Society Saturday - West Surrey FHS

I first joined today's featured Society, The West Surrey Family History Society in 1988. In fact, it was the latest journal for the West Surrey that gave me the idea for this series of blog posts.

In 1988 everything in the genealogy world was conducted via post,or was passed member to member whilst at the meetings of the Society which were announced in the journal. There was no internet, no website and no email facility.

Today, the West Surrey still has the regular meetings, and the journal but it also has a website which does include a lot of information including a members room. Below is a map of Surrey which is taken from the website.

Copyright to June Rudman and WSFHS

As you hopefully see, Surrey is next to six other Counties, and my own ancestry from Surrey rolls across into predominately Sussex and Hampshire, with some branches into the other Counties. Surrey also benefits from a second Society, which covers the East of the County.

The two Societies are independent of each other, although there is a little overlap in places and they do share a Strays index.

The member's room is a new addition. I had missed all mention of it in journals until the December 2013 edition arrived, when it mentioned the members room and I instantly thought, what members room? I went over to the website and sure enough a members page. The lesson here is keep visiting the website that is operated by your Society and read the journal (and remember the contents!).

Societies want to progress and stretch themselves delivering more for the annual subscription and this can only be done with volunteers.