The Pace Society was founded in 1963 by Noble Pace. He contacted Paces from all over the United States and initially financed the formation of the Pace Society of America (PSA). In 1963 the first reunion was held in Columbus, Mississippi. In July 1967 the Pace Society began publishing a quarterly bulletin containing newsworthy activities, genealogical and historical research, and other items as related to the Pace family.
The Board of Trustees governs the Pace Society. Each member of the Board of Trustees serves a 3 year term and the officers of the Pace Society are elected by the Board of Trustees. The current President of the Pace Society is Alexia Helsley. The officers serve for one year, but many members of the Board of Trustees and the officers serve more than one term.
At first, there were two main groups of Paces – those who descend from Richard Pace who saved Jamestown, Virginia and those who descend from another Virginian known as John Pace of Middlesex. As the society began to grow, other Pace lines were found. Richard Pace has the distinction of being the first Pace in North America as he arrived in the Jamestown area before 1616.
Among the new lines added were the German line of Paces (some of whom spell their name “Pees”), an Italian line, and the Frederick Pace (of Wales) line. The Pace DNA study has identified several distinct Pace families including the German Pace/Pees family, the Frederick Pace of Wales family, the family of Richard Pace of Jamestown, Virginia, and the family of John Pace of Middlesex County, Virginia and his related family in Shropshire, England.
The Pace Society holds a reunion every year in which all family members are invited. The reunion is a good time to meet new cousins, see historical places, and learn more about the different family groups during the presentations.
The reunions feature presentations about our Pace ancestors. For example, at the Dallas Texas Reunion in 2006 Bill and Martha Bellomy did a presentation about Bill’s ancestor William Pace, one of George Washington’s guards. At the Chattanooga in 2011 Janie Pace did a presentation about her ancestor Isabella Pace. At the Kansas City reunion, Rebecca Christensen gave a presentation about the Pace Society’s DNA study. At the Columbia, SC reunion in 2015 we learned about recent research possibly connecting Richard Pace of Jamestown to family ancestors in England.
Our members are very friendly and always willing to help our fellow cousins sort out their Pace family lines. We encourage you to join the Pace Society, and enjoy the benefits which includes access to the Pace Society Database containing over 80 years of research, all Pace society bulletins along with 1000’s of electronic scanned (and transcribed) documents of our Pace ancestors (including wills, land records, bible records, census records, court records, etc…)