We experienced a significant transition and learning journey in 2024 as we worked to bring Wilkes Genealogical Society into the digital realm. It required a lot of effort. Personally, I contributed over 2,000 hours of volunteer work last year to build this site. I successfully achieved all the goals I set for 2024.

These goals included:

• Making it easier for members around the world to pay dues online.
• Digitizing the Society’s Bulletins and making them available to members through the site.
• Digitizing the Society’s publications and starting to offer them for sale through the site.
• Using the site to streamline and update our membership list.

Membership

Before 2024, our hand-typed membership list included over 300 members. All those members who had email addresses were brought into this site. A few individuals were lost during the transition, and I sincerely thank those who reached out to us so we could add them to the website.

Many new members joined in 2024. Unfortunately, 243 former members were removed from the list. This included individuals who passed away, did not renew their membership, or whose email addresses bounced back, leaving them unaware of our transition. This was expected.

As of January 8, 2025, here are our current membership statistics and site usage:

Bulletins

All WGS Bulletins are now digitized and up to date. Starting with the first issue from 1967, they will be made available online for our paid members to read and download.

I still need to add the issues from 2004 to 2015. They are already digitized; it’s just a matter of uploading them to the site.

Bulletin Submissions

If you have an article or information you’d like us to publish in the WGS Bulletin, please use the “Contact” link above. We are always on the lookout for content such as family histories or trees related to Wilkes, personal or family stories connected to Wilkes, general history, or anything else you think might interest our membership. Feel free to share your ideas with us!

WGS Bulletin Index

I hope to have most of the WGS Bulletin Index linked to the individual Bulletins. This will allow you to click on a keyword in the list and be taken directly to the corresponding Bulletin article.

WGS Bulletin Index – Wilkes Genealogical Society

Publications

Present

We are always on the lookout to publish new materials. We have had many authors donate their research to the Wilkes Genealogical Society. We now have 60 publications that the WGS produces and sells. If you are interested in leaving your legacy by being published, please contact us.

Past

All past publications have been digitized. We hope to have them all online, for sale, by the end of the year.

All proceeds WGS receives from memberships and publication sales help cover the costs of maintaining this site, purchasing new materials for our public genealogy reading room, providing educational resources to the public, and covering the general expenses of running WGS.

Volunteer

We are always in need of volunteers for various tasks. Please click on the contact link at the top of this page.

At this time, we are specifically looking for a bookkeeper. This role should require no more than 1–3 hours a month of your time. The duties include keeping track of website sales processed through PayPal, submitting and paying quarterly reports online to the NC tax office, and providing a monthly report of the Society’s income and expenditures to the president.

We also need volunteers to staff our genealogy room at the library for a few hours. Volunteers would assist visitors in locating genealogy research materials and returning items to the shelves. Even if you can only commit to one day a month for a morning or afternoon, your help would be greatly appreciated!

In addition, we are seeking volunteer members/board members to form a committee to help produce the new Heritage of Wilkes County, Volume III. This involves encouraging people to submit their updated family histories or genealogies for publication, reaching out to contacts both online and in person, attending genealogy swap meets, scanning materials, and contributing any other skills or ideas to ensure the success of this project.

Your time and talents can make a big difference!

Facebook

We used to place queries in our Bulletins, but this has become outdated as the internet and social media have taken hold. We now have an active private Facebook group that is better suited for answering queries. More than likely, you will connect with a cousin researching the same family or topic.

Wilkes Genealogical Society (official) | Facebook