The Yakima Valley Genealogy Society is holding a general business meeting Saturday, November 5 at 10:00 at the library at 1901 S. 12the Avenue (off Washington). The public is welcome. The presentation will be “Accessing State Archives and Genealogical Society Libraries Online.” Call 509-248-1328 for information.
Take a road trip to Yakima on Friday, the last day of September and enjoy the Union Gap Agricultural Museum tram tours on a beautiful fall day. Then, Saturday October 1 attend the Yakima Genealogy Society fall workshop 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at Mt. Olive Church 7809 Tieton Drive. 12 separate genealogical classes.
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Sue Semenza Ericksen has been appointed by WSGS President Mikal McKinnon to take over the state society’s treasurer’s duties. Sue replaces Kathy Bowen who moved out of the state to be closer to family.
Sue’s presence in WSGS is long-standing. She is Immediate Past President and previously served as membership chair, web manager and Region 5 representative. In addition to her WSGS dedication, Sue is an active member of the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society, currently serving as its vice president and web manager.
A routine audit was conducted on the WSGS finances and all was in order. A big thank-you to Sue for stepping into this important position.
The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society is holding its general meeting Saturday, September 3 at the library at 1901 S. 12th Avenue in Yakima. The presentation is on special censuses. The public is welcome. Call 509-248-1328 for more information.
Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized more than 450 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 2015 award recipients and learn why they received the 2015 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer and Team Award.
Today we’re introducing Susan Breshears Boatright of Yakima, Washington, who was nominated by the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society. She was recognized for her enthusiastic commitment to educate and share with others.
Since retiring from a gratifying teaching career, Susan has been involved in genealogy. She appreciates the academic research and learning involved, as well as participation with YVGS’s many active volunteers.
Susan Breshears Boatright
Susan served her second term as recording secretary at YVGS in 2015. In addition, she hosted a twice-monthly writing group at the society library where she encouraged members to write about their life experiences or family members with the goal of passing these memories and discoveries on to their families. Nothing gives her more satisfaction than helping a “newbie” make connections with previously unknown family members.
Susan promotes genealogy and YVGS at every turn and is an appreciated volunteer. Those qualities illustrate that she richly deserved being a recipient of a WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award.
For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Roxanne Lowe, Recognition Chair, at Roxanne@thekeeffes.com.
If you need yet another good reason to visit the stupendous genealogy library housed in the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society headquarters building, here it is! Better make travel reservations at a local hotel for one day in this library (just like potato chips) is not nearly enough!
Union Gap, WA. – The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society has recently been donated the Vernie Smith Bennett Collection, a major and significant collection of genealogical research material, by a benefactor in Texas. The collection consists of approximately 670 bound volumes of genealogical books and records. The donated material mainly covers the southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas) but does include some books with records from the northern states. This is a major addition to the existing collection which already consists of over 18,000 bound volumes on the shelf, 6,000 microfilm and 6,000 microfiche. The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society operates a library in Union Gap, Washington. It is one of the largest genealogical libraries in the Pacific Northwest and is open to the public free of charge 6 days a week. For the catalogue of the society holdings, the library address and it’s hours of operation you can go to their website at yvgs.net.
At our WSGS Board Retreat, 25 May 2015, I did an interview with Richard Kyle regarding the new additions to the YVGS library. Here are the points of that interview.
Richard was the Resource Specialist for the Yakima Family History Library from 1987 until 2008, when he resigned. A large part of his job was to keep track of and index the massive collection of film and fiche that was housed in the library. In 2012 he joined the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society and currently serves as a librarian several times a week and also co-chairs several workshops every month. He reported this important update to me at the WSGS Board Meeting on Friday, 25 April 2015.
The building that houses the Yakima Family History Library is in the process of being converted to another use. Because of this, the library was given a two week notice that they had to vacate to building. In 2013, due to the efforts of Richard and Pat Bundy (vice-president of the YVGS) the YVGS became an affiliate of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, allowing them to order and keep microfilm and fiche from that library. This, along with the fact that several times over the last few years the YVGS had informed the Family History Library that they had more than enough room to take over the collection for them if necessary, set the stage for the transfer of their film and fiche holdings to the YVGS library.
The LDS church in Yakima will re-open a family history library in one of the church buildings sometime later in the year. However, it will only contain a few computors, the bound books they had and two readers. The bulk of the collection was transferred to the YVGS library.
On Friday, April 25, 2015, a commercial moving company delivered ten microfilm cabinets (with their contents packed into moving boxes) and ten microfiche cabinets to the YVGS library building along with several microfilm and microfiche readers. An inventory is in the process of being completed so a complete list of transferred items can be sent to Salt Lake City. This is a permanent transfer and these new holdings will remain in the YVGS library indefinitely.
Quoting Richard, “This is the equivalent of 18,000 bound volumes on the shelf if the collection were converted to books. A large percentage of these records are original records. To get an idea of the actual size of this collection, when it was housed at the FHL in Yakima the indexes to the collection were on roughly 1,000 type written pages of titles.” The collection that will be retained is in the process of being reduced in size by pulling out all of the microfilms of the United States census and returning them to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. This will still leave the Yakima library with all of the fiche and roughly 6,500 rolls of microfilm. The collection should be fully cataloged and the online index atwww.yvgs.net updated by the end of June. The collection will not be co-mingled with already extensive collection of the YVGS library, but will be kept separate and apart.
The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society is proud to now know that their library is one of the largest genealogy libraries (both in physical size and in collection numbers) in the Pacific Northwest and invites you to come for a research visit anytime.
Visit their website for more information: www.yvgs.net and then Library.