West Middlesex Family History Society

Image of the month The image is taken from Wikipedia Commons. On Thursday 18th July Dr. Judy Hill gave us a talk on Almshouses. I was somehwat surprised to learn that we still have many almshouses in existence today, and surprised again to learn that the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which is a retirement home for old soldiers, is none the less still an almshouse. Judy's talk is available to members up to August 14th from our Meetings Playback page.

Tip of the month Births, marriages and deaths - vital information for us who do family history. But do you know where to look for recent births, marriages and deaths. FreeBMD is an excellent website, but only has BMDs up to 1997. FindMyPast is more current, but stops at 2006. To go right up to 2023 you need to visit one of a few main archives. For us in Middlesex that means the British Library or City of Westminster Archives, which both hold all the availabe records on microfiche. Of course for marriages you get the spouse's surname, but have to search through that surname to find the forename, just like we used to do with the great old ledgers.

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.