Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized over 600 outstanding volunteers and teams, nominated by their local society or genealogical organization for their service and dedication. These volunteers are the backbone of their local society, giving their time and expertise, to the organization and the field of genealogy. In the coming months, you will be introduced to each of the 2022 award recipients and learn why they received the 2022 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer and Team Award.

Today we’re introducing LeeRoy Kind of Marysville, Washington, who was nominated by the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society (SVGS).

As a volunteer, LeeRoy enjoys training patrons: 1) how to do research on their own and, 2) how to use the SVGS library. He became a volunteer in 2009, and served as parking lot attendant coordinator and speaker monitor for the Northwest Genealogy Conference. In his earliest days with SVGS, he digitized obituaries and entered data from area newspapers for SVGS’s online Death Index. More currently, he has been the driving force behind the Weller Funeral Home Card Digitization Project.

In LeeRoy’s opinion, one of the most important things to remember when doing research is that we’re not going to find everything we’re looking for the first time we type a name into a database. It’s “…a continual search.”

LeeRoy was born in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota and moved with his job at Hewlett- Packard from Detroit to California and finally to Marysville, Washington where he has lived since 1982.

For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Info@wasgs.org. Please type “Volunteer Award.”