The fillowing interview was conducted at 10:OO AM on %turda~ April 1, 20@, at the a n
Antonio G;enea&iwl & Hi3torkaI Mew, 911 M e / , Drive, a n Antonio, Tias 78213,
Mark S. Light: Okay ... um, where are you from?
Nancy W. Brennan: I was born here in San Antonio. I've been here most of my life.
Mark S. Light: What is your educational background?
Nancy W. Brennan: I went to Brackenridge High School, which was back in the days when
Brackenridge was one of the major high schools in San Antonio. And I went to Our Lady of the
Lake University, of course, San Antonio College for awhile and then Our Lady of the Lake later.
Mark S. Light: And what did you major in?
Nancy W. Brennan: Um ... I you know at Our Lady of the Lake my major was kind of liberal
arts, you should say English and history that type of thing. And then I took some graduate work
in library science.
Mark S. Light: When did you become interested in genealogical studies?
Nancy W. Brennan: Um, well I've always been interested in history. I've always been
interested in ... um, in genealogy to a certain degree, but I guess when it really started, when I
really started ... um, my interest in a serious way was when my oldest grandson, who is now
twenty years old, was born. His mother, my daughter-in-law, handed me his baby book because
if you seen baby books, you know there on one page the family history of the mother and father,
and it has a lime chart and everything fill in this chart. Well, I filled in the chart and then I got to
looking at it, and Ith ought, you know I'm not sure about some of this. I'm not sure this is really
right and so, I um, I got, I came home and I looked at what I had because both sides of my
family had done some research years ago, back in the 30s and 40s, and I had that information at
home but it was in a file. I never really payed much attention to it, and um, I guess that is when
I really started paying attention to it and looking at it, and I began to question some of the
things and I thought, well I wonder if this is accurate? Is this correct? Why don't I know this?
You know one thing about genealogy is you find out one fact about a person or a family, and
then you want to know everything else. You don't just want to stop with one fact and so, this is
kind of how it started with my grandson's baby book.
Mark S. Light: And at what point did you become interested in the local history and genealogy
of San Antonio?
Nancy W. Brennan: Oh, well, an aunt of mine was a member here and had been for awhile,
and actually she's not an aunt by blood, but an aunt by marriage. Her mother had also been an
avid genealogist, and they had so much information on their family, on my ex-husbands family.
Buy anyway, she was a member here, and she knew of my interest so she got me involved a
long time ago.
Mark S. Light: Ok, a member of the San Antonio Genealogical & Historical Society, correct?
Nancy W. Brennan: Right, correct.
Mark S. tight: Can you tell me a little bit about the Society? Its foundations and ...
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 1
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, well, the Society was founded in 1959, and we had an interesting
beginning, because at that time, in 1959, the San Antonio Public Library did not have a
genealogy department and furthermore, the man who was the head of the library, the director of
the library at that time, had no interest in genealogy. He was not ... he didn't feel like any
emphasis should be placed on genealogy. So, a group of women got together, there were
actually six women who got together and decided that they were going to start a little genealogy,
at that time, club because they didn't know where it was going to go, and urn, they met in each
others homes and they aquired a few books, and they carried them around in the trunks of each
others cars. They just moved the books from place to place where they'd meet. So if they went
to one persons home all the books would be in the trunk of the persons car, and then they'd go
to the next persons home the next month or whenever they met again. And um, they just carried
these books with them. Well, then at one point, they decided that they had aquired more books
that they could carry around in their trunk. So, one lady had some space in her home, I guess
book selves or whatever. So they established the library in the home of this one member, and
um, stayed there I don't know exactly how long, but stayed there for awhile and then they finally
acquired a small building on Lovaro Street where they moved the library to at that point. It was
growing. Of course, it was growing because they had a small dues but the actual, to be a
member, or to continue your membership all they wanted was a donation of a book rather than
money. So, that is the way the collection began to grow, and then they out grew the place on
Lovaro Street and then they moved to another location on, um, well off of Broadway, near where
the old ?????? used to be, and then atter that we out grew that location an we moved over to
Isam Road to a strip center and had a large space there, about 4,000 square feet. We had a lot
of room, but because we were paying rent, and it would start eating into our reserves. So, we
went, we just moved in the same strip center but we moved to a smaller location, and we really
quickly out grew that location. And then, of course, the acquisition of this building is a whole
other story, but then, finally we moved to this building.
