Soft-spoken but with an intensity and sincerity that is evident when she speaks about her life’s work, Irene Godwin is the friendly face that can be found in the Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library.

“I think of myself as a servant to help others,” she said.

Godwin is a genealogist at the Moultrie-Colquitt County Public Library and has been on staff since March of 1990. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the genealogy library, under the direction of Melody Jenkins, executive director of the public library.

“I have been blessed to do something I love and I have a passion for,” Godwin said.

Godwin was a familiar face at the library well before she was hired as she did her own personal genealogy research there since 1972.

“These books have become like old friends,” she said laughing.

Because she was so familiar with the books through her own research, she said, she’s better able to help the people who come in. She said her desire was to help as many people find their family’s history as she could.

The very beginnings of the genealogy library were some rare books stored in a janitor’s closet at the Carnegie Library, she said. Eventually, the Odom Gift Committee was formed to allocate money from the estate of Ellen Ashby Payne Odom, a trustee of the library. It’s purppose was to help build a genealogy library and purchase the Emmett Lucas collection, which is the “core” of the Odom Library. Godwin said the committee included Van Platter, Eva Rice, Merle Baker, Bert Harsh, Campbell Ansley, James Kirk, Jack Short, Bill McIntosh, Jestina Lewis, and Melody Jenkins.

“It’s not one person that does genealogy,” she said.

She said it takes everybody working together to assist in genealogy research. She emphasized the importance of the records that were kept in courthouses and other institutions. She said she was so grateful to those who have kept the records. She said there were so many people who have supported the library and the genealogy room.

“It makes research so much easier,” she said.

She said she wanted to communicate that it was everybody helping everybody. She said many people have kept family records and have written family histories already that have helped others trace their own heritage. She said people help each other and that’s what genealogy is about — sharing.

“People need to share information. You share a common thread with so many people,” she said.

Godwin, who was born and raised in Moultrie, said her family’s roots were in the Center Hill area, where her grandfather settled in 1889. She said when she was a little girl, she would rather sit and hear the older people tell stories than play with the other children when they went to visit family. She gets her love for genealogy “honest” because she said she came from a line of genealogists. She said her grandmother, aunts, and mother did research on her family history.

“Genealogy is not done in one day. It can be a life-long pursuit,” she said.