Pontefract and District Family History Society

History
"The Pontefract &amp; District Family History Society is an active group of family historians who live in the Pontefract and the surrounding area..." see website

Online

 * Message Board (open to all)
 * List of parishes covered by the Pontefract and District FHS
 * Interactive parishes map with picture of the parish and information regarding parish registers and bishops transcripts.
 * Links to many other genealogy websites
 * Links to many websites that may pertain to ancestors who lived in the Pontefract area
 * Online articles available to all
 * Look up Search Services (single surname search)

Projects

 * Projects include transcribing parish register baptisms, marriages and burials for various parishes and years.

Publications:

 * Transcripts of Baptisms, Marriages, &amp; Burials
 * Monumental Inscriptions
 * Over 400 published booklets
 * 13 CDs
 * Land Tax records
 * Census indexes
 * Miscellaneous

Services to Society Members

 * Contact other members to see who is working on similar ancestral surnames and areas of interest
 * Access to quarterly journal, The Bridge.
 * Access to online image galleries
 * Can attend monthly meetings
 * CDs, maps, books, etc. available on loan to members at meetings as well as access to borrow publications from other societies.

Benefits of Membership in Local Family History Societies
The following advantages and benefits of joining a local family history society will help you extend your pedigree and grow your knowledge and research skills:

...
 * 1) One of the best ways to discover other (distant) relatives, with whom to collaborate on family lines.
 * 2) Learn about events and local history which directly affected your ancestors.
 * 3) Know how/what effective search strategies and other critical approaches to employ in your research.
 * 4) Obtain numerous ideas for helping you overcome brickwalls in constructing your genealogy.
 * 5) Learn about, use, help create critical products being compiled by each society, such as transcribing or indexing churchyard, marriage, baptism, census, military, occupation, and etc records of the area or county, perhaps even helping to build data content for your parish[es] of interest (i.e.index) if desired.
 * 6) Purchase books, CDs, microfiche, or the services of knowledgeable and experienced local residents to perform "lookup" services for all those researching ancestry from remote areas around the world.
 * 7) Share/publish your ancestral surnames of interests for others to view and respond with help and assistance in various ways.