving in both institutional and private collections and has so far located about 360 different views. He will share with us some of these fascinating photographs, many of which have rarely been seen in the past 140 years.

Woodward grew up near Morristown, N.J., and received both his B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Denver. In 1968, he settled in Santa Barbara and has practiced law here ever since. He has been a member of the Santa Barbara Genealogical Society’s Board of Directors for more than 20 years, serves as its parliamentarian and was named the society’s Man of the Year in 2004. He has served on the boards of almost every historical group in town, including the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, the Santa Barbara Historic Landmarks Commission, the Santa Barbara County Historic Landmarks Advisory Commission, and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.

Special interest groups meet at 9:30 a.m. Saturday for Beginning Genealogy, German Ancestry, Italian Genealogy and Computer Genealogy, and at 9 a.m. for JewishGen. The featured program starts at 10:30 a.m.

Come join us. You do not need to be a member to enjoy this wonderful presentation.

Click here for a calendar of genealogical events, or click here for more information about the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society.

— Glenn Avolio is publicity chairman for the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society.