Our library is open to all - members visit free of charge and non-members pay a day pass fee of £20. You're welcome to visit any time during our opening hours: 10.30am-4.00pm Wed-Fri.
It's not necessary to book your visit, but if you are travelling a long distance and would like to reserve a library computer it's a good idea to pre-book your visit.
For one week per month we have extended opening hours. During extended opening weeks, the library will be open Wed-Sat 10.30am - 4.00pm, apart from an extension to 7pm on Thursday.
For information on our extended opening hours, how to book your visit, and other information about visiting us, please see our Visit Us page.
Not all of our collections are kept on-site, so if you need to order collection items from offsite storage, please order one week in advance using the Collections Order Form.
Use the following to find items that may be useful for your research, with details to include in your order form:
- NEW! SoG Researcher Handbook - find out what is in our collections, how to search them, and how to access them.
- SoG Library Catalogue for published works. Look at the location field in catalogue records to find whether an item is held in the library or our offsite store.
- Archives Finding Aids for items in our special, small, and document collections. Use the information in the finding aids to order archival items from our offsite store.
- Online Resources for members to access at home by clicking the Login button at the top right of the screen. After you log in to the member portal, scroll down to the box labelled 'Search SoG Explore'. You'll find nearly 1600 datasets of large name indexes and browsable images. We are now regularly adding more online resources to SoG Explore, and a list can be found in the Genealogists' Magazine from the Dec 2025 issue.
- Collections Guides (below) give an overall view of what is held in our collections, and some detail on particular subject areas. They are a great way to find more information about our holdings, their formats, and their availability. We're regularly creating more research guides and would be delighted to hear your thoughts on subjects you'd like us to cover. To let us know about this or inquire about specific collections, contact collections@sog.org.uk
Before you visit us for the first time, we recommend watching Else Churchill’s video guide here.
Can't visit us? See details on accessing collections remotely.
Donating to the Society of Genealogists' collections
Library: Let us know if you wish to donate published works for inclusion in our library collection - library@sog.org.uk. Particular subjects of interest to our members are: family history; local and general history relating to places in the UK, Ireland, British colonies and crown dependencies; genealogical reference and instructional works, such as research and record guides; name-rich resources such as directories; topical resources for military history, heraldry, and professions.
Larger collections of published works require a great deal of processing and cataloguing, so please send a list to the email address above so we can check against our catalogue.
Duplicate items and items outside our collection policy are passed to our bookshop to raise funds for the library.
Archive: Depositing your research is a great way to ensure that your research survives, is well cared for and available to other family researchers in the future. Information about donating research collections is given on our Collection Deposit page. Archive collection deposits are subject to an approval process. The first step is to fill in the form on the collection deposit page to tell us about the content, size and condition of the collection. Enquiries about depositing research can be sent to archive@sog.org.uk
Digital Journal Exchange
The Society of Genealogists has a history of journal exchanges with kindred organisations.
If your historical society, genealogical society or record society produces a digital journal containing substantial historical content you may be interested in exchanging it with us for our quarterly Genealogists' Magazine. We are proud to say that Genealogists' Magazine is now over 100 years old - the first issue appeared in 1925.
Journal exchange partners agree to:
- provide the exchange journal for their members' personal and educational use, and to ensure there is no distribution of the exchange journal for profit
- share the exchanged journal with their members in a secure way - on internal computers at their premises, or in a password-protected part of their website reserved for members - and not engage in direct distribution to members in any form, nor make the journal openly accessible to any visitor on their website
- respect the intellectual rights and copyright of their exchange partners and not to modify the exchange journal, or reproduce any parts of it in other works without consent and proper attribution. Permission to use parts of our Society's publications in other works and information about attribution can be sought by contacting genenquiries@sog.org.uk
If you have any questions, or if you are interested in entering into a journal exchange agreement with the Society of Genealogists, contact us at library@sog.org.uk
Collections Guides
1. Online Resources
A guide to our online collections and subscription databases
2. Library Resources
A guide to our library collections
3. Archive Resources
A guide to our archive collections
4. Jewish Genealogy Resources
A guide to sources for researching Jewish ancestors
November 2025 Library Update
· We now have over 30,500 items on the open library shelves. This means that 20% of all records in our library catalogue now refer to items held onsite and this number continues to grow. We now have library tracts for added to onsite collections, as well as items from the former staff reference section formerly known as ‘Shelf 9’. We are also continuing to amend the catalogue records of microfiche held permanently onsite so that it will be easier to see which fiche are in the library, and to know they won’t need to be pre-ordered to view in the library.
