Iowa Genealogical Society silently serves generational knowledge

6/3/2026

The Iowa Genealogical Society is one of the more underappreciated and less-known groups in Des Moines. Despite it being located in the bustling East Village, full of nightlife, shopping, restaurants and music venues, the society sits there quietly, running smoothly, hosting a wealth of knowledge within. 

To find out more, we interviewed Joe Solem, the society’s president. Solem, who is also a volunteer firefighter, says the society and his duties with the fire department keep him busy in his retirement — if you could call the amount of work he does a retirement.

“I love doing genealogy research. I got started in it maybe 20, 25 years ago,” Solem said.

When Solem became president of the society, he had two goals: clearing up the clutter and making the organization bigger and better than it had ever been. 

Solem helped clean up the conference room and turn it into a space that can be used for their fundraisers, rented for events, or even used by lobbyists who need a space to work when visiting the capitol nearby.

The society lost its librarian, who did a large amount of work. Figuring out what to do without one was a challenge of its own, but one that Solem and the rest of the society figured out. 

“We decided to run the organization by volunteers. Let’s not hire another librarian and put that money aside and save it. We’ve done very well with it. We had a lot of people say, ‘You can’t do it. You can’t run an operation of this size with just volunteers.’ Well, two and a half years later, we have, and it’s been very successful,” Solem said. “The volunteers here are absolutely fantastic. They’ve stepped up when we’ve needed people at the front desk, or we need help with this or that. That’s what’s made us a success for the last two and a half years.”

One would be surprised at the sheer number of resources that society has at its disposal. 

“We have approximately 20 to 25,000 books in our library. We have some specialty things that are for members only. On our website, we have what they call a library edition of ancestry.com. So, instead of paying several $100 a year for their membership, you, as a member, can come here and log on to Ancestry’s website,” Solem said. “We also have another application called MyHeritage. You can access it from home as long as you’re a member. We have newspaper archives.”

Those all put together can run a pretty penny. At the heritage society, the normal membership fee is $40. In total, Solem says the society has around 1,000 members who access the website at iowagenealogy.org. 

“A lot of people think, well, I could do all my research online. I was a believer in that. I did that for a long time. But you come down here, and we’ll give you free tours and explain some of these things to you, and you’ll see the benefits of why you should become a member,” Solem said.

Solem’s own interest in genealogy and history started with his family. With a family as big as his, it makes sense he would want to look into it. 

“My family’s mainly Norwegian, and growing up, there were 18 children in the family. Twenty to 25 years ago, I ran through some paperwork that my mother had started on some genealogy work, and it fascinated me. I used that as the building block to build my genealogy charts. It’s one of those things that when you do some research, and some of the things you find out, some of them can be a little disheartening. Some of them make you say, ‘Wow, this is pretty cool.’ It kind of feeds on itself. The more you know, the more you want to know,” Solem said.

With Solem enjoying digging into his own family history as much as he does, he gets an equal amount of joy helping others who come into the society looking for answers.

“When you help somebody, they’re like, ‘Wow, I’ve been looking for that for a long time,’ and it just gives you the warm and fuzzy feeling. It’s hard to explain,” Solem said.

The research team at the society found something he even struggled with finding. 

“We have a team of three researchers. One of the things that I found in the documents for my mother was that my great uncle died aboard a ship coming from Norway. I’ve been trying to prove or disprove that and trying to find ship records, but I just hit a brick wall,” Solem said.

Solem’s time in charge is coming to an end, but his efforts have served the society well and set it up greatly for those who come after him. He says he plans on putting his new free time back into researching his own family history. ♦

Cyote Williams was born and raised on the south side of Des Moines and writes about entertainment, sports and personalties across the Des Moines metro for CITYVIEW. Phone: 515-953-4822 x333.