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Open Day 2014 Update

By Maura Sellars 

The 2014 Family History Fair and Open Day will soon be here. This year we are celebrating our 40th Anniversary! Come and join us in what we trust will be an enjoyable and hopefully fruitful day for family historians. We are confident that this year will provide much to interest visitors, both those new to family history or the seasoned researcher. Family history societies, local history societies, genealogically related commercial organisations, Help Tables, free talks and many research facilities are all available to visitors. 

We are planning to have an area where visitors will be encouraged to post memories of their lives and times 40 years ago and pin it on a memory board to share with others. The way family history is researched has undergone many changes in those 40 years. Please share some of your memories of how you carried out your research back then. We are sure this will be of interest to visitors who are relatively new to seeking out their ancestors. Perhaps selection of memories shared will be included in a future issue of Root and Branch. 

Visitors will have access to the Society’s research material in the Research Hall. This includes: West Surrey Parish Registers, Surrey Poor Law Index, Surrey Monumental Inscription Indexes, Surrey Soldiers who died in WW1, Marriage Index, Baptismal and Burial Indexes. 

Volunteers are absolutely vital to the efficient running of the Open Day and much of the success of our Open Day is attributable to their help on the day so please consider whether you can help on 1st November. There are a range of tasks for which volunteers are needed and for most of these you do not need to be an experienced researcher, just willing to help. The areas we need help include: 

▪ Assisting in setting up the Research Hall before the visitors arrive and/or Friday evening 

▪ Greeting people as they arrive and issuing tickets to keep count of visitors 

▪ Booking in visitors for the appropriate computer look-ups 

▪ Helping in the Research Hall e.g. handing out microfiche or reference books 

▪ Assisting the Help Desk specialists in the Research Hall with keeping tabs on visitors seeking advice 

▪ Car park marshalling when stall holders are arriving in the morning 

▪ Clearing up at the end of the day 

If you are not able to volunteer at a Centre meeting or the AGM in September please telephone Anne Welch on 01483 761852 or email John Beck at jdbeckfh121@hotmail.co.uk. It would be really helpful if you could advise of your availability as early as possible to assist with planning the rota. You will be contacted in the two weeks before the Open Day to confirm the task and timings allocated to you. 

The parking area to the rear of the Leisure Centre has been completed and we are pleased to say, provides many more car parking spaces for visitors.





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Copyright © 2024 West Surrey Family History Society   Last modified: 10 July 2015
Copyright © 2024 West Surrey Family History Society