Mark S. Light: And how long have you been in this building here?
Nancy W. Brennan: A little over two and a half years in this location.
Mark S. Light: What are some of the collections that you have in the facility here that people
can come in and look at?
Nancy W. Brennan: Right, ok, we have books on every state from Alabama to Wisconsin or
whatever the last state is, and we have, we have books of a general nature on states, histories of
states, and a lot of just general information about the states, but then, and then as you begin to
do more and more research, you begin to get more and more specific to an area. So, then we
have county books, most of the states, we don't have every county but we do have a lot of
information on major counties within the state and then we have many, many, many periodicals.
Most states and many, many counties publish either a journal or some kind of quarterly or
sometimes even monthly journals, and we acquire those over the last 45 or so years. So, we
have a big collection of periodicals. We also have microfilm. We have specific ... um, we have
microfilm on a couple of collections, we're the only people here in San Antonio that have, that's
the, we have the Maven collection on microfilm, and we also have the Hollingsworth collection
on microfilm, and we're the only library in San Antonio that has that.
Mark S. Light: Can you tell me what those are?
Nancy W. Brennan: McCoven collection is ...
Intetv&w temporririlj. intempted by an incoming phone wlL.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 2
Nancy W. Brennan: McCoven ...
Mark S. Light: McCoven collection, yes.
Nancy W. Brennan: McCoven collection focuses on North Carolina specifically Rowan County,
North Carolina and there's a huge amount of information about families that lived in and around
Rowan County, North Carolina. The Hollingsworth collection focuses on Georgia and families that
were in Georgia, and so those two are specialized areas of research that many people do. We
also have, urn, we have, of course computers now days everybody has computers that's not
anything out of the ordinary, but there is a lot of genealogical work that is done on computers.
We have a large Texas collection of books and periodicals. We have a large selection of family
books. We have a vertical file section which has an enormous amount of material on a variety of
subjects and families. We have reference material. We have how-to material. We have material
on foreign research, mainly Europe, but we do have a scattering of other materials.
Mark S. tight: A lot of the items that are found in the vertical files, those are donated from the
local families, a lot of them?
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, yes.
Mark S. Light: And contain personal items such as letters and paperwork from, that family
member passed down?
Nancy W. Brennan: Correct, correct, yes. And they, most of the material in the vertical file is
really focused on families however, we do have other things, state material and some county
information, and then we have just some historical information that we keep. I mean, there are
articles that appear in the newspaper sometimes that had historical information in them, whether
there in San Antonio newspapers or wherever, but it's worth keeping in a vertical file because
that's the only way it's going to be preserved urn, you know, books are wonderful but things
happen from day to day, but books you can't keep up from day to day with everything that
happens so there are newspaper articles that have historical information that we acquire and
keep.