We are close to finishing the processing of some 60 boxes of uncatalogued library materials and we continue to receive new family histories and other items for the library collection, and we’re incredibly grateful for all the support for the library.
· Resources on SoG Explore: We are so pleased to report that we have started adding new content to SoG Explore. The monumental inscriptions digitised during lockdown are going into the system at pace, as are library typescripts (digitised by our scanning volunteers) and digital donations received over the past four years, and some burial indexes uploaded recently.
You will find a list of items added in the Recent Additions to SoG Explore (right after the regular Recent Additions to the Library Catalogue). Information about how to access these items is given in the preamble to the list.
We now have over 1840 items in the record sets list, and this number is growing rapidly.
· Information Provision Review: The report of the Information Provision Review has now been passed to our Board of Trustees for their consideration.
· Featured Collection: The Featured Collection Oct-Jan contains over 350 books from the Professions section C-F. As always, the Featured Collection can be found adjacent to the communal area next to the library. If your ancestor worked in the civil service, or was a clockmaker, carpenter, director or engineer there may be something of interest to you. Click here for a full list of items in the Featured Collection.
· Collections Corner: Look out for an article in this issue by Harry Purvis about an amazing scrapbook in our collection - A Life in Cuttings: the life of Frances Anna Sophia Colchester (nee Leveson).
· Internship Student: We are pleased to be joined by Juliette from Brigham Young University (USA). Juliette is studying genealogy during her six-week placement will be working on a range of projects to learn about how we prepare and provide genealogical information for SoG members.
· Events in the Library: The next events in the library will be the Researching in East Surrey (with a library tour and display) on 26 November, SoG Workshop Lab - searching our collections and finding aids on 5 December Researching in Hampshire on 8 January (with a library tour and display). See the Talks and Courses section of our website or contact events@sog.org.uk for more information.
Christine Worthington
Research Collections Coordinator
collections@sog.org.uk
Access Collections Remotely
- Members who cannot visit us can use our library catalogue and (with your member login) search our online collections, for any items that may assist your research.
- Send your research questions to genenquiries@sog.org.uk. Our genealogy staff can assist our members with general research inquiries and help you identify the right resources for your needs whether they be held in our collections, online or elsewhere.
- If you have identified an item of interest in the Society of Genealogists' library or archive collections - contact our genealogy staff who can interrogate items for you - see Genealogy Search/Copy Service below.
- We are preparing to implement a Virtual Reading Room service in 2025 - keep an eye on this page for information about this.
Genealogy Search/Copy Service
The genealogy team can offer a limited search copy service to look at items within our library and collections and make copies where appropriate.
- To request a search please email genenquiries@sog.org.uk enclosing information about what you wish to be searched. Please include any links to the catalogue or digital collections if appropriate. We will then check the item, order it from the store if needed, and let you know as soon as possible what the search copy fees will likely be and how payment may be made.
- Generally, a search can be made to see if we hold the item and copy the appropriate pages or entries after receipt of the Society’s library handling/search fee of £20 (members £15, please quote your membership number)
- Most searches will not exceed half an hour. Up to five copies of pages are included in the initial handling/search fee.
- Additional pages (if found) will be supplied for 50 pence per A4 sized original and £1 per A3 size.
- If copies are posted overseas postage charges will be applied.
- Alternatively, scanned pdf/jpeg images (as appropriate and if possible) will be emailed at the same price.
Do You Need to Engage a Professional Researcher?
The Society of Genealogists cannot undertake lengthy genealogical research or look at sources outside its collections. If you are looking for a professional researcher to carry out more in-depth or comprehensive research on your behalf, please take a look at our comprehensive guide Employing a Professional Genealogist, which provides details on both the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) and the Register of Qualified Genealogists (RQG).
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.
