SAN JOSE — Lend him an ear, and Greg Smestad will pack it full of history.

The eighth-generation descendant of one of the first settler families to arrive in what’s now San Jose was the featured speaker at the 239th birthday celebration for the 10th largest city in the country — and the first civil settlement in California as well as the first state capital.

That all sounds like a big deal — and it is — but the Sunday celebration wasn’t. It was a fairly intimate affair, with about the same attendance that you’d find at a particularly popular elementary schooler’s cake-fest.

“The tone here, as it always is, is about the community,” said Smestad, who added that while the event has been put on by History San José for two decades, there have been periods of lull. “We really got it started again with a potluck that brought the descendants of the original families back together.”

They’re familiar names, such as Peralta, Alviso, Pacheco and Berreyesa, an appellation more familiar to contemporary Bay Area residents as Berryessa. The expedition was led by Juan Bautista de Anza, who came north from the Sinaloa area of what is now Mexico, through Arizona and eventually to San Jose.

Smestad descends from the Bernals, who made up nine of the 230 settlers headed for California — soldiers and their families outfitted and bankrolled by the king of Spain. He said it was a “traveling city” and emphasized that many of those making the journey were children. It was a trip through territory that, while populated by Native Americans, was uncharted to the newcomers.

“Colonists then knew less about California than we know now about the moon, or Mars,” Smestad said. “They thought maybe the Sea of Cortez kept going and going, and California was an island.”

Sunday’s celebration featured traditional dance performances, including a boisterous machete dance by Los Lupenos Juvenil. For kids, there were activities such as making dolls out of corn husks, sitting astride a wooden horse and lassoing steer horns, and candle-making: Dip wick in hot wax, dip wick in water, repeat as necessary until you have a candle.

“Yeah, it’s fun!” said Jenna Kang, 9, who wanted to come to the party upon hearing that wax crafting would be available. “I’ve never made a candle before.”

“Making one is fun,” observed her mother An Kang. “Making 100 probably wouldn’t be so fun.”

The event focused heavily on education, with some information booths and, for the first time this year, actors in period garb playing the roles of those who lived and served at the Fallon House — a beautifully restored 1855 Victorian mansion that provides an ornate contrast to the rustic 1797 Peralta Adobe across the street.

Steve Boyle, director of period acting troupe Epic Immersive, said his group is working with History San José on a larger local history production that will come out next year, and this was “an opportunity to start exploring.”

“We have cake to make,” Tori Bohnett authoritatively advised a trio of children on a tour of the house, instructing them to start mixing the flour and sugar needed for batter. “If anyone else is looking for work, there are candelabras to clean and silverware to polish!”

Wendy Abelmann, director of education for History San José, said they look forward to more endeavors with the group of thespians.

“People may perceive a house museum to be old and static,” she said. “But with all the actors and participation and immersion, it’s much more dynamic and we have so many stories to tell. It makes them come alive through theater.”