Finding Famous Family

I was a student at Washington State University-Vancouver, when I listened in Dr. John Barber’s Digital Text and Technology class.  As he lectured one day, he described his personal/professional project about the author Richard Brautigan.  Discussing the vast works of the author and how Dr. Barber’s website www.brautigan.net chronicled his life and work, Dr. Barber stated “Richard Brautigan had no family.”  That comment caught my attention!  As a life-long genealogist, I knew that wasn’t true, everyone has family.  So, I immediately took to the task of finding his family.

What resulted was a several page report to my professor regarding the Brautigan family history.  He was blown-away that this information could be found.  And thus began my adventure into “learning about Richard Brautigan.”

Thankfully Brautigan spent most of his life in the west so I was able to use many local sources.  Here are the types of records I used to learn about the Brautigan family:

• City directories (names, addresses, occupation)
• Newspapers (stories, names, dates)
• Birth records (names, dates)
• Marriage records (names, dates, witnesses, parents)
• Death records (names, dates, place of burial)
• Obituaries (names, relationships, occupations, final resting place)
• Land Records (dates, places, names)
• Driving by addresses (age of home, type of neighborhood)
• Libraries (local history, online databases such as Ancestry or ProQuest)
• Court house (land deeds, birth, marriage, death certificates, divorce decrees, probate records, tax records, military records, civil and criminal records)
• Archives (Cemetery Records, Census Records, Map Records, Minutes and Meeting Records, Naturalization Records, Power of Attorney Records, Professional License Records, Superior Court, Trademark Records)
• Online sources (Genealogy Websites, Family History Websites, Organizational Directories)

I learned the Brautigan family arrived from Germany in 1899.  They made their way west to Winlock, Washington.  Combined with a maternal grandmother who was a bootlegger it made for an interesting search!

About Brautigan:

Richard Brautigan (1935-1984) was an American writer.  Most popular during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  Born 30 Jan 1935 in Tacoma, Washington.  Brautigan’s first novel was published in 1956.  He died 1984 at home in Bolinas, CA.

From Dr. Barber’s website:

“Richard Brautigan was mysterious about his family, sometimes saying he had none, sometimes weaving them into his writing in imaginative ways. He did not know his real father, had several step-fathers, and abandoned all family ties when he left his boyhood home in Oregon and moved to San Francisco, California. He married twice and is survived by a daughter.”

Throughout my college experience and beyond I have researched the Family Tree of Richard Brautigan.  It was Dr. Barber that coined the term “Geneographer” for me.  A combination of Genealogist+Biographer.

While the Brautigan novels “aren’t really my style” it never hurts to broaden your horizons and learn something new.  The history of San Francisco in the 1960 is interesting for sure!

List of Richard Brautigan novels:

• 1964 Confederate General from Big Sur
• 1967 Trout Fishing in America
• 1968 In Watermelon Sugar
• 1971 The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966
• 1974 The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western
• 1975 Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery
• 1976 Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel
• 1977 Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942
• 1980 The Tokyo-Montana Express
• 1982 So The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away
• 1994 An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey

In 2010 I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Brautigan’s daughter Ianthe Brautigan.  She attended the dedication of The Brautigan Library in Vancouver, Washington.  The Brautigan Library is a unique collection of nearly 400 unpublished manuscripts written by everyday authors.  Thanks to a partnership between the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program (CMDC) at Washington State University Vancouver and the Clark County Historical Museum. The Library creation is based on Brautigan’s 1971 novel The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966.  Imagine a library where anyone can be published!

At that event I was able to share with Ianthe Brautigan the portfolio of family history I had gathered.  She was delighted!  It felt meaningful to share history that she never even knew existed or where to find.

Researching a “public figure” is basically the same as my own family although none of my family seem to have archives at a large university. 

I’ve driven by every home that Brautigan was known to have lived at.  Tacoma, WA, Eugene, OR, San Francisco, CA, Bolinas, CA. I’ve stood in front of the statue that RGB used for a background on the City Lights books.  I’ve sat in the Lights coffee shop/bookstore where he is known to have written.  It was my pleasure getting to know Richard G. Brautigan and his family history.

Perhaps you have questions about researching a famous person, or your obscure North Dakota farmer, drop me a note and let’s see what we can learn.