White River Valley Museum The White River Valley Museum - photo courtesy of Barbara Mattoon Auburn, Kent, Algona, and Pacific Those of us who live in South King County are fortunate to have many local museums and historical societies that hold records and artifacts relating to this area. One of these repositories is the outstanding White River Valley Museum in downtown Auburn. Its collection covers the communities of Auburn, Kent, Algona, and Pacific. Exhibits The interactive exhibits include a room from The Tourist Hotel which was located just down the street from the Auburn Depot; The Northern Clay Company, later known as Gladding McBean which used clay from the Green River Valley, artisans from Vienna, and laborers from Auburn to produce the architectural terra cotta that still adorns high-rise buildings in Tacoma and Seattle; a Muckleshoot Indian canoe, and a tour through a replica of Auburn downtown in the 1920s. You can learn about the immigrant experience by visiting a Japanese-...

By Linda Blais At our June meeting, Mary Kathryn Kozy gave us some practical tips for preparing to take a genealogy research trip.  Listening to Mary brought back memories of the last research trip I took to North Carolina and Tennessee with my cousin who acted as my research assistant. It also brought up some "aha" or "oops" moments on a couple of things that didn't go quite as planned, even though I had spent months preparing my itinerary. Here are some basics about the trip. My goal was to visit as many historical sites, libraries, museums, courthouses and archives as I could in 10 days that were relevant to the life of Sarah Barton Murphy, who lived in North Carolina as a child between 1753 and 1760 and in Tennessee as an adult between 1781 and 1802.  She is not my ancestor, but I am in the process of writing a biography about her. Her claim to fame is that she founded the first Sunday school west of the Mississippi in 1805. The research I do for an anc...

By Valorie Zimmerman and MaryLynn Strickland While gathering contact information from Washington state genealogy societies, historical and heritage groups, and museums, a gem became obvious: The Jefferson County Historical Society , which has some fascinating places to visit also has a Research Center, which they say, “ .serves as both the primary research facility and the repository for the Society's archival collections. Staff and volunteers are on hand to assist researchers.” See their website for more information: http://jchsmuseum.org/Sites/ResearchCenter.html .  This group is also active on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffcountymuseum . Even more exciting: you can access part of their collection now, sitting at your computer! See https://cdm16785.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/ to search. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here are a few more interesting societies.  We do not wish to overlook anybody but space does not allow ...

By Cheri Sayer In December 2018, the Greater Kent Historical Society (GKHS) will proudly mark their 25th anniversary!  There had been an “Old-Timers” group in Kent, WA, for many years, and it is still going strong with an annual awards event.  During a meeting in 1992, Rae Reitan, a native of Kent and the City Historian, suggested that Kent should have a legitimate Historical Society.  The idea was adopted, a committee was formed, and a campaign was held to collect artifacts and information about Kent and the surrounding area.  The Greater Kent Historical Society was formed and incorporated as a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization.  The next year a space at 209 W. Meeker in historic downtown Kent became the temporary home of the society and it’s collection for the next five years.  I remember well my visits to that small space with it’s artifacts and excellent exhibits. Interest in a larger space eventually settled on the historic Bereiter home on Smith...