This blog is the sole property of Leland & Patty Meitzler.
Leland may be contacted directly at: Lmeitzler “at” gmail.com His cell phone number is 801-949-7259; Office: 360-872-8088; Fax: 815-642-0103; Address: GenealogyBlog.com, PO box 1682, Orting, Washington 98360. Books for review or announcements on this blog should be sent to the preceding address.
Leland loves genealogy, as well as history in general. He also likes to blog, and GenealogyBlog is the product of that passion. He started blogging in 2003. GenealogyBlog just disappeared one day in August of 2007. The blog administrator never would reveal what happened to it. So in January of 2008, he started over… Note that about 6000 blogs done between 2003 and 2007 were lost. As time permits, those blogs are being reposted and updated from data backed up on the Internet Archive as well as Leland’s local hard drives. Since Leland has spent most of the last 30 years working as a magazine editor and publisher, he calls GenealogyBlog.com his “free daily online genealogy nautamagazine.”
Leland has been around the genealogy industry since 1982, when he and his brother Steve started publishing Washington State local history publications. In 1985, they founded Heritage Quest, and began publication of Heritage Quest Magazine in September of that year. By 1991, Steve had gone on his own, operating Heritage Quest Press as a commercial print shop. Leland sold Heritage Quest Magazine and the retail operations to AGLL of Bountiful, Utah, and he and Patty hit the road, traveling the country by motor-coach, lecturing, and selling genealogy products. This lasted until January of 2000. AGLL changed their name to Heritage Quest some time in the mid-1990s. In late 1999, Heritage Quest sold out to Sierra Home, a subsidiary of Vivendi. Leland and Patty moved to Bountiful, Utah, to work for Heritage Quest in North Salt Lake, Leland as vice-president of publishing, and Patty as editor of Heritage Quest Magazine. After the dot-com bubble burst in late 2001, Sierra-Home sold HeritageQuest (note the slight name change) to ProQuest Company of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They owned the company for about one year, before selling Heritage Quest Magazine and part of the retail operations to the Meitzlers. The Meitzlers formed a small company called Heritage Creations to publish Heritage Quest Magazine, other books and publications, and retail about 3000 genealogy-related items. They operated Heritage Creations until early 2006 – when after taking horrendous losses, they threw up their hands and filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t long, and Leland was hired by Everton Publishers to edit their publication, The Genealogical Helper, which he did until mid-February of 2009. While GenealogyBlog.com is now a full-time job, Leland & Patty also have a small publishing company called Family Roots Publishing, which specializes in the publication and marketing of genealogy guidebooks. After living in Bountiful, Utah for many years, Leland and Patty returned to Orting, Washington, where they earlier lived for about 40 years, in 2014 to be close to family. They have been sponsoring the Salt Lake Christmas Tour since 1985. The Thirty-fifth annual tour will take place December 8 through 14, 2019.
Enjoy…