Note to Dues-Paying OGS Members
See the note on the
Membership page about 2022-2023 membership renewal.
1950 U.S. Federal Census Data has been released!
What's in the WA State Archives - Jun 9 Meeting
Dr. Jewell Lorenz Dunn of the Washington State Archives (Southwest Regional Branch) was the speaker at our June 9 general membership meeting. The topic was "Records found in our archives and a brief explanation of the difference between federal and state repositories."
Three members of the Olympia Genealogical Society are 2022 recipients of the Outstanding Volunteer Award from the Washington State Genealogical Society: Eileen Dodge, Norman Dodge, and Kathy Erlandson. Roxanne Lowe, secretary of the Washington State Genealogical Society, presented their awards.
The members of the 2022-2023 OGS Executive Board were elected by the membership. 2022-2023 officers are Laurel Haas (president), William Kautz (vice president), Jean Coons (secretary), and Karin Coppernoll (treasurer).
A recording of the Zoom meeting is now available for OGS members. Log in to the website and click on left side banner Community Events / Recordings*.
"You Joined What?!" - May 12 Meeting
People choose genealogy as a hobby for many different reasons: to find out how an ancestor was involved in history, to explore family stories or to honor and preserve family culture and heritage. Some, however, pursue genealogy in order to join a lineage society. What is a lineage society? Which ones could I join? Jerri McCoy acquainted us with the major societies as well as a number of regional and offbeat groups. She followed that up with concrete examples of applying for membership and how to prove your eligibility.
A recording of the Zoom meeting is now available for OGS members. Log in to the website and click on left side banner Community Events / Recordings*.
"Genealogical Forum of Oregon" - Apr 14 Meeting
The GFO: Brick & Mortar and Virtual
Genealogical Forum of Oregon (GFO) and its library houses one of the largest genealogy research collections in the Northwest. Laurel Smith, acting president and long-term library chair, told us about the library - what it contains, what you can use, what is available remotely, and what reopening their doors might look like. Located in Portland, it's a jewel found right in our back yard! Check out their website
https://gfo.org/ to see all of their resources online!
Spring Seminar 2022
DNA: Today's Matchmaker
Our Spring Seminar
featuring Diahan Southard
occurred Sat., April 9, 2022.
Registered attendees had access to recordings
of the four sessions thru April 17.
Special Interest Groups 2021-2022
SIGs are open to all current members. Feel free to contact the facilitator to learn more about a group. More information is shared on the SIG pages and the related Forums once you have logged onto the OGS website. Access to the SIGs and Forums is a benefit of membership; if you aren't a member yet, join up and start taking in all that OGS membership offers!
Our current line-up of SIGs and facilitators is as follows:
- Ancestry.com – Greg Nordlund; meets 4th Saturday 11 am - 1 pm
- DNA – Nancy Cordell; meets 2nd Tuesday 6:30 pm
- Family History Writing – Laura Carroll; meets 1st Monday at 6 pm
- FamilySearch.org – On hold indefinitely, or unless we have a facilitator
- FamilyTreeMaker – David Abernathy; meets 4th Thursday 10 am
- Genealogy Chat (NEW) - Peggy Cooley; meets 3rd Wednesday 1:00 pm
- Italian (NEW) – Greg Nordlund; meets quarterly (Nov, Feb, May, Aug) 1st Saturday 11 am
- Legacy Family Tree (NEW) – Jerri McCoy; meets 3rd Saturday 1:00pm
- MyHeritage.com (NEW) – Jan Wells-Minzel; meets 3rd Wednesday 6:30 pm
A special thanks to the above SIG facilitators!
Welcome to Our Website!
The Olympia Genealogical Society's website is designed to allow our members to engage with each other as they trace their ancestors, fill out their family trees, and discover their family histories. We want to make this site a dynamic experience where members can share with and learn from one another. Here are just a few ways to engage on this site today:
If you aren’t already an OGS member, please consider joining and engaging with our community. To do so, see
Membership in the menu in the left column.
OGS Surname Database
OGS provides a searchable public database to which an OGS member can add the surnames of their ancestors. At this writing, the database includes 348 entries. See
OGS Surname Database for more information.
OGS Newsletter
