James R. (Jim) Smith has spent years chronicling the stories of San Francisco and the California Gold Country.

Smith is a well-respected expert on California history in several historical and genealogical forums, voluntarily fulfilling historical research requests. He volunteered his time to identify and document locations in photographs of the 1906 earthquake aftermath and received credit for the California research within the book “When all Roads Led to Tombstone” by W. Lane Rogers. Smith also completed the research for another joint project with that author. He was credited for his research for Wendy Lawton’s “Almost Home” and “Ransom’s Mark”.

A member of the California Historical Society, the San Francisco History Association and the San Francisco Historical Society as well as an annual member of the Library Fund, University of California, Berkeley, Smith is active in the preservation and promotion of local history and lore. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from the University of San Francisco and undertook his graduate studies at San Jose State University.

Smith is a fourth-generation native of San Francisco. He gained a deep respect for the city of his birth while listening to his grandparents tell their stories of San Francisco during the first half of the twentieth century. He’s often found haunting the libraries and archives of his native city and enjoying its social life with his wife Liberty.