Mark S. Light: Now, you were the president of this society from 1999-2003. What were some
of the special projects that you oversaw?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, of course the major project that I oversaw was the acquisition of
this building, and that started during the time that I president, because one of our members was
aware that this building was available to be purchased, and it was a long process. We well in love
with the building because of its historic nature. It was built in 1926. It was built as a ranch
house. In 1926, there was nothing in this area that was not a residential area. There was
nothing, it was just ranch land. And, urn, so we were fascinated by the fact that it was an historic
structure, that it had been here for all these many years. We loved the style of the building. We
loved everything about it, but we knew that it would be very expensive to acquire the building
and to do the things that needed to be done to get in here, to move in here. So we began an
extensive building fund. During the time that I was president, we just actively solicited funds to,
at that time we didn't know which building but we knew we wanted eventually to acquire a
building, because we had been spending all those many years lots of money on rent and urn, we
still didn't have an adequate building for our collection because our collection was growing as I
mentioned. So we did acquire the money to purchase the building. There was a lot more to it
then that. First of all, we had to, had to negotiate the price with the owners of the property and
then as it turned out, the property was divided. The people who have the church on the comer
did not want this section but they had bought the whole part of the land, but they didn't want
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 3
this section of the land. So we negotiated that, and arrived at a price we could live with and we
could afford and then of course, all the renovations had to start happening because this building
was not air conditioned. As you can imagine being build as early as it was, there had been some
upgrades to the buildings through the years but not enough to accommodate current code. So
we had to have all the electrical redone. We had to have the air conditioning installed. And of
course, those things that were done were done by professionals, but all the rest of the work-the
painting, the landscaping, the ... everything ... I mean there was just so much work that had to be
done to get this building up to were it is now and it was all done by volunteers. And of course,
we managed to get a lot of people within our society that were able to help, and they did. It all
came together. We also had not only had to go to the zoning commission, we had to go to all the
neighborhood groups around here because when you rezone you have to contact the people
within 200 yards or 200 feet. I can't remember if it's feet or yards, but anyway, surrounding the
area we had to get permission to rezone in order to accommodate the library in a residential
section. We had to get permission from the neighborhood associations. We had, and of course all
this require going to the zoning commission and so forth. And then of course we had to go to city
council. So all this is happening during my term of office. So we finally acquired the building,
we ... one of the last things that I did as president was to sign all the papers for this building, and
then actually, so it was a huge accomplishment. It was a huge accomplishment.
Mark S. Light: It's wonderful. The building is beautiful. Um, are there any other things that you
worked on during that time?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, yes. Well there are a lot of things because I was president for four
years. So there were many things. But one of, of course, we began, we had always done
publishing of materials of Bexar County materials, but we really put a major push on to
publishing because, as I said, we were trying so hard to acquire funds to purchase the building
and so forth and so one of the ways that we do that is to publish county records and sell those
books, because people all over the country our books. So there was a major push on to publish
material and that was done. We, also, one of the things that we began doing a lot during my
term was to apply for grants because we're nonprofit. Of course, we could apply for grants from
a variety of granting agencies. We did acquire a number of grants from a variety of foundations
that make grants to nonprofits and that helped us a lot not only in our collection, but also in
acquiring the building. So, we really, there was just a major push during that time to acquire
those grants.
Mark S. Light: Can you tell me about the First Families of San Antonio Project and your
involvement in that?
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes. We started that ... oh gee, I'd have to think of the year we started it. I
think we've been doing it ... let's see ... four, five, six ...p robably nearly ten years now. Maybe not
quite but anyway, the idea ... a variety of states and counties have first family's projects. We were
not the first to start it, but we wanted to initiate a first family's project for Bexar County, because
there really isn't one source of information on Bexar County families, on earlier county families.
So the idea behind first families of Bexar County was that we were focusing on the families that
were in Ekxar County prior to 1850. So anyone who can trace their lineage to a family that was
in Ekxar County prior to 1850, is eligible for First Families of Bexar County. And um, we kept up
with that over several years, and it's a matter of someone producing not only the information but
the documents to prove that their family was here and then the connection all the way. See each
generation has to link to the previous generation. So, so for instance, some families might only
need three or four generations, but other families might need more than that to get back and
then we do have ... now this would be any family that was in Ekxar County prior to 1850. So some
of these families go back to the 1 7 0 0 t~h~e early 1700s.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 4
Mark S. Light: Wow. The information that you receive from these families, where is it stored?
Nancy W. Brennan: Here.
Mark S. Light: It's stored here?
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, here.
