Thank you West Valley Genealogical Society

A week ago I was in sunny Arizona to do a seminar in Sun City for the West Valley Genealogical Society. I had the opportunity to experience a tour of their library. Wow! It's huge, has books, atlases, many computers, databases, space to research, and more. I think I could have spent several days there. What a gem for those who live in Arizona but also for the snowbirds who descend upon the state. (Oh do I wish I was one of them after this winter in Minnesota!). The library is at 12222 N. 111th Avenue, Youngtown, Arizona. Free parking right in front, too!

The group was welcoming, the seminar was well-organized, great door prizes were awarded, lunch from Paradise Bakery was awesome, and we all had great opportunities for learning and some laughs. I could not have asked for a better day.

One other highlight of the weekend was that one of their members, Linda Caldwell McCleary, was my host for the weekend. Linda and I have known each other for more years than we will publicly admit to. She is a former board member of the Federation of Genealogical Societies but we really needed some catching up time!

I mentioned door prizes and that brought about a moment in which I was speechless. Yes, me, speechless. Toward the end of the door prizes, Judy Linnebach announced some special door prizes that the speaker (me) didn't know about. Seems that their last year's seminar speaker, J. Mark Lowe, had provided three prizes of shirts that said "Genealogy by Paula" and I was totally surprised. Thanks, Mark!

I owe many thanks to Arlene Sampson and Judy among others for all the planning!

Oh, did I mention that the WVGS library has a huge sign outside?

One more thing you might want to know. The library has an obituary file. I found the obituary of one of my children's Granduncles in that file! Thank you WVGS volunteers! Plus the index is online at www.azwvgs.org/library.asp. As the website states, "The West Valley Genealogical Society Obituary database contains nearly 50,000 records dating from 1963 to the present, with a heavy concentration from the 1980’s to date. The database covers primarily the cities of NorthWestern Maricopa County, Arizona . . ."