Volunteer with us
Our generous and talented volunteers keep the Society of Genealogists going. They come from all walks of life and are vital to all areas of our operations. They also work on a range of special projects to help preserve our collections for future generations.
Could you give some of your time to help continue our work?
April 2024 Volunteering Update
Collections volunteers continue to make amazing progress in the library, processing books out of storage to fill the library shelves, and cataloguing and processing new materials. All of this work is helping us to manage an increase in new material, gradually clear processing backlogs and ensure that completed material is packed and ready for offsite storage.
Steady work continues on our three home indexing projects and we are seeing more and more material making its way to the new collections system. SoG Data indexers are now working on parish register marriages, and Great Card Index volunteers are working their way through the H surname cards. Pedigree Rolls Project volunteers attended our first quarterly catchup Zoom in early March and they too are working on H surname material. Information about the three current projects is given on this page so do fill in your home volunteering expression of interest form if you can contribute three hours per week towards one of these projects.
Our volunteers are members of our online volunteer community forum where they can access project resources, seek assistance, and help others. Our volunteers also can access our events programme, with an amazing selection of online events offered to volunteers free of charge. See below for information about our home volunteering projects and how to get involved.
In breaking news, we're looking forward to welcoming a new volunteer administrator commencing work in April who will take on general administration, recruitment and support of our amazing volunteer community. I will continue looking after library volunteers, SoG Data indexing projects and the Great Card Index. More news about this in the next update.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about volunteering at the Society of Genealogists, let us know. volunteering@sog.org.uk
Christine Worthington, Library Coordinator
Volunteering at Home : Indexing Projects
We have a very busy community of home indexing volunteers who contribute to our projects from all over the UK and beyond, and if this is something you are interested in doing we can get you started straight away.
Our three current home projects are the Great Card Index, the Pedigree Rolls Project and the indexing of name-rich resources on SoG Data Online.
To find out which project is right for you, see our summary below and let us know your preference in your Home Volunteering Expression of Interest Form.
Volunteering at Home : SoG Online Events Team
Our Events Team runs a busy and interesting calendar of online events for our members all over the world using Zoom.
As a volunteer for the Events Team you would have the opportunity to co-host online events, and support speakers and attendees to ensure events run smoothly. Some experience of using Zoom and attending our online events would be an advantage.
If you are interested, complete the Home Volunteering Expression of Interest Form (link below).
Recording of Lunchtime Chat about volunteering at SoG
Thanks to all those current and prospective volunteers who attended the online Lunchtime Chat on 18 May 2023.
Click here to see the recording.
To begin volunteering at home fill in our Home Volunteering Expression of Interest form
and Library Coordinator Christine will get in touch with you soon.
Summary of current projects for home volunteers
The Great Card Index
Created by society members in the first half of the 20th century,
the Great Card Index is made up of over a million cards containing various items of genealogical information extracted from sources such as parish registers, marriage licenses, will indexes, monumental inscriptions and unique items in the Society’s collections. The cards have been digitised and volunteers extract information from them to make them digitally searchable.
Access via: Dropbox
Format of completed work: Spreadsheet
Notes: Previous use of spreadsheets and Dropbox is an advantage
The Pedigree Rolls Project
We have an amazing collection of family tree charts that are currently being digitised. They range from rudimentary diagrams to the large, elaborate and artistic. Volunteers contributing to the Pedigree Rolls Project enter information from scans of family pedigrees into family history software to produce GEDCOM files we can use to make them searchable.
Access via: Dropbox
Format of completed work: GEDCOM file
Notes: Indexers must have family history software installed on the home computer (let us know which brand you use)
SoG Data Online Indexing
We have many digitised copies of resources in SoG Data Online such as parish registers and monumental inscriptions which require indexing so names can be found by researchers more easily.
Access via: Member login to SoG Data Online
(which is why this is a member-only project)
Format of completed work: Spreadsheet
Notes: Previous use of spreadsheets is an advantage
Join us
As a member, you can make the most of our resources, access our experts, and find a welcoming community of people interested in family history and genealogy.
We all have roots. Let’s find them together.