Mark S. tight: What are some of the more prominent families of San Antonio that you have
worked with or gotten information from?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, you know we, we consider every family prominent. We don't, you
know, prominence is something that um, is not necessarily social status, not necessarily money
but um, every family that helped to develop San Antonio and Bexar County is a prominent family.
And there are many families that were just ordinary families but they made a contribution, one
way or the other to what we are now. What San Antonio and Bexar County is now. But we have
had and we do have, some of the early founders of San Antonio, some of the Canary Islanders.
We do have some of our first families that trace their families to the early families of San
Antonio.
Mark S. Light: What are some of the more common surnames that you come across from the
earliest families?
Nancy W. Brennan: Oh, Leal of course is one of the early Canary Island families, and there are
several others. Actually um, I'd have to go look at some of the names. We have quite a number
of early recognizable names that, in our first families. Iju st, you'd have to look.
Mark S. Light: Is there any interesting stories that have come out of any of the ... ?
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, there is one that is kinda interesting. Most of the people who apply
for First Families of Bexar County have been people who have done, some of them don't live
here ... some of them don't live he re... some of them live in other states. We've had people who've
applied from California, Arizona, and a variety of different states but, and some of these we do
long distance. As long as they can provide the data that's ok. You know, as long as they can
provide the proof, the document than that's fine. We don't care; they don't have to live here
now. But one was being done long distance, and we never were quite sure were this person was,
because we, everything that we were doing with this person was through a third party, and the
ve ry... as you say prominent, well known family, but um, you know San Antonio. We just couldn't
figure out why the information was having to be funneled through ... well, we found out this
person is in prison. So we never did actually see this person or talk to this person, but he
qualifies for First Families of Bexar County, and he proved it. He was able to prove it.
Mark S. Light: That's great. Um, what is the Cemetery Committee?
Nancy W. Brennan: Ah ok, ever since this society began, we've been researching and
surveying cemeteries. One of the early stories that they tell about the ladies that started this
society was that they were surveying a cemetery and got caught in a torrential downpour, and
they had brought their lunch and their lunch got wet and they were eating soggy sandwiches
while they were out doing this cemetery. But we've, we've had a long history of surveying
cemeteries. There are about 200 cemeteries in Bexar County, and we have published three
cemetery books in addition to an early database that was done by an early member of this
society that was done in long hand, hand written pages of cemeteries, that we still have and we
keep that and we have it in the computer now. But we continue to survey cemeteries, as a
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 5
matter of fact, just last Saturday, they had a survey group go out to a cemetery. Ith ink they did
it, I believe they did it on Thursday and Saturday and it's very time consuming. It's very labor
intensive because you have to a lot of people. You actually go gravestone to gravestone to
gravestone, and you write down all the information that's on the gravestone. The names of the
people, the dates, if there any other markings or their photograph or if there's any other little
sayings or poetry or anything that might be on the gravestone. We write down everything, and
then we have, and then our, one of our members compiles all the information, of course in her
computer, and publishes a cemetery book. And we have ...
Mark S. tight: Which is available for purchase here?
Nancy W. Brennan: Absolutely. We have, let's see ... the third ...y eah, volume three of Bexar
County Cemeteries has been published, and volume four is in the works to be published.
Mark S. Light: Wonderful. So if anybody in San Antonio wanted to get involved with the
Historical Society and the Cemetery Committee, what would they have to do?
Nancy W. Brennan: They just have to let us know. We'd be glad to put them to work.
Mark S. Light: Can you tell me what the National Register Historic District is?
Nancy W. Brennan: Ah yes, there are several-many actually in this country. There's several in
San Antonio. National Register Historic District has been designated by the National Register as
an area that is, that qualifies to be on the national register, which is kind of circular reasoning
but, La Vallita for instance, because its age and the fact that it was one of the early settiements
of San Antonio. Ith ink Monte Vista is also a National Register Historic District, and there are
many all over the county. There in every state, and they, it just indicates that they are distinctive
in, in their history and their contribution to a town or a county.
