PSGS History

On May 2, 1973 three people met at the Doctor's Clinic in Bremerton to discuss their genealogical research. A this meeting it was decided to organize a club and elect officers. Protem President Marlys Marrs and Vice-President was Jim Hanf. It was decided that the group would meet in this manner until a slate of officers was elected at the October meeting.

At the November 1973 meeting held at Sheridan Park, Jim Hanf was President, Naomi Morris was Vice-President and Donna Jean Bruce was Secretary Treasurer.

One year later a library was started and the group had adopted the name Olympic Genealogical Society.

At the May 1975 meeting held at the Great Nowthwest Building in Bremerton, the members selected the new name of Puget Sound Genealogical Society. Also, at this time Family Backtracking (renamed "The Backtracker"), was chosen for the name of the society's quarterly newsletter.

That same year, Arthur Fiske, who had been so helpful in getting our society established and was commuting from Seattle on a regular basis to provide guidance in genealogical research, was made an honory member and later was awarded lifetime member status.

Over the years, our society has grown, as has the library. Different meeting places have been used and our library has moved from place to place and at several points was spread throuout several members' homes. In 1995 the Givens Community Center became a home for our library until March 2003. Our library had a brief home at the Poulsbo Armory and has now reopened in March 2004 at the East Port Orchard Center.

Membership has grown from slightly over 20 members in 1973 to well over 200 members. Research requests have increased, information continues to become available at a much faster rate, and research methodology continues to improve. PSGS is doing all it can to keep up with the demands. We know we can do more with your help.

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History of the Puget Sound Genealogical Society

By Marlys Marrs

The PSGS Chronicles

Our Society began with a small group of about twenty people meeting at the Doctors Clinic in 1972. These were people who were very interested in family history research and learning more about how to do the research. In 1973 about twelve or thirteen of the people who attended the meeting at the Doctors Clinic became the members of what was to become the Puget Sound Genealogical Society. I do not have list of who attended the first meeting, but some that I remember who joined and became the organizing group were Dr. Frederick Drew, Dr. William Richardson, Naomi Morris, Jackie Smalley, Betty Eckman, Marie Barth and myself.

During our organization year the following officers were elected: President -- Jim Hanf, Vice-President -- Naomi Morris and Treasurer -- Donna Jean Bruce. We started working on by-laws and set goals of (1) Education, (2) sharing information and (3) promoting genealogy. We also wanted to (or hoped to) build a genealogy library, but our main goal was "genealogy education."

During the beginning years of 1973 and 1974 a name was selected by the membership. It was "Olympic Genealogical Society, Graecia Britten Chapter." The Graecia Britten Chapter because a number of the members starting the club used to go to Graecia Britten’s home and use her library and genealogy collection. I believe this is where the idea formed, that we really needed to have a society with good educational meetings. We were all very green, beginners, with the exception of Graecia. Graecia who was made an Honorary Life Member of the Society because of her work in promoting family history research.

We also started a newsletter to keep our membership advised of meeting dates and locations as well a list of scheduled speakers.

Our meetings were all during the evening as most of our members worked full time. We met at different locations: Doctors Clinic, YWCA, Sheridan Park Community Center, Great Northwest Building and the Natural Gas Building. Our speakers were from all around our area and we planned a seminar each year with speakers from all over the United States and Canada. The seminars helped us add to our library, but were not planned to make money. If we broke even we were happy. They were part of our educational program. Money to purchase books, microfilms, equipment and library supplies was raised by rummage sales, holiday bazaars, raffles, and we even earned cash by having Tupperware and Candle parties.

In 1974 our membership totaled forty-two; we were growing! This year we started abstracting Kitsap County records from the Bremerton Sun, burial and funeral records from Lewis Chapel and Pendleton-Gilcrest Mortuary. Also Kitsap County cemeteries, tombstone readings, sketches of Bremerton 1901 city officers, list of names of mayors of Port Orchard, Poulsbo and Bremerton, vital records at the Kitsap County Courthouse, Kitsap County Federal censuses, to name a few of the projects. I was able to get approval so that we could abstract the index to the wills and probates of Kitsap County.

In 1975 the Society started holding meetings at my home and they also set up their small but growing library in the family room of my home. We were now getting ready to start publishing the abstracted records in our bulletin. Because our bulletin was growing and becoming more of a newsletter, it needed a name. From a number of suggested names, the membership voted to call our bulletin "Family Backtracking" and a design was made for the cover and it was voted that the cover should be green. We also started exchanging bulletins with other societies across the country.

We were also able to purchase books and members were also donating and loaning books to the library. We started reviewing new books for the authors for a copy of their books for our library. Our library was growing so two rooms in our basement were remodeled by my husband, Bill Marrs, (he had to move his shop out to another building). One room was our meeting place and the other for our growing library. Plus we now had a microfilm reader and was ordering films on loan as well as purchasing some. The meetings and library remained at our home until about 1992 when we sold the house. The library was then moved. The books went to Dick Helander's home and the films and readers to Bill Richardson’s.

In 1976 we had sixty-two members and we started genealogy classes for our members. By 1977/78 because of the confusion between our name Olympic Genealogical Society and that of the Olympia Genealogical Society, it became clear that we really needed to change the name of our Society. We were the newer society so we should change. From several suggested names the membership voted for Puget Sound Genealogical Society as our new name.

We continued to grow both in membership, which was 100 in 1979 and our library had also increased in size. In 1980 a North Kitsap Chapter of Puget Sound Genealogical Society was formed in Poulsbo. In 1981 the Belfair Chapter of Puget Sound Genealogical Society was added.

Some of the officers that guided our Society in the first ten years were: Jim Hanf, Naomi Morris, Donna Jean Bruce, Sharon Streitt, Roseann Mitchell, Carol Neumann, Pearlie Moulden, Beverly Greene, Marie Barth, Donna Munro, Virginia Lagergren, Minnie Hartson, Bertha Randall, Marlys Marrs, Rosemary O'Brien, Vickie Bushnell, Betty Clark, Madelyn Cataldo, Clarice Hertlein, Jackie Horton and Margaret Lentz.

The Bulletin editors for this period of time were Marlys Marrs, Roseann Mitchell, Ruth Manning and Marian Leaptrot.