Kamloops Family History Society – 1982 Beginnings

In September 1982, Gill McIntyre advertised in local papers for people interested in genealogy/family history to attend a meeting. Twenty people attended and an executive and board were voted in to run the group with Gill elected as President and Dr. Bob McGinn as Vice President. Doreen Lay was treasurer, Shyanne Doyle, recording secretary, Vicki Lyall, corresponding Secretary and Elenore Chamberland Project Co-ordinator.

It was decided we wanted to be an autonomous family history group and not affiliated with the BCGS. and so, the Kamloops Family History Society was born. We arranged to meet on the 4th Wednesday of every month in the North Kamloops Library meeting room. We continued to meet there for the first few years until the downsizing of the library took away the meeting room. By January 1991 we were meeting in the Valleyview Bible Church and in 1997 we moved to the South West Community Church. Meetings have been held on the 4th Thursday of every month in Heritage House for the last few years.

Two weeks after the initial meeting 18 members paid $5 at the next meeting to become the first members of our Society whose mission was then – and still is – to encourage and assist people in the search for their ancestors. By November our membership list totalled 34 members and by 1985 our fees had tripled.

In the late 1980s we started three Special Interest groups - Scottish, Ontario and English Midlands - which met somewhat irregularly at members’ homes. Mary Smith, a retired teacher, was very involved with these which continued for a few years before fading away as people’s interests changed. As well as organizing trips to the Genealogical Library in SLC we also organized trip to UBC to take in tours of the libraries there as well as visit the fabulous     map collection housed there. Nowadays, DNA is the thing that the group is focused on.

Our first Seminar took place in January 1983 at Cariboo College when Dr. Tom and Gretha Warren and a teacher friend of theirs, Barbara, were the presenters. The $900 we made was used to purchase a 4-drawer file cabinet for our meeting room and a basic collection of reference books which we deposited in the Library at Cariboo College. We also purchased other books which could be loaned out between meeting. Many seminars and workshops have been held over the years, bringing in money to expand our collection of books, etc. Mildred Sharpe was our first librarian. Our book and map collections are now stored at the Kamloops Family History Centre.

We drew up a Constitution and Bylaws and on August 16th, 1984 these were filed with the Registrar of Companies. Minor amendments were made and filed on June 13th, 1991. We later registered under the BC Societies Act as a non- profit organization.

We’ve had some field projects over the years – the Pleasant Street, Clinton and Old Men’s Home Cemeteries and the Funeral Home recording projects and knowing that all genealogists love to talk about their passion/obsession/addiction we have enjoyed some great social get-togethers – especially at Christmas time.

Pauline Saul, the Secretary of the KFHS for many years, spoke to us about helping to index the 1881 English census in late 1990. We enthusiastically took the project on and it gave us a real understanding of and appreciation for the work involved in producing indexes.

Trixie Bellos, Gill McIntyre and Elenore Chamberland had a dream of having an LDS Branch Genealogy Library here in Kamloops and after much effort the dream became a reality in 1984. Over the years we have kept our promise to the library [now the Family Search Centre] to assist in any way possible and with the help of many volunteers and liaison people we continue to cooperate with them.

That same spirit of cooperation has also been present over the years in our dealings with the Kamloops Library and the Museum. Many of the microfilms that we have purchased are now available in the Public Library making them easily accessible to our members and the general public.

The power of family history and genealogical societies worldwide through umbrella organizations like the Federation of Family History Societies and the Scottish Federation in the UK and Can Fed and the Family History Association in Canada, has opened research opportunities up in an incredible way. KFHS became a founding member of the Canadian Federation of FHS after Ruth Breckman came to talk to us on her journey across Canada in 1991 trying to drum up interest in a national organization. In our own small way by belonging to these larger organizations we have helped in the making of these changes.

Many requests for assistance come via our website. This was set up and managed by Doug Foreman, our webmaster - since the site’s inception in 1997 until his death in June 14, 2022. Doug put thousands of hours of work into the site at kfhs.org.

Under the direction of Liz Murdoch, our first Journal editor, the Volume 1 Number 1 issue of Family Footsteps came out in September 1985. Sylvia Whalley won the Name the Newsletter Contest at our June meeting in 1985 and Gill McIntyre drew up the graphic used on the front cover. We had a great Journal committee and had some fun times putting the Journals together. Frances Bishop took over in 1986 for eight years and did a great job turning it into a much more stylish and sophisticated production which she filled with some great material. Snail mail became expensive and now the Journal is published online by a journal committee.

Many things have changed in KFHS over the years – things like the size of the group, the faces, the meeting places and our Journal, but many things have remained the same. The warmth, friendliness, enthusiasm and energy of the members - especially of those committed members, the Executive and Board – have remained constant. So many great people have served the Society over the years in so many different capacities. We are blessed to have been a group which has generated so many friendships over the years.

Author Gill Gaiser - KFHS 40th Anniversary - September 22, 2022