Certificates of Appreciation are the oldest awards regularly granted by the Society. Beginning in the early 1960s, the Society has occasionally granted a Certificate of Appreciation to an individual or organization whose extraordinary contributions to the discipline of genealogy have merited such recognition. The recipients of Certificates of Appreciation are listed below.

Recipients

1961
Mary Givens Bryan, State Archivist of Georgia (awarded posthumously).

1966
Arthur S. Maynard, retiring as Assistant Librarian, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

1966
Dr. Kenneth Scott, for locating and preserving colonial records.

1969
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the occasion of it first World Conference on Records.

1970
New England Historic Genealogical Society, for its services to scholarly genealogy over the past century and a quarter.

1972
Dr. Jean Stephenson, for her many contributions to genealogy, notably for creating and sustaining the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

1973
Clifford Neal Smith, for locating and preserving German-American records.

1975
Lida Flint Harshman, for compiling Ohio records.

1978
Fred J. Reynolds, Librarian of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County, Indiana, for creating its unique genealogical collection.

1981
Brent Holcomb, for collecting and publishing records of North and South Carolina.

1987
William Thorndale and William Dollarhide, for their Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790—1920 (1987)

1989
Robert W. Barnes, for his Baltimore County Families, 1659—1759 (1989).

1993
Virgil D. White, for his several series of military pensions indexes and abstracts.

1995
Ralph D. Crandall, Executive Director, New England Historic Genealogical Society, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.

2000
P. William Filby, for wide contributions to the genealogical community.

2005
The Family History Library in Salt Lake City, for its outstanding collection of genealogical sources and helpful service to genealogists from all over the world.

2013
David L. Greene, FASG, for his long, helpful tenure on the American Society of Genealogists’ Publications Committee.
Myrtle Stevens Hyde, FASG, for her sterling work as treasurer of the American Society of Genealogists.
Kip Sperry, FASG, for his service as local host for the American Society of Genealogists in Salt Lake City many times.

2017
Eric G. Grundset, for his series of definitive state-based bibliographies of sources related to the era of the American Revolution, published since 2013.

2019
David E. Rencher, A.G., C.G., Chief Genealogical Officer of FamilySearch and, from 1999 to 2002 and again since 2018, Director of the Family History Library, in recognition of his vigorous and visionary efforts to serve the aims of scholarly genealogy at the Family History Library and at FamilySearch.