I would like to take this opportunity to introduce and update you on the Great Falls Genealogy Society
(GFGS) and library. We are located at 321 Second Avenue North, Great Falls, Montana. It is on the third floor of the public library (yes, there is a third floor of the Great Falls Public Library). Everything we do is done by the volunteering of our members. We do not have any paid workers.
GFGS was started in 1975 by 32 charter members. Two of these members—Marian Wiley and Barbara
Mittal—are still members today. Currently, the membership is about 150 individuals. The society’s goals include: to promote and encourage active interest in genealogy, compile accurate and complete genealogies and collect and preserve genealogical records.
There’s more to genealogy than births, marriages, and deaths. We try to acquire research materials that
help members and the public add depth to their genealogies. We also suggest that people look at their ancestors’ FAN club (friends and neighbors). This often adds more information to your family’s history.
GFGS offers classes or seminars for genealogists. The majority of these are led by member Janet D.
Thomson, Ed.D. Janet’s doctorate is in research, which she uses to suggest excellent hints and strategies for research. Currently, Janet has been conducting seminars on Wednesdays at 11 AM via Zoom. These seminars are offered to all members of GFGS and of the Montana State Genealogical Society. These seminars are then posted on GFGS’s YouTube channel (Great Falls Genealogy Society) for anyone to view for free. If you would like to be on the email list to receive information about the seminars, email your contact information to GFGS at info@gfgenealogy.org.
The library started out as a bookshelf in one member’s home. Today we are in the top 10 of the largest genealogy libraries in the Northwest. I am not sure at what point GFGS outgrew being in someone’s house but the society made the decision to rent space to house the library. GFGS owns most of the books, indexes, maps, and documents that are in our library. I say most because we are the custodian of some Cascade County records, which were placed in our custody for preservation and for use by county citizens, historians, and genealogists.
The first non-home space for GFGS’s library was at Paris Gibson Square. I have been told that we had to leave that space because the weight of the books in the collection became too heavy for the floors of the
building. We then moved to the History Museum. Now we reside at the Great Falls Public Library’s (GFPL)
third floor. We have a written agreement (renewable yearly) with GFPL to provide GFGS volunteers in the
Montana Room 24 hours per week—this space might otherwise not be open to citizens. In return, we utilize a separate space for our GFGS library. GFGS opens the Montana Room from Noon to 4 pm Monday through Saturday and 1 pm to 4 pm on Sunday. We also staff our GFGS library during that time, using other GFGS volunteers. This is a wonderful opportunity for us—we give back to the Great Falls community, and gain space through Society volunteerism.
Today we have over 10,000 books, 4,200 periodicals, and 450 maps in our GFGS library. We are adding
to our materials every month. Our materials, while concentrating on Cascade County and Montana, are from all of the other US states and many countries worldwide. We have records and maps for Cascade County cemeteries. GFGS has funeral home records and funeral cards for the local funeral homes. Member Larry D. Spicer gifted the library with complete sets of several Mennonite Journals—a very rare resource. GFGS dedicated efforts to purchase Indigenous resources for Montana’s local tribes—especially our local tribe, the Little Shell. We have over 400 books for Indigenous research. Our volunteers have created many indexes for records, books, and newspaper articles that are one-of-a-kind resources. Members have also worked to copy obituaries out of the local papers. Member Gary Goettel did an interesting project he calls “Did the Crime Paid the Time” that records Cascade County people who were sent to prison.
Several members in 2004-2005 inventoried the records for Cascade County in a joint project with the Cascade County Marriage Licenses Cascade County Commissioners. This project took about two years. The result was a Cascade County Records Inventory, spanning most all of the county’s departments; we have a copy for patron research, and so does the Cascade County Commission. The Commissioners have entrusted the GFGS Library with records in need of preservation—for example, school records of small schools no longer in existence, marriage records, coroner records, old age pension records, and expired voter registrations. More recently, members spent over six years inventorying the records of the Ursuline Academy—the “Mother House” for many Ursuline missions in Montana and other states.
GFPL’s vertical files, a part of the Montana Room records, are housed in our GFGS Library and our volunteers help citizens find requested materials. These files contain articles that were clipped from
various sources. There are 18 4-drawer file cabinets containing these articles. GFGS members are volunteering to help GFPL index the articles that are in these file cabinets. The articles that are available
online or microfilm will be removed but the headlines will remain in the index. This helps to reduce the size of the vertical files while making room for other articles that are not available elsewhere.
GFGS has subscriptions to Ancestry.com, Fold-3.com, Familysearch.org, MyHeritage.com, FindMyPast.com, Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank.com, AmericanAncestors.org, Find-A-Grave.com, BillionGraves.com, ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov, National Archives (NARA), Genealogical Publishing Library, Montananewspapers.org, and Montana History Portal on our patron computers. These databases are free for members to use within our library. Non-members may use these subscriptions for a small fee to help cover the cost of the subscriptions. There are three patron computers for use.
Over a decade ago, FamilySearch came in and digitized over 660,000 of our documents. They are currently working on digitizing still more of our documents in need of preservation. This session of scanning has been concentrating on the Mortuary Records that are available to GFGS.
Our preservation efforts include all of the indexes that have been, and will be, completed and on our inventories of records. We purchased archival-safe boxes in which to place some of the records and books in need of preservation. Several of our maps are in archival-safe sleeves. We recently purchased two map drawer cabinets to hold our maps.
As of December 2023, GFGS is an Affiliated Library for FamilySearch. There are only a few hundred
affiliate libraries in the country. This designation means local library patrons will now have greater and more convenient access to the wealth of genealogical resources available through FamilySearch. The popular web service has over 6 billion searchable names and 2 billion images of historical genealogical records—and you get the helpful assistance of GFGS volunteers.
September 18-20, 2025, GFGS is co-hosting with Montana State Genealogical Society the Annual Conference of Montana State Genealogical Society. Check out the Montana State Genealogical Society registration page for more information at https://montanamsgs.org/conference/. Non-members are also welcome.
GFGS is a member of both Montana State Genealogical Society and National Genealogical Society.
We are 50 years old– help us continue to grow!
By Cheryl Lucas: June 19, 2025 – Great Falls, Mt
Author: Staff
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