Mark S. tight: And they become registered through ... a?
Nancy W. Brennan: Right, right.
Mark S. Light: Ok. You worked for them for thirteen years as a manager?
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, I was at La Vallita, and of course, La Vallita includes Arneson River
Theater and um, all that whole area. Also, I managed Hemis-what at the time was HemisFair
Park and Tower of the Americas and that has changed somewhat because there's ... it's all city.
It's all city owned and operated, but the Tower is being done now by a private concern. I mean,
it's being renovated by people who have Landry's, and I don't remember the name of the
corporation, but it's going to be, it's really not operating right now as it was.
Mark S. Light: How ... how does, what is the process to become registered for these areas in the
National Register Historical District?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, there's an application process and then, ah gee, I used to know it
but it's been so long ...
Mark S. Light: There looking for a certain criteria they have to meet ...
Nancy W. Brennan: Oh yes, oh yes. Oh definitely, yes. Iju st don't recall, but there is an
application process you have to go through to, to be determined as significant historically.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 6
Mark S. Light: Ok. I know that you're actively involved with the Daughters of the American
Revolution.
Nancy W. Brennan: I am the regent of the San Anotnio de Bexar Chapter.
Mark S. Light: Ok. What are some of the special events that you have participated in with
them?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well we just finished, two weeks ago, we finished our state conference
here in San Antonio. I was the chairman of the state conference that was here, and um, that
conference was attended by nearly 700 DAR members from around the state, and we do this
every year. We don't do it every year in San Antonio, but we do it every three years-Houston and
Dallas and San Antonio share. So we just finished that process. We also, as Daughters of the
American Revolution, of course were involved in a lot of patriotic activities. We participate in
Fourth of July activities. We will also participate, as we do every year, in the pilgrimage to the
Alamo on a, during Fiesta week. Monday during Fiesta week, participate in that. We do,
al =...we're very involved in the naturalization ceremonies. Most of the chapters in San Antonio
send representatives to the naturalization ceremonies that take place every month here, and
there are anywhere from 200-800 new citizens being sworn in every month. So were involved in
that. One of the things that our chapter's involved in, that some of the chapters may or may not
be involved, but I know our chapter ... I don't what every other chapter does is were participating
in a project were we're indexing books for the DAR library in Washington, D.C. We've done a
number of those books, and the process is that over the years many DAR chapters have
extracted records from local, either county resources or model records or cemeteries or
whatever, well over the years the DAR library in Washington has acquired thousands and
thousands of these books. And so now, about 18,000 books have been indexed by DAR members
over the last several years and that database is at the website, at the DAR website. So that, it's a
wonderFul project because anyone can look at what resources are there at the DAR library. Not
just what resources, but you could actually go to, you could enter a name and find out what
books in the DAR library have that particular name. So...
Mark S. Light: That's great.
Nancy W. Brennan: It is. It's an outstanding project, and it's a long project.
Mark S. Light: How long has the project been going on?
Nancy W. Brennan: Oh gee, I don't know. It's been going on for awhile, and it will continue to
go on, but that's one of things that our chapter is participating in that by helping to index these
books. And the other thing that, we have done in our chapter is we've also been involved with
veteran's projects. Making contributions to veteran and family service, hospitals here in San
Antonio, by either contributions of money or other items that veterans who are in the hospital
need. So we've done that over the last several years. Of course now, in the last three years
because of the war in Iraq, there have been a lot of people who have been injured and who
come back here for health care or rehabilitation. So we've been involved in that. As are other
chapters, ours isn't that only chapter, but we all do that type of work. So there's lots of projects
that we do. We also compile records for the DAR library-new records or records that haven't
been compiled or haven't been submitted to them.
Mark S. Light: WonderFul. Can you tell me about your involvement with the Texas State
Genealogical Society?
