
A blurb in Sunday's Parade magazine last week said that "the nation's busiest library system by circulation is Washington's King County Library System. About 22.4 million items were checked out in 2010, exceeding the second-place library system in Queens, New York."
I think that's something to be proud of! Washington State has a great library system..... in fact, I just Googled the question "how many libraries in Washington State" and the list went on and on and on.
I wonder where our own Spokane Public Library stands among Washington's libraries in circulation statistics? Do YOU have a library card? Do YOU use it?
EWGS is double-blessed that our Spokane Public Library keeps such good care of our EWGS collection of genealogical materials. Have YOU visited the "Gene Section" of our downtown library?
Make it a September goal: Read a book, preferably one you've checked out from your library.
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Just back from Port Angeles and the Washington State Genealogical Society Conference. Charles Hansen, Jacque Lane and Marie Wallick were the only other attendees from EWGS. The highlight of the event (to me) was the pre-conference tour of Port Angeles......... the Underground of Port Angeles. .jpg)
Near Kalaloch we came upon a view point to see the Pacific Ocean.
I clicked this picture as we crossed the Hoh River. I was surprised I got a waterfall also.
Between Forks and Port Angeles is Lake Crescent and we drove alongside of this lake for several miles.
We stayed at Port Angeles Inn up 101 steps from First Street. We did not count them but did go down that way once.
We walked down to the Strait of Juan De Fuca and was watching the ferry to Victoria B.C. load. I looked across the street and there was a lady taking a picture of what looked like a warehouse, so we walked over and found this wall mural on the warehouse wall.
Up the street towards First we stopped and had lunch then kept walking. On another wall was this very long mural of Port Angeles in 1914, took two photos to get all of it. 
Then across the alley was this picture of the Kalakala ferry from Puget Sound. Today it sets in dis repair waiting for a restoration. As I was taking this picture Roger Newman the WSGS Secretary walked up and told us the history of the Kalakala.
So we walked up First to this sign on the street in front of the Elks Naval Lodge.
This is the back of the previous sign.
This is the Elks Lodge sign.
So we went inside and took the elevator to the third floor for registration, and they could not find my registration, but found Roger's and Jacque's, so they made up a new name tag for me. We walked into the ballroom and was looking around when Roberta Griset started calling my name. Seems I had been volunteered to help introduce two of the breakout speakers, and she had my registration, and nametag and a packet explaining what I was to do. I then went back and turned in the other nametag. Then I went to the WSGS Board meeting.
This is the conference Chair Virginia Majewski and WSGS President Sue Ericksen.
This was the SAR Flag Ceremony to start the conference.
Here are the two SAR gentleman that did the Flag Ceremony.
WSGS Booth
Volunteer Award Winners at WSGS Booth
First thing in the morning was the excellent Continental Breakfast
Continental Breakfast
Brian Hutchison the main speaker of the conference, this was his second talk, we could not hear him very well for his first talk on Armchair Genealogy, but it was on long distance researching. For the second session we moved closer to the front and was able to hear this session, Twenty Five tips in Sixty Minutes.
After Brian's session we had two breakout sessions, I went to the session on the New Family Search by Ray Madsen, he is a very good speaker and his session was a good learning experience. The Next breakout session was Jon Kirshbaum and I got to introduce him and his session on Migration Routes. Jon rambled on for about 45 minutes and then in the last 15 minutes he got on subject. The room was warm and I thought it just about right, but most of the coast people thought it was too hot.
I even got to tell about my project the Resource Guides. After lunch was the last breakout session, and I got to announce Rod Fleck and his session on Military Records from the beginning of the settlements in New England to WWII. Rod is an excellent speaker and his session was over way too soon. His session was in the Elk Lodge Room and this elk head is over the fireplace there.
Last was another session from Brian Hutchison using underused sources to find your ancestors, and then they had several door prizes and raffel tickets to draw. I did not win anything.
















