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Family History

The Family History Section has been established since April 1987 and has a current membership of about 200 worldwide.

The Family History Section has recently moved and are now based at The Russels, Les Cotils, St Peter Port, Guernsey, and has wheel chair access, please do not send mail to these premises please use our PO Box address on the right.

The research room is manned by volunteer members, and is open to all members of La Société Guernesiaise every 1st and 3rd Saturday every month from 10am until noon, free parking is available in overflow car-park, and refreshments are served. Visit our Facebook page.

 

Research

A small group of members undertake research on behalf of correspondents – please contact us at the email address above. No set charges are made, but we do ask for donations to assist with costs. Over the years, we have been extremely successful in putting correspondents and members in touch with others researching the same families. Please contact us using the email link in the orange box above and we will try to help.

A donations box for research costs appears further down this page.

MEETINGS

 Indoor meetings are held at 10am, on 4th Saturday of the month at the Headquarters of La Société Guernesiaise, Candie Road, St Peter Port. We have very knowledgeable speakers with a variety of interesting topics, and often a display of archive material.

Outdoor meetings are usually held in June and July, which may take the form of a walk and talk in areas of interest, or possibly a visit to a cemetery or churchyard, sometimes with a hands on approach to transcribing, which can be very fulfilling.

Contact the Family History section

Section Contact
Maria van der Tang

Contact
FAMILY HISTORY SECTION
PO Box 314
St Peter Port
Guernsey GY1 3TG

Email the Section

MEMBERSHIP

We are a section of La Société Guernesiaise. Members receive two Family History Journals, issued in June and December, the Transactions of La Société Guernesiaise and Communiqué, the newsletter of La Société Guernesiaise.

Membership to the Family History Section is £10 (£10.50 when paying online) in addition to the La Société membership. Please follow this link to join both.

If you are already a member of La Societe, and would like to now join the Family History section, please follow this link.




Offline Payment

If you prefer to pay by cheque or other offline payment options, please contact the section on researchenquiries@hotmail.co.uk

Upcoming Société Events

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DETAILS OF OUR HOLDINGS

Guernsey has ten parishes. The Section has been involved in indexing the Parish Church registers of births, marriages and deaths. This work is still in progress.

Members have compiled indexes to the 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses for all parishes.

The transcription of Memorial Inscriptions within various Cemeteries and Churchyards, by a very small group of members over the past few years, has produced an immense amount of research material.

Extracts can be made available, for a small charge, on application.

In St Peter Port, Memorial Inscriptions have been fully transcribed in Brothers’ Cemetery, Candie Cemetery, Fort George Cemetery, Plymouth Brethren Cemetery, St John’s Churchyard, and Strangers’ Cemetery.

Memorial Inscriptions have also been fully transcribed in Castel Churchyard, Forest Churchyard, St Andrew’s Churchyard, St Matthew’s Churchyard in Castel, St Martin’s Churchyard, St Pierre du Bois Churchyard, Strangers’ Cemetery, Vale church Bell Cemetery and Vale Domaille Cemetery.

Transcription of the Memorial Inscriptions in the Foulon Cemetery is still in progress.

We hold a collection of Guernsey Magazine Obituaries from 1872 to 1889, which can be very informative, especially if the death took place overseas (Card Index).
Members have extracted Guernsey Evening Press Newspaper notices of Birth, Marriage and Death entries from 1994 (Card Index).

Town Hospital (Poor House / Poor Law)
Indexes are available of the St Peter Port, former Town Hospital records 1743 to 1856, and to the St Peter Port Poor Law records 1811 to 1904. For more information go to St Peter Port Town Hospital Journals.

We have a steadily growing collection of Family Files and Trees compiled and very kindly donated by members and correspondents. We also can now accept GEDCOM files and already have had some research donated in this format which is available on the computer.

We exchange journals with several other Family History Societies in Jersey, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.S.A. and we also have a collection of interesting Family History Books.

MEETINGS
Evening indoor meetings are held at 7.45, on either the 3rd or 4th Wednesday of the month at the Headquarters of La Société Guernesiaise, Candie Road, St Peter Port. We have very knowledgeable speakers with a variety of interesting topics, and often a display of archive material.

Outdoor meetings are usually held in June and July, which may take the form of a walk and talk in areas of interest, or possibly a visit to a cemetery or churchyard, sometimes with a hands on approach to transcribing, which can be very fulfilling.

JOURNALS
We issue two Family History Section journals, during June and December, as well as two Newsletters each year. We are always pleased to receive interesting articles for possible publication.

The Family History Section is a member of the Federation of Family History Societies. Enquiries can be made to the email above.

RESEARCH
We are a registered charity and our group is run by volunteers who give up their time to help others. A small group of members undertake research on behalf of correspondents, and over the years we have been extremely successful in putting correspondents and members in touch with others researching the same families. No set charges are made, but we do ask for donations to assist with costs.A small group of members undertake research on behalf of correspondents.

To make a donation to cover research costs using your credit/debit card or via Paypal, please click below, you will have a chance to enter a description of what the donation is for.




LINKS
The following web-sites are suggested as good starting points for research on Guernsey born ancestors (many with links to Jersey sites as there was of course some movement of population between the islands as there is today).

The Priaulx Library is a very useful resource for those interested in family history and other local issues
http://www.priaulxlibrary.co.uk

Stephen Foote’s website with links to crews of Guernsey ships and Guernsey http://history.foote-family.com/gsyroots.htm

For further research on ships & crews try:

The National Archives
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/

Maritime History Archives, Memorial University of Newfoundland
http://www.mun.ca/mha/

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