PROJECTS :: Database of Historical Sources

Contact: Founder John Lumea

The Emperor Norton Trust plans to create a comprehensive, authoritative, searchable online database of primary and secondary source material about Emperor Norton, including his pre-imperial life as Joshua Abraham Norton.

Today, information about Emperor Norton — some of it reliable, much of it less so — is scattered across hundreds of online and offline sources. But there is not yet a well-curated resource that provides — from one location — access to all of the best information. The Trust intends to remedy that.

The scope of the Trust’s database will include the full gamut of available birth and circumcision records; immigration records; photographs; newspaper proclamations; and newspaper and other observational accounts from the Emperor's lifetime. And it will include the fruits of subsequent genealogical, biographical and historical research.

The Trust also hopes to establish relationships with historical / educational institutions that have significant holdings related to Emperor Norton, and to be able to offer researchers and others access to expanded information about those holdings via the Trust’s database, so that the database becomes the preferred "Emperor Norton portal."

To learn more, and to participate in this project, please contact founder John Lumea.

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