Jessica Hurst
The Sweet Home Genealogical Society is all about history. Yours.
The society’s library is a treasure trove for genealogical enthusiasts.
“(Our goal is) to be able to provide help to anybody who wants to come in and study genealogy,” said Teresa Riper, president. “It’s a quiet place, and if you have questions we are always available to help.”
The library, at 1223 Kalmia St., offers vast resources for family history research, including Sweet Home phone books from various decades, Sweet Home High School yearbooks dating back to the 1940s, and school records from local schools dating back to the early 1800s.
A member who recently moved to Alaska has donated her genealogical library, which includes books covering most of the states in the Union. The library collection also includes family histories, cemetery records, and indexed census records.
Extensive website resources such as familysearch.org, ancestry.com and others are available to researchers. The library’s resources also include early military records listing names dating back to the Revolutionary War.
Thousands of photos and negatives of local people, taken by Eggen studios, a portrait studio that operated from the 1940s to the 1970s in Lebanon, have been donated to the library. Society officials said the public is welcome to come down and look for family members. Copies can be made of photos.
The society has recently begun a new project last week, indexing all The New Era papers available.
“It’s going to take months and months,” Riper said. “We are capturing every name that is associated with Sweet Home and the surrounding areas. We have got 1947 to date. We are going to get a list of all the surnames on our website, to where people can see if they’ve got a common surname. They can give us a call and we can go look it up for them.”
Some papers from the 1930s and early 1940s are also available on microfiche.
The Sweet Home Genealogical Society began in 1975 when Sharon Leader, Carla Healey and others from Sweet Home met at the Lebanon Genealogical Society.
“There were several of us doing individual research on our own,” Leader recalled. “(We) became aware of each other and we were going to Lebanon and attending their genealogical society meetings. In conversations, we said, ‘Why don’t we have one in Sweet Home?’”
Each of them was conducting their own research for their family genealogy. They decided it would be more efficient to work together. According to the society’s website, the original 15 members began with their first library being a locked cupboard in the back of the City Library.
When charter member Jerry Mealey died, leaving her estate to the society, they were able to construct the Sweet Home Genealogical Society library caddy-corner from the Sweet Home Public Library, on Kalmia Street between 12th and 13th Avenue. The building was completed in 1999.
Some members started in genealogical research as youngsters.
Society Treasurer Terri Lanini began as a child when she would visit the state library with her grandmother.
“She would sit me down with book and she would show me pages and I would have to write down what was on that page that had to do with our family,” she said.
Leader also began pursuing her genealogical interests on her own at a young age. A lot of things have changed in genealogical research, she said.
“The most frustrating thing was in those days, you sent a request for census records and you got one page,” she said. “You never knew if it was the right one or not. It would maybe be several weeks before you could get an answer. Now everything is at your fingertips. Then we had to use snail mail.”
The society will host its 37th genealogical workshop, an annual event, this weekend, March 10-11. This year, for the first time, interested participants can attend a single workshop rather than pay for both days.
One topic this year will be DNA research, a new aspect of genealogical research and because of this, the society is making this workshop available on its own. Other workshop topics will range from the histories of Santiam Wagon Road and of Camp Adair to researching cousins in Germany and using different methods to trace family members.
Workshop cost is $15 per day. For those only interested in the DNA workshop, cost is $5. To register, stop by the Genealogical Library or visit http://www.shgenealogy.com.
The public can request information through the society website at http://www.shgenealogy.com or by calling the society at (541) 367-5034. The public are welcome to come into the library during operating hours and conduct genealogical research for a small fee.
A staff member is always willing to help answer questions or point a person in the right direction for their research.
“We are all volunteers” Riper said. “It’s just people who come down who have a passion for genealogy.”