The New Season of Monthly History Talks Kicks Off with Tracy Rebstock

We all have archives and perhaps haven’t even thought about it.  Personal papers, family photo albums, scrapbooks and meaningful artifacts from your past are all part of your personal archives.  While they may not be in a good state of organization, they are still treasures.  We here at the Olympia Tumwater Foundation have some very nice archives that are an important part of our community history.  We are working hard on a project to organize and digitize them to make them accessible to researchers.  It only seemed appropriate that we begin our new season of free monthly history talks here at the historic Schmidt House with an expert in archives, which we did on Thursday, October 15th at noon with guest speaker Tracy Rebstock.

Tracy is the Southwest Regional Archivist for the Washington State Archives here in Olympia and shared some wonderful stories and treasures from those rich archives.  She also gave some very helpful information for those interested in researching family history, property records, maps, and other resources to give folks a great head start on their research projects.  She was able to not only inform but also encourage us about how helpful the staff at the archives office can be for individuals who have a research project but don’t know how to begin.  Her illustrated presentation was well received and will be broadcast on Tumwater’s channel 26 on TCTV in about a month.

Our next talk in the series will be on Thursday, November 19th at noon (doors open at 11:30) with another aspect of research called genealogy.  Jewell Dunn will be our guest as she applies her expertise in genealogy to the historic Schmidt family of the Olympia Brewing Company fame and their German roots and heritage that so many American families share.  We hope you’ll be able to join us for another great time of sharing the stories of our rich past.

Don Trosper, Public History Manager (360)786-8117