Who were the Pioneers of the McCleary area?
We have an exciting new project at the Museum. We want to find out who was here in the McCleary Area before Washington became a state. We know some information about who was here in 1900 but the records for earlier are a little harder to find.
The WA State Genealogical Society (correction from orginal post) is pushing to put together a database of all the pioneers of Washington state that arrived before Statehood in 1889. We are using that as a challenge to collect that information for as many of our Pioneer families as we can.
We feel that it will benefit not only that Statewide project, but give us valuable information that can be used and shared in our Museum.
We know the Beck and Anderson families were early arrivals to the area. I also think that the Hicklin, Forbes, and Sine families were in the area pretty early. There are many listed on the 1900 census for Summit that were probably here before 1889 but I don’t have proof for any of that yet.
If you are willing to help, the research on this topic will be ongoing until at least 2026. The state website lists all the rules and what we need to submit to the State wide database. Check it out at
Website: https://wasgs.org/cpage.php?pt=96
For more information, email WAPioneerPursuit@gmail.com
If you are interested in helping with this project contact the museum. Or Karen Lystad at lystadk@olynet.com.
The “Washington State Genealogical Society” is not the same as the “Washington State Historical Society”.
These are two entirely different organizations. Both are nonprofit corporations. Neither of them are part of the actual Washington State government.
Washington State Genealogical Society https://wasgs.org
Washington State Historical Society https://www.washingtonhistory.org/about/
Corporation searches can be done here: https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/#/
So the nonprofit corporation Washington State Genealogical Society’s pioneer project program is not part of official Washington State government.
Folks of course may want to participate, become members, submit genealogy information, that is fine. It is just important that they know this is not WA State. The pioneer certificate program they offer is not WA state gov certification, it is simply a program by a nonprofit corporation society. Submitting local pioneer information to this nonprofit has nothing to do with actual WA State.
As for McCleary Historical Society soliciting research on area early families – ideally to begin with everything at museum should be professionally inventoried and cataloged. This is labor and I don’t know that volunteers with the needed professional skills can be found.
Then McCleary Historical needs to develop clear policies for item and research donations. Everything needs to be tracked and receipts for everything.
Thanks for that clarification and information.