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 7
Nancy W. Brennan: Yes, when I was president, and actually before I was president, but while
I was president I became more and more active in the state society. I'm now the recording
secretary of the state society, and I served as the head of the speaker bureau chair and also the
policy and procedures chair for the TSGS. TSGS does an annual seminar. We usually have a well
known speaker and this year will be in October, the end of October. Um, and because Texas is
such a large state, it is really hard to have, find a location in Texas to have a, I guess you'd say,
a central location. It's just such a vast state. So were trying to move our seminars around to
different cities. This next year itll be in Forth Worth. It's been Victoria. It's been in Tyler. It's
been in Midland. It's been, you know, all over the state because...
Mark S. Light: So the serninars, they bring in information that has been collected from one
source or new ideas or projects?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, usually Ws a learning seminar type with national renowned speakers.
Now, not to say were the only state that does that, we're not. Every state, pretty much most, like
a lot of the states have active genealogical societies, do have seminars or learning situations
because that's the way people lean to do genealogy. I mean, there aren't courses in school
particularly that you could go to learn, you could learn history, which is a good basis for
genealogy, but the way to hone your skills as a genealogist you have to attend seminars and
hear different speakers, and go to both national and state and local workshops, because it's a
constant learning procedure. It's not something that all of a sudden you just know, and a lot of
people just cannot ever learn genealogy. It can be really complicated. So every opportunity that
a person has to, to go to one of these seminars or workshops, they really need to do that to keep
up with what's new and learn about how to do genealogy and how to do it the right way.
Mark S. Light: Does the a...with the Texas State Genealogical Society do they sponsor any
projects, large projects throughout the state?
Nancy W. Brennan: Well, urn, we have a journal and which is a quarterly journal, and I guess
you'd say in one respect that is a project just to get out a journal for a large state like this. It's
different when you're in one city, one county where everything is compacted to one area, but
when you have a state like Texas, it's really difficult. We also have, in addition to, of course the
seminars and that type of thing, we participate in national societies. The Federation of
Genealogical Societies, we've participated in that, and when that national society met in Austin, I
guess it's now been, itll be three years ago, we participated heavily in that and co-sponsored
that. That was a major undertaking. That brings in thousands of people, and a huge amount of
vendors and many, many breakout sessions. It's a huge undertaking to do a national conference.
Mark S. Light: Ok. What do you think the impact San Antonio's genealogical information has
been on the history of Texas and the city? How do you think ...
Nancy W. Brennan: What impact have we had on ...
Mark S. Light: Yeah, the history of Texas.
Nancy W. Brennan: I think, I would say that probably just the, the compilation of material that
we have here in our library, preservation of documents, and the fact that we have acquired and
maintained this library. Um we, Ith ink compliment what the public library has, we don't
duplicate. Although there are some duplications between what we have and what they have, but
we have different things than what they have. We don't have everything that they have nor do
they have everything we have. So when you look at a town or a county or a state, I think that
any society or group that maintains archives, which of course we all do, is a contribution because
many of the archives and many of the things like cemeteries, once their gone, their gone forever.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 8
So if you donJt have the record, and if you don't retain the records ... I mean, there are cemeteries
that have been done away with to establish gold courses, and there have been cemeteries that
have gone away because of flood planning, damn projects or other water projects. You know
there ...so once you lose these things, they're gone. You don't have them back again. So we have
to maintain and keep those records.
Mark S. Light: Is there anything else that you would like to add? Maybe any other information
you would have for somebody listening to this interview, that you would feel would be important.
Nancy W. Brennan: Let's see. Let me just see if I covered everything ... We haven't talked
about and then I would like to mention is um, over the years, we as I mentioned published a
number of records. We've published wills. We've published naturalization. Records, we published,
cemeteries. We published marriage records. Oh, and of course, we publish a journal a periodical.
