Hillingdon Family History Society

The Society exists for people who live in or near what is now the London Borough of Hillingdon on the northwestern edge of Greater London as well as those who have ancestral links to the area. Formed in 1987 from a local authority evening class it is a very active Society with a dedicated band of volunteers to keep it running.

Based at the Hillingdon Park Baptist Church in Hercies Road, Hillingdon its purpose is to encourage aid and assist family historians to develop their links with the past as comprehensively as possible. To this end a programme of monthly talks is arranged, some in the evenings and some in the afternoons shared with the Hillingdon U3A Family History Group.

There are also weekly advice and research sessions on Friday mornings where one to one advice is available and knowledgeable volunteers assist others either to get started or to try and break down those obstinate brick walls which we all face. Once a month these move to the Hillingdon Local Studies Museum and Archive Service based at Uxbridge Library in association with the London Borough of Hillingdon on Saturday mornings. These, in particular, are very popular and advance booking is strongly recommended. We are always keen to stress that despite having a natural focus on our local area we will endeavour to assist anyone irrespective of where their family originated. A small charge is levied at Hillingdon to help cover the costs of room hire with a reduced fee for members.

Another strand of our activities is the recording and transcription of local records and transcripts of parish registers, monumental inscriptions and school records in our area. Previously published on CDs these are now appearing on FindMyPast under the agreement with the Federation of Family History Societies of which we are a member.

We also like to have a presence at local non-family history events and fairs as a means of attracting new people to the Society and to demonstrate what is possible.

Each quarter a journal is produced for our members. An electronic version is also available for a reduced membership fee. Contributions come from our members, summaries of meetings held and other matters of general and genealogical interest.

Most of the membership lives nearby but a significant minority lives elsewhere in the UK and overseas with ancestral links to the area. The electronic version of the journal is especially helpful to this latter group.

One of the challenges we face, as do many family history societies, is to provide our members with benefits at a time when increasing volumes of material are readily available online. This we aim to achieve by sharing knowledge, best practices for organising research, keeping abreast of new developments and providing support for our members tailored to their precise research needs. You do not need to be a member to attend either our talks or research sessions because we want to encourage anyone to try it out but naturally, we hope you will because a stronger membership helps us all.

Records from Hillingdon Family History Society

The Hillingdon Family History Society has contributed to the Middlesex monumental inscriptions*.

*These records are available as part of a Findmypast Plus and Pro subscriptions.