Recently, Great River Regional Library associate Wendy Sykes made the front page of the St. Cloud Times for her subject expertise in genealogy. Sykes perceives peoples pasts as treasure hunts, and indeed admits with the tricky ones she digs, and digs, and digs, and digs some more! St. Cloud Public Library is lucky to have Wendy’s expertise in house, and it sounds like it is well-used. Sykes leads twice-a-year genealogy classes to teach people the basics of getting started. Library staffers also take the course on the road to different GRRL branches. Did you know that GRRL has a genealogy club that meets the first Thursday of the month? Stearns History Museum has its own club too.

What I found most fascinating was Sykes’ hobby as a volunteer to wander graveyards and take photos of gravestones for the Find a Grave website. Who knew?  The full article is well worth your time…

Image credit: https://unsplash.com/ (Simeon Muller), licensed under CC0 1.0