It used to be quarterly, but now it's semi-annual and nearly all of those published records have
won awards through the Texas State Genealogical Society, and we have upstairs some of these
awards displayed on the wall, and Ith ink that is a mark to some degree of the quality of the
work that we have produced over the years. As I pointed out earlier, almost every county
society, and of course in Texas there's what, 254 counties. They don't all have societies, and they
all donlt have genealogical or historical libraries. Some do, some don't. But um, I think San
Antonio is unique in the fact that we do have a library. We do have a society, and it is very large
and it has grown over the years. And we have been able to produce a pretty good amount of
quality publications that in competition with other publications from other societies, we've
managed to win a lot of rewards. First place award at that.
Mark S. Light: That's wonderful.
Nancy W. Brennan: I would like to mention ... that ...
Mark S. Light: And the publications that ... are they for sale, can they purchase them through
the website?
Nancy W. Brennan: Um, yes. We have a list that actually you can take.
Mark S. Light: Ok.
Nancy W. Brennan: That can be purchased. Let's see...we pretty well covered most every. I
would llke you say that also that purpose of our society, let me just, just for the record, I will
read this because just to get it all in: The purpose of this society, which of course were a
nonprofit society, is to promote genealogical and historical research by collecting relevant
materials particularly but not limit to, records on San Antonio and its environment. Maintaining a
library, sponsoring education in the field, promoting the publication of genealogical and historic
material, and publishing the periodical entitled Our Heritage, and other such activities that lead to
the increased awareness of genealogy and history. And actually, we have, um, we have
accomplished those purposes as I mentioned, in the publishing that we do, in the acquisition of
materials that we have, and in the seminars that we do yearly. And we have, we continue to
acquire, not only through gift but also through purchase of new material that come to our
attention, and we have acquire many of our books and material through donations of not only
members, but also some non-members who have just donated to the library over the years. So
we will consider that we are real close to being fifty year old, and our library has grown from
just ...
Mark S. Light: Pretty expansive production, yeah.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 9
Nancy W. Brennan: ...j ust a few books that could be put in the back of someone's tru ck...
Mark S. Light: Right.
Nancy W. Brennan: ... to now we have well over 15,000 books, and we have other materials ...
Mark S. Light: And you also offer courses too here?
Nancy W. Brennan: We do, yes we do. We do.
Mark S. Light: You have a genealogical class?
Nancy W. Brennan: We done classes on beginning genealogy, intermediate genealogy, and I
often work one on one with people who are trying to establish their line for a variety of linage
societies.. .
End Side A of audio mrding, Begin Side 6
Nancy W. Brennan: We were talking about ...
Mark S. Light: The courses, and you worked one on one sometimes ...
Nancy W. Brennan: The linage societies, you know, all of the lineage societies OAR, Colonial
Names, 1812, Mayflower, any of these lineage societies nowadays are very, very particular about
the proof of the lineage. Back in the 30s and 40s, when some of these organizations started,
they weren't too particular about ... about the accuracy of the lineage. I f someone filled out a form
and said that they were a descendant of so and so, pretty much the societies would take your
word for it.
Mark S. Light: They accepted it.
Nancy W. Brennan: They don't do that anymore.
Mark S. Light: Right, ok.
Nancy W. Brennan: None of them do that anymore.
Mark S. Light: And how does somebody validate information like that ... through a series of
documents?
Nancy W. Brennan: Documents, ah yes. You have to prove birth, death, marriage of each
generation, and you have to link one generation to the next generation. So now of course there
are so many more resources available then there were, when these, some of these groups
started. Now me have the ability to prove these lines and you prove them by wills, by deeds,
land documents, by family bibles, if those are available, by census records. There just a whole
variety of resources available, and so now you have to have everything documented.
Mark S. Light: Ok, Ith ink that we've covered everything and you know Ia ppreciate your time
and that you've taken out to interview with me. ..
Nancy W. Brennan: Sure.
Mark S. Light: Um, is there any other things you want to add?
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 10
Nancy W. Brennan: I can't think of anything.
Mark S. Light: Ok, ok. Thank you.
MS 314. COLFA Oral History Program Brennan - 11