Ballots have been sent out to all members of the Grayson County, Virginia Heritage Foundation for the election of members to the board of trustees.  These ballots will be counted at the first annual business meeting that will be held in the Foundation’s office on Friday July 25th at 7 PM.

The Foundation has members and supporters throughout Virginia, in many states, and even in Japan.  This election process will give them all a chance to particpate in selection of those who will be responsible for managing the Foundation, even those who don’t live in Grayson County.

After operating for a while with using a couple of the members’ private phone lines and cell phones we’ve decided that the organization can afford its own phone.  We considered getting a wireless phone that could be taken home by the designated volunteer of the week but the poor signal quality in our office ruled that out.  So we’ve gone to the plain old telephone service.

Our phone number is 276 773-2126.  The office is normally open of Fridays 10 AM - 4 PM and on Thursdays between May 1st and September 31st also from 10 AM to 4 PM.  At other times you should get voice mail.  Leave a message.  We will try to check the voice mail regularly.

Since messages may not be checked immediately try to give us a couple of days notice if you need to set up an appointment to visit the office during non-business hours.

So now you can visit the office, visit and e-mail us on the Internet, and call us on the phone.

The Grayson County, Virginia Heritage Foundation, Inc. is very excited with the progress this brand new organization has been able to accomplish since it was formed in June 2007!

The Grayson Heritage Foundation was established to promote, preserve and educate the cultural and family heritages of Grayson County, Virginia. While there is currently an emphasis on family history it is expanding into other areas of Grayson Heritage. Grayson’s musical heritage will be a new area of focus in 2008.

The organization has organized and published the first annual journal “Our Grayson Heritage” with photos, stories as well as historical documents. There are some very talented folks associated with this group that are committed to getting things done and done right! Quite an achievement for such a young organization. The plan is to publish “Our Grayson Heritage” annually.

Our next plan is to publish a Galax Cemetery book early in 2008! We will be accepting orders for this project very soon. If you live in the area, go to the office and inquire as to details.

On December 15th the organization welcomed its 100th dues paying member - quite an accomplishment for such a young organization. Of course, as the numbers of members grow, so do the family surnames that are being actively researched! We have very experienced volunteers to assist members and non-members who are interested in researching their family history. There are other resources that are available in the office as well.

The office is located at Guynn Shopping Center Mini Mall on East Main Street, Independence with winter hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays at present. If the Grayson schools are closed due to weather then this office will be closed as well. The office will return to being open Thursdays and Fridays beginning in May. You can schedule to meet a volunteer at other hours if you can’t can’t get there during normal office hours.

A new initiative for this group is a musical committee that is hard at work collecting Grayson music and information on the musicians. They plan to have them in a digital format in the office available to those who are interested. When available, they are collecting photographs, stories or interviews and the history of individual musicians.

Grayson music is very much a part of Grayson history and we feel that we must try to conserve that as well as the family history piece.

There is a website that has been constructed with the url http://graysonheritage.com/ Check this out. More information about the
organization is there as well as how to make arrangements to research if you cannot be there when the office is normally open. For more information send an e-mail to research_support@graysonheritage.org or call Gil Wetmore at (276) 744-7839.

We now have the capability to accept orders and payments on this web site. Go to the Product$ tab to see what we have for sale and place an order.

Your orders are sent to us via e-mail as soon as PayPal verifies your payment. You can use your credit card or PayPal account to pay. You don’t need a PayPal account.

Although we receive orders immediately we will probably not process it until the next Thursday or Friday. We just don’t have enough business or volunteers to promise any faster response.

There’s at least one bug we have seen in the software. Some people who have paid for membership or made a donation have seen a $3 shipping charge reported in the automatic response sent to them or in their optional Account page. So far this charge has not shown up in charges against the credit cards.

We’ll keep an eye on this and try to take appropriate actions to correct any mis-charges.

If you experience this or other problem you can post a comment here or send a message to admin admin@graysonheritage.org.

I’ll post any additional details here.  Hopefully we won’t have any major problems.

We have established a permanent office schedule.   I have posted these on the Home and Research pages of the web pages.  Look there for the details.  Basically we plan to be opened two days a week May - September and one day a week for the remaining months.

This schedule will be permanent until we change it.  If we get enough volunteer staff and interest from visitors we will look at opening additional days.

We have started a forum section on this web site. One of the groups is on Grayson family heritage with a specific forum under that group for family reunions.

I hope that we can use that forum to identify most of the family reunions that happen in Grayson County and help bring more cousins together.

Just click on the Forum tab and look for the forums that interest you.

Your comments are welcome to any of the items on this site. In order enter your comments you will need to log in.  The first time you log in you will be asked to register.  To register you will enter a user name, e-mail address and password.  As a registered user you can make comments and respond to comments.
Your first comments will be held for review before they are posted on the web site.

These protections are in place to minimize the spam comments that are sent to unprotected posts.

Currently you can comment on a post by clicking on a post listed in the left column and then clicking on the comment field. At that time you will be asked to register or sign in.

There is now a list of Grayson surnames that members are researching.  This list is on a sub-page under the Research tab.

I will update this list at least once per quarter.

Share your research results and problems with other members.

Gil has volunteered to keep the Heritage Foundation office opened one day a week on Fridays. Hours will be 10AM to 4 PM. Normally weather that closes the county schools will also close the office.

If you would like to do research but cannot get to the office during these hours go to the Research Office tab for information on how to arrange meeting Gil or another research assistant at the office.

The office will return to being open at least two days a week by the 1st of June.

We are in need of volunteers who can help researchers and possibly help us expand the number of days the office is opened.

Through the month of September we are maintaining office hours from 10 AM to 4 PM on Thursdays and Fridays.