IHGS: The School of Family History

06/10/2026

Anytime Talk of the Month October

Parish Registers
with Chloe O'Shea, DipGen

Our latest talk explores parish registers, one of the most important sources for family historians. Discover how these records developed, what information they can reveal about our ancestors, and how to make the most of them in your research. Whether you are new to family history or looking to improve your research skills, this talk offers useful guidance and plenty of ideas for exploring parish registers more effectively.

About the Speaker
Chloe is a IHGS Tutor and professional genealogist. She gained a BSc (Hons) in Heritage Conservation and an MA in Museum Studies from Bournemouth University, graduating in 2010. Chloe began researching her family tree in 2006 with the hobby quickly taking up all of her free time. After a career working in various museums in the Midlands, Chloe decided to train to be a professional genealogist with IHGS and was awarded the IHGS Diploma in Genealogy 2023. She is the author of ‘Discover your Dorset Ancestors’ and ‘Tracing your Staffordshire Ancestors’. Chloe also writes articles for magazines including Who Do You Think You Are, Family Tree and Dorset magazine. She is a member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists RQG and is a paid contributor to MyHeritage’s Wiki project. Her passion lies with educating others to ensure their family trees are researched accurately and helping people to break down their long-standing brick walls.

Free to IHGS Students and Members via the student/member area.

Also available to visitors for a small fee from the link below:

The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies                       Terms and Conditions 80-82 Northgate Canterbury Kent, CT1 1BA UK Tel: +44 (0)1227 768664

06/10/2026

Our latest newsletter is now available

IHGS October Newsletter -

Registration is now open for RootsTech 2027 on March 4th to 6th, 2027. The conference will be held at the Salt Palace, in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

28/09/2026

Family History Show this Saturday

We are looking forward to attending the London Family History Show at Kempton Park this Saturday 3rd October 2026. Visit our stand to find out more about our courses and qualifications or just to say hello.

For more details visit https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/london/

07/09/2026

IHGS September Newsletter -

Manorial records are an important source for researching family and local history. The records can contain valuable information about tenants, land transfers, inheritance, disputes and everyday life within a manor. In this introductory course, we will explore the different types of manorial record...

03/08/2026

IHGS August Newsletter -

Distance Learning Courses Summer Offers All our courses are flexible and self paced Higher Certificate in Genealogy - 10% with code IHGSAGRA10 Renown as the Correspondence Course In Genealogy - the Higher Certificate in Genealogy course, is suitable both for beginners and for experienced genealogist...

28/07/2026

The latest edition of our journal, Family History, is now available in the IHGS online Members' Area!

With articles by our graduates, IHGS news and events and more.

Available to members through their login on the IHGS homepage.

We hope you enjoy this edition.

22/07/2026

Our latest Newsletter is now out and its our Awards Day special!

Discover the story behind your home with this new online course, designed to guide you through the records and resources needed to research the history of a house and the people who lived there. Written by our expert Tutors Lucy Browne, Sarah Pettyfer and Lorraine Whale.

14/07/2026

We are delighted to announce the launch of our New OnlineCourse now available Property, People and Place

Property, People and Place: A Guide to House History Research
Have you ever wondered who lived in your house before you? Or how your home and its surroundings have changed over the years?

Our brand-new online course, Property, People and Place: A Guide to House History Research, will show you how to uncover the fascinating history of a house and the people who called it home. Written by our expert tutors Lucy Browne, Sarah Pettyfer and Lorraine Whale, this course will guide you through the records, maps and historical sources that bring a property's story to life.

Ideal for anyone with some experience of family history research, you'll build on your knowledge of civil registration records, census returns and parish registers as you learn how to investigate the history of a house with confidence.

Best of all, you can enrol at any time and study entirely at your own pace, with no fixed timetable.

✨ Introductory Offer – Save 20%!

Now just £360 (usually £450)

For more details and to enrol

Discover the story behind your home with this new online course, designed to guide you through the records and resources needed to research the history of a house and the people who lived there. Written by our expert Tutors Lucy Browne, Sarah Pettyfer and Lorraine Whale.

07/07/2026

Our July Talk of the Month

Forget the Family Tree. Tend Your Family Ivy! by Dai Davies of GenealCymru

Fear not the rabbit holes! Looking beyond your direct ancestors is actually a crucial part of developing a deep understanding of your family history and breaking down your brick walls. In this talk, Dai discusses the concept of the “family ivy"—those families that appear generation after generation on the margins of your family tