Genealogical Society Can Help You Explore Family
Here’s an invitation to all you newcomers to genealogy in our area: Come join the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society and let the knowledgeable, eager-beaver members help you with your ancestor searching.
If you live in Pullman, Coeur d’Alene, Chewelah, Colville, Kellogg or Sandpoint, join the society in your area.
EWGS is the Inland Northwest’s oldest and largest genealogical society. Beginning in 1935 with nine members and a small shelf of books, the society now has more than 400 members and boasts a large room full of books in the downtown Spokane Public Library.
Monthly meetings (except July and August) inform members of new books, upcoming genealogy events and present a program exploring some aspect of genealogy. Anyone interested is invited to attend.
The next EWGS meeting will be Saturday, Sept. 9 (the second Saturday, due to Labor Day). Lynne Farmer of Louisville, Ky., originator of “The Skeleton Closet System of Recordkeeping,” will present tips on an excellent and accurate method of keeping track of all those genealogy facts and trivia. The meeting begins at 1 p.m. in the downtown Spokane Public Library.
The Oct. 1 meeting - the annual all-day fall workshop - will be at the Mukogawa Fort Wright Center. The program will be “U.S. Military Records, Colonial Times to Present,” featuring George Orr of Salt Lake City.
Membership in EWGS is $20 annually. For that amount, members receive four issues of The Bulletin, the official society publication, and can place a free query in each issue. There’s a small charge for non-members.
EWGS members usually pay $3 to $8 less whenever a fee is involved at a meeting, like the January and June luncheon meetings and special workshops. Also, membership brings the satisfaction of knowing that part of your dues helps buy the books you use in the library’s genealogy section. Society officials work closely with library personnel to increase the genealogy collection and section.
Among the resources is the “Holdings Book,” a guide to the collection. This is a must for any given research trip, saving you time when you arrive at the library. The 1991 “Holdings Book” and its 1994 supplement can be bought for $20 at any meeting or from the EWGS volunteer helpers in the library each Thursday.
Editor Doris Woodward did a terrific job with the March 1995 issue of The Bulletin. The second-quarter issue contained the following articles: Tips on researching at the Holland Library in Pullman; the geographic origin of Social Security numbers; newspaper extractions (tidbits from newspapers of yesteryear); and another installment of “Spokane County Marriage Licenses Through 1903.”
If your interest hasn’t been piqued by those articles, then know that The Bulletin also contains the Surname Searchers section, where members list the names and places they’re working on. There’s also the query section and a several-page listing of new genealogy books in the library. Book reviews of donated books are also included.
Kathie MacGregor edits the publication’s News Hotline, an eight-page section brimming with genealogy tips such as information on Washington adoption searchers, PAF utilities, U.S. passport records, Polish research, Revolutionary War pension information, definitions of genealogically related words, warnings about mail-order genealogies, address for the Archdiocese for Military Services, 32 ways to find a maiden name, tips for Indiana, Michigan and Virginia, tips for accessing the 1930-1990 censuses, and researching in Quebec.
Impressed? You should be!
Send your membership check today to EWGS, PO Box 1826, Spokane, WA 99210-1826. I look forward to meeting you! Call president Bette Butcher Topp at 467-2299 for more information.
Other “Genie” news
Donna Jo Dirks of Bonners Ferry shares a terrific article from the December 1981 Smithsonian magazine. This 11-page article - “Our Family Trees Have Roots In Utah’s Mountain Vaults” - tells of the Granite Mountain storage vaults where the Genealogical Society of Utah stores microfilmed records of the world’s people.
Over the last decade, most national magazines have featured articles on family history. On your next trip to the library, learn to use the library catalog and locate these periodicals. It’s easy to do, and very rewarding. And thanks, Donna Jo, for reminding us of this resource.
Reader Donna Husby of Chewelah sent a big stack of old black-and-white photos she found at Granny’s Attic, a thrift store on Vashon Island. She hopes the family can be found to claim them. Some names and places mentioned on the backs of the pictures (taken between 1932 and 1939) are: Catherine, Elsie Fettig, Hattie, Helen Hicks “golf champion,” Mildred Kipp Wilson, Bill Cusack “from Chicago,” Bame, Bun and Clarence Turner, Arline, Carl, Dwight, Pete, Bob, Bessie Clayton, Mildred Trombley, Ada Wight Jackson “and her twins, John and Edward, Portland, August 1932,” “our house, 902 N. Kay, Tacoma, July 1936.”
Other locations of the photos include Venice, Calif.; Seattle, the Firs on Mount Hood, San Francisco and Priest Lake. A group photo, dated July 1936, reads: “the girls at the accounting department for Miller (Miles?) Railroad.”
If anybody would like to claim these family photos, I’d be happy to pass them on. Please contact me c/o this paper.
Today’s laugh
Mrs. Stuck-Up: “I’ll have you know that my ancestors came over on the Mayflower.” Mrs. Fed-Up: “And a good thing! Immigration laws are much stricter now.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review