My resident genealogist has suggested that census results for California in 1920 and again in 1930 should be easily accessible now, and if the person was anywhere in the area at those times a fairly precise address would be given. The ancestor in question might have come after the 1920 and left before 1930, or might appear in records for a nearby area (rather than Sacramento) in either of those years(?).

My "associate expert," Lin, has indicated a willingness to take a look, but would need a full name (sometimes likely variations/spellings would be helpful) to eliminate unrelated persons.

Beachcomber can email me if he has a more complete name and wants Lin to take a look, but others should know they should always look for the census records for the shady ancestors. In my personal case I have a few close ancestors who always seemed to be "out of town" when anyone who looked like a "revenooer" might come around. Census reports from that era did not record whether a person was a citizen or "just passing through" although some people did "avoid" the guv'ment agents of all kinds.

Lin also found a number of "historic pictures" at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html with a search there for "Sacramento CA" there, but the links returned by the search frequently don't indicate dates so it's necessary to look at each one to see if a time can be pinned down for the ones that look interesting. (This is a popular site for genealogists and historians, as well as for people who just like old pictures, and can usually be found as "Library of Congress American Memories" or similar search terms.)

Another web site that might be of interest is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/, but we haven't figured out how to search effectively for what's there applicable to specific interests.

A single image specifically of interest here should be at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cotie_california/7971058134 that claims to be "Sacramento California Docks 1900 to 1920." This picture seems to be from an individual Flickr user's posts, so may or may not be what is claimed, although it looks pretty much like one might expect for the scene claimed.

John