West Middlesex Family History Society

Image of the month At our March meeting James Marshall gave us a talk on The Whitehead Aircraft Company, which was based in Richmond and Hanworth, and manufactured fighter planes for the Royal Flying Corps (predecessor of the RAF) during WW1. This is a Sopwith Flying Scout aircraft, and was the company's most successful aircraft, with 820 doing service in the war. It was armed with a machine gun at the front which fired its bullets through the rotating propeller blades. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Tip of the month When Ancestry Co announced in recent months that it now had the 1921 census online, I was not much impressed, as FindMyPast has had the census online for the last 3 years. However, at FindMyPast you need a Premium subscription to see the census, which is £200 per annum at full price, whereas Ancestry are using it as a promotional offer, and access is free, and you can't beat that.

Our aims
The Society aims to encourage and assist those involved in the study of family history and genealogy in the western part of the ancient English county of Middlesex. See also our Objectives page.

Using this website
The website contains much information about the Society, and provides general assistance in providing links to other websites of use to family historians. You may explore the site using the menus above, including to use the Sitemap, where you can see all our pages at a glance.

For example under Research and Indexes you will find pages which tell you which members of the Society hold some of our special assets, Parish Registers, Indexes relating to Places, and other General Indexes.

New members
We are always keen to welcome new members. Benefits of membership include attending our monthly meetings at St. John's Centre in Isleworth, where you can meet like-minded souls, many of whom have been enjoying this hobby for a long while. You will also receive a copy of our Quarterly Journal. Joining instructions may be found on our How to join the Society page. Attending our meetings is free, and you may come as a guest just to see what goes on, if you wish. Cost of membership is a modest £15 per annum.