Many thanks are extended to the Clark County Genealogical Society for hosting the WSGS Annual Meeting and Awards Event on Saturday, 26 May 2018. The annual meeting was held in conjunction with CCGS’s Spring Seminar featuring David Allen Lambert, chief genealogist with the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston.

During the annual meeting and awards lunch, 30 local society members  and 4 teams were recognized with Outstanding Volunteer and Team awards. The volunteers were praised for their commitment and energies to promote genealogy and family history in their local communities. For more about the Outstanding Volunteers, read this blog article.

Other awards presented included:

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  WSGS President Virginia Majewski presenting the Outstanding Communication Award to Nancy Cordell, president of the Olympia Genealogical Society

  Outstanding Communication – Olympia Genealogical Society for their new website. Check it out!!

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  Clark County Genealogical Society members Brian Runyan and Lois Boslund receiving the Outstanding Project award from President Virginia Majewski

  Outstanding Project — Clark County Genealogical Society for their dedication to digitizing, transcribing and indexing original tax ledgers for the City of Vancouver for the years 1886 and 1891.

Five local societies were awarded Innovative Grant Awards. Congratulations to:

• Eastside Genealogical Society – help paying for “The Photo Detective” Maureen Taylor at a workshop to celebrate the society’s 40^th Ms. Taylor will present “Finding Family History in Your Picture Mysteries” on September 15 in Bellevue. Society members will get to attend for free while the public will pay a small fee.
• Lower Columbia Genealogical Society– to purchase genealogical books to donate to the Longview Public Library for public use. Lower Columbia has generously donated books for a number of years, using money from membership dues and their coffee stops.
• Okanogan Genealogical Society – help purchasing supplies to repair and preserve books holding the “Tonasket Times” newspaper from 1913 – 1952. They use a special archival document repair tape. Each book uses a whole roll of tape. This grant will buy a few rolls of tape to stop the destruction of the collection.
• Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society – help publishing a book on “Early Stillaguamish Valley Schools” in the Arlington Area. It’s taken years to gather historical documents and photographs for this project from the 1800s to the early 1940s and now they’re ready to publish.
• Wenatchee Area Genealogical Society – For the 4^th consecutive year, WAGS has applied for an Innovative Grant to promote genealogy in their area. This year, they’re focusing on the digital preservation of family records, library holdings and archival documents. They plan to preserve family histories and archival materials of their society, its members and the community.

The President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement was presented to Ann Olson of the Olympia Genealogical Society. See separate blog feature.

For more photos of the seminar and annual meeting, visit our Facebook page.