The Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco

The Civil Filing Office maintains the following files of interest:

Probates and Wills (from 1906 to present)
Divorce records (from 1906 to present)
Naturalization records
McEnerney Lawsuits: records of Civil Actions to establish land questions after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

Probate records are available in the San Francisco Superior Court's case files. If you are visiting the Superior Court, they are located in the Public Viewing Room, Room 103a (towards the back of the customer counters). Your first step is to determine the case file number. You can search for them for 1987 to present on their computer, and on microfilm/microfiche before that (please note that some clerks are not aware of how to search for case numbers that are not on their computer or even aware of the index microfilm collection in the public area). Fortunately, the probate index for 1906 to 1977 is available online at FamilySearch.

Once you have the case number, you can then request the case file. If the case file is in the office there is no retrieval charge (they only have a limited amount of space in their office, so if it is an older file, say five years or so, it is most likely archived). Please note that each case file varies in the number of pages it contains. Each one has a Register of Action (that varies in number of pages), i.e. a general index of filings, which lists what filings are contained in the case. Each closed case also has a Final Decree filing (that also varies in the number of pages).

The court does accept requests through the regular mail. However, there would probably be charges for case number search (if you didn't know it), copy charges, and mailing charges as well.

Divorce records: “San Francisco Superior Court CIVIL cases from 1906 thru about 1949 were all destroyed prior to 20 years ago. The only things remaining are a microfilm of the register of action, the interlocutory [time-delayed decisions] and the final judgements as found in judgement books which have to be ordered from storage [archive]. All the divorce papers for that period are gone. Normally the judgements are fairly brief and do not contain personal info such as marriage date and place. Names of minor children are listed as well as their ages.” — Anonymous (November 2002)

Naturalization Records

FamilySearch
- Naturalization Index, 1873-1944
- Restoration of Declartions, 1873-1907
L Naturalization Records

McEnerney Lawsuits

“I have looked at these San Francisco Superior Court records (referred to as “McEnerney Actions”) after the 1906 earthquake and found that these records can sometimes have a lot of genealogical value. There is an index to the records … The index lists a case number, and then the case numbers are on many rolls of microfilm. The records I have searched showed how the land was received by the plaintiff. In one case, the land was purchased by the husband. He had died before the 'quake, and the records gave his date of death and named his children.” — Kathie Mauzey (August 2000)
FamilySearch has digitized these records.