This collection is composed primarily of Rona Hurst's 2900-page typescript, "The Evolution of Genetics." It is an unpublished history of her husband C. C. Hurst's contributions to the early development of genetics in England, and it is based on the collection of 2000 letters in the Hurst Collection at Cambridge University Library. Her history includes typescripts of many of the letters. There is also a copy of C.C. Hurst's paper on eugenics, "Genetical Improvement of the World's Populations." This note is currently under review for revision.

Consisting of photocopies of letters written by the geneticists Erwin Baur and Leonard Doncaster to their British colleague William Bateson (1861-1926), the Bateson Collection contains important material relating to the early history of Mendelian genetics in Britain and particularly to Bateson's opposition to the chromosomal theory of inheritance. The originals are held in the William Bateson Papers in the Archives of the John Innes Horticultural Institute.

In 1912, the University of California, Berkeley, became the first university in the nation to form a separate Department of Genetics. The first two appointments in the department went to plant geneticists Ernest Brown Babcock and Roy E. Clausen, and as the department grew slowly, shifting slightly away from its roots in agricultural science, it gained a strong reputation as an important center for research in several areas in genetics and evolutionary biology. The U.C. Berkeley Department of Genetics Collection contains a selective sampling of correspondence relating to the organization and early history of the nation's first Department of Genetics. Centered in the years 1912-1930, the collection consists primarily of correspondence to and from Babcock and Clausen, pertaining to their research, administrative matters, and the genetical community. Prominent among their correspondents are George H. Shull, Thomas Hunt Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, and H. J. Muller.

This collection contains some letters, but mostly there are copies of manuscripts by Kaufmann and others, concerning genetics in medical schools, and chromosone changes produced by drugs.

The historian of science Robert C. Olby is a graduate of University College London and Oxford. Best known for his work on the history of genetics, especially the Bateson school, and for his study of the early history of molecular biology, Olby is currently a Research Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of The Origins of Mendelism (1966), Charles Darwin (1967), The Path to the Double Helix (1974), and the Norton History of Biology. His current research is focused on the conceptual foundations of modern sensory neurophysiology and an intellectual biography of Francis Crick. The Olby Collection contains about 150 photocopies of correspondence and documents collected by Olby during research for The Path to the Double Helix. Among these is a copy of a manuscript by F. C. Crick and James D. Watson, "The Complementary Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid," prepared while Watson was at CalTech.

This collection includes correspondence, manuscripts (lectures and articles), research grant material, research data, and participation in organizations, such as, the American Society of Naturalists (President, 1968), Genetics Society of America (President, 1963), and the National Research Council. Of particular note, are the detailed data related to Drosophila eye pigment, and human chromosomes.

This miscellaneous collection relates to numerous topics in genetics: cattle breeding (especially the American Jersey Cattle Club), longevity, radiation, International Congress of Genetics (the 10th, 11th, and 13th), Gregor Mendel, aid for refugee scientists, and the records of the Genetics Society of America (1947-1974). The photographs series accession # 1968 433pr, was added to the finding aid in 2016.