In the task of finding information on historic residents of the E-500s face-block of Old North Davis (published as E-500s People), I noticed I was developing a search routine.

Because some of the elements of that routine are not obvious, I thought it might be helpful to publish them so that others searching for Davis history people can more easily know about and use them.

When I knew an “historic” E-500s Davis person’s name but nothing else, I performed the following searches in an effort to built a mini-biography.

1. The online search feature of the Davis Cemetery was very helpful. Date of death tells where to look for an obit in the Davis Enterprise.

2. Online index of Yolo obituaries.

3. Online “page” search function of the UC Davis website.

4. Online index of the UC In Memoriam, obituaries of UC professors.

5. Alumni directory of UCD in several of its many editions and the 1936 university-wide UC alumni directory.

6. 2003 alumni directory of the Davis High School.

7. Straight-up, simple search of basic Google.

8. Voter registration lists called the “Great Register,” lodged in the Yolo County Archives,  which lists name, address, occupation and political party.

9. UCD and DHS yearbooks--collections at Shields, the Davis High School, & the 14th St Library.

10. Old telephone books, collections at the Yolo County Archives, the 14th St. Davis library, and the California State Library. The first two are partial and not especially old, so the usefulness depends on what you want to find.  (I used my own copies of  ’39, ’49 & ’55. Old telephone books are surprisingly scarce, even on eBay. )

11. Census survey sheets for '20, '30 and earlier. The further back, the harder to read. Prior to '30, there are no street addresses. The sheets for '40 will be released in 2015, I am told (the required period of 75 years after the census).