For more than thirty years, volunteers have been the backbone of South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society, which encompasses Chicago’s southern suburbs in south Cook and north Will counties.

As in most societies, volunteers for the South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society wear several hats. They teach annual genealogy classes, edit the newsletter and quarterly, extract and publish data, serve as officers and directors, and more. Following are a few of the projects volunteers have participated in.

• The SSGHS treasury netted several hundred dollars when volunteers, many of whom were not members‚ served as poll-watchers during elections. After the polls closed, the volunteers reported the results to Voters News Service. The society received money for each precinct covered.

• Volunteers staff the society’s genealogical library four days a week and many Saturdays. These workers access, catalog, and shelve books, microforms and CD-ROMs. The library is open to the public for a small donation.

• In the mid-1980s, the society received thousands of employee records from the Pullman Palace Car Company at 111th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago. These records were dirty and filed in chronological order. Volunteers spent years alphabetizing the records, which were then filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah. Many records contain only a name, while others contain birth certificates, military records, photos, family relationships and more. Many records show that an employee had relatives working for Pullman, or that the employee had recently immigrated to the United States. Volunteers will perform a free "Quick Search" in the collection, which is closed to the public. Genealogists may request a search by postal mail or via e-mail. Volunteers will check for a particular name and notify the genealogist of the results. The genealogist may then request the file, which is available for seven dollars for society members and ten dollars for non-members.

• The society’s annual luncheon was a picnic near a cemetery that is reputed to be haunted. It was a fitting celebration for the society’s cemetery project, which took nearly a decade to complete. The project was featured in the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ Forum Vol. 13:2 (Summer 2001). Volunteers read tombstones or located burial records for ninety-three local cemeteries–all those in the SSGHS coverage area, except for cemeteries with an office on the grounds. Volunteers then proofed the readings, and performed and proofed data entry. Computer wizardry by a volunteer enabled SSGHS to compile and microfilm both the readings and a Master Index of nearly 63,000 names. The society plans to offer free lookups (similar to the Pullman Collection’s Quick Search) in the Master Index.

Over the past three decades, SSGHS has sustained its activities due to hardworking volunteers. Many of the society’s founding members were women who did not work outside the home. Today’s volunteers juggle job and family obligations, but they still manage to "pay it forward" and help others.