Pee Dee Chapter, South Carolina Genealogical Society P.O. Box 1428, Marion, SC 29571 Meets every 2nd Sunday of the month except for July, August, and September, at Uncle Charlie's Hut on Pine Street, just behind First Methodist Church in Marion. Next Chapter meeting: 9 September, 2001, Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Dear Listmembers, This is particularly addressed to those listers who reside in the Marion/Dillon or adjoining county area. The Pee Dee Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society needs you. If you are anything like me, you have (regularly or sporadically) sent in your Chapter membership dues. You have purchased publications. You have requested back issues of the Pee Dee Queue that interested you. You have even gone to meetings on occasion. Occasionally you have sent in something for publication in the Pee Dee Queue. But the main part of your energy and time has been devoted to online genealogical endeavors. Dear friends, this is not enough. The Chapter needs us. Our online involvement and support of the Chapter are not mutually exclusive. They should complement each other. This was brought home to me recently through visits to the new Marion County Archives, and conversations with Maxcy Foxworth. Maxcy is County Archivist for the old Marion County legal records (a county position), and also for the Pee Dee Chapter collections and archives, which are now conveniently housed in the same building. Many of you will remember the campaign initiated by Maxcy and the Chapter to have the Marion County Archives created and funded by the Marion County Council. Our old Marion County records were endangered, and SCMarion listmembers jumped into the fray. Our participation (via e-mail messages) in that campaign was most helpful in persuading the council members to fund the Archives. Now that is a wonderful reality. Many of us have benefited from past activities of the Chapter. Whether we purchased Sellers' "History of Marion County" or other Chapter publications, found articles that aided our research in the Pee Dee Queue, connected with a distant cousin through their query, or just stopped by the Chapter Archives to browse the files and holdings and chat with Maxcy. But now our Chapter is in need. While we have large numbers of members from all across the country, active participation in Chapter meetings and affairs has fallen to an all time low. Many previously active members are deceased, or no longer participate due to illness or incapacity. At the present time, only a tiny handful of devoted members is keeping the Chapter going, and they do not know how much longer they can do that. Many of us have also noticed that the Pee Dee Queue no longer contains the massive amount of genealogical information and abstracts, queries and so on that we used to find in its pages. This is in part due to the loss of so many members who were the backbone of the Chapter. It is also due to the fact that many of us who would otherwise have stepped in to fill their shoes - to take on some responsibility within the Chapter, or to submit articles, abstracts, transcriptions, and queries for the Pee Dee Queue - have pretty much confined our activities to online endeavors. Nothing wrong with this, but can't we do both? It is time for us to rediscover and recommit ourselves to our dear Pee Dee Chapter. The next meeting will be held on Sunday afternoon, 3:00 p.m., September 9, 2001 at Charlie's Hut in Marion. I urge anyone in the area to come to the meeting. It is open to members, their guests, and to visitors. For those of you not in the area who wish to support the Chapter, you may want to consider submitting a well cited article, a Bible record, a transcription of an obscure record that provides genealogical information, abstracts you have made of old records, a documented family pedigree chart - preferably items that have not been previously published. Or perhaps you could just send in a query. Remember, there are many members who receive the Pee Dee Queue who are not online. Or if you happen to be in the area on the 2nd Sunday, please feel come on over to the meeting. Jo Church Dickerson