Historically, the founding of the Brooks & District Branch was brought into being by a class of students taking a Genealogy Beginner's Course under the auspices of Brooks Adult Further Education, with instructor, Jocelyn Robertson, in the fall of 1980.

So enthusiastic were her students to keep on with their learning of genealogy and put into practice the knowledge they had acquired over the six -week time period, that they thought whom better to give further direction in research and resource skills but a provincial genealogical society. Three people in the group were AGS members and with the remaining 8 then becoming members, everyone signed the letter of Intent, applying for branch status to the Society on January 8, 1981.

Thus it was that on February 12,1981 an inaugural meeting as the Brooks & District Branch of the Alberta Genealogical Society was held in the library of the Brooks Junior High School with the following Charter members of the AGS Brooks & District Branch.

Beverly A. Hagen, President

Jocelyn Robertson, Vice President

Winifred Spence, Recording Secretary & Membership Secretary

Maren Burns, Treasurer

Heather Miyauchi, Irene Vanderloh, Vicky Mattson, Margaret Lelond, Carol Anderson, Clara Iwaasa and Jeanne Lutes.

Genealogy research materials were scarce in the community, therefore, for several years members travelled to the LDS Family History Centres in Taber, Lethbridge and Calgary, they also utilized the public libraries in Calgary and particularly for interlibrary loan of Canadian microfilm with the Brooks Public Library.

The branch Presidents travelled to provincial meetings in Red Deer every two months, and on their return home to Brooks, they would bring with them a box loaded with genealogical library materials for the members to read and use for their research purposes. This was the travelling library in those early days, for all AGS branches that did not have a library of their own.

It is correct to say that it was the AGS Brooks & District branch that played a vital role in the Brooks LDS Church being able to establish a family history library in this area.

Also the Brooks & District branch were among the first to initiate the microfilming of the Brooks Bulletin, the local weekly newspaper that was established in 1910, a project in the 1980's carried out by the Legislative library in Edmonton for all Alberta newspapers.

The AGS Brooks & District branch strives to maintain good public relations in community activities in which it has participated; annual fall fairs, museum days, educational workshops, establishing amiable working relationships with other local heritage and cultural groups, and promote fund raising projects.

In September, 1991 after ten years of moving from one location to another for meetings, the branch was able to set up a permanent library and meeting room in the Brooks Community Cultural Centre. From that time on, library acquisitions and research tools and materials have greatly expanded, enabling the members and general public to spend productive time researching their family history in the branch library.

A nameless newsletter publication was first issued in 1984 with Joyce McCune as editor. A struggle ensued to keep its survival until a contest was held in 1987 among the members to give it a name and logo.

The publication's name became B& D HEIRLINES, submitted by Clara Iwaasa and an illustrative logo created by Clara Iwaasa and Betty Penner.

Today the newsletter is published twice yearly, a fall and spring issue with a circulation of about 70 mail-outs.

Membership in the branch at the end of the first year had increased to 20, in1991 the membership was at 33, and on a yearly average over the past twenty years, the branch membership has been around 38. Approximately 200 members have belonged to the Brooks & District branch, some have moved on, deceased, became disinterested and there are those that have stayed for many years. Out of town members have joined from east to Ontario, and west to British Columbia, and north to Grand Prairie, AB and south to the United States. Current membership for the year 2001 is at an all time high of 50 members.

As with all genealogy branches or family history societies, one of the many first group projects is to record the cemetery monuments in the area. The AGS Brooks & District branch began with the largest cemetery, the Brooks Cemetery, and when completed donated copies to the Brooks Public Library and to the town of Brooks. They then went on to record all cemeteries in the County of Newell and extended their recordings to outside the district to points north, south, east, and west totaling to about 38 to 40 cemeteries. AGS has printed publications of these and all cemeteries recorded by their branches, sending copies to the Alberta Provincial Archives and National Archives of Canada and have entered all names on a researchable indexed computer database for the province.

All what the AGS Brooks & District branch has accomplished has been achieved because of the members, past and present, having donated their time and commitment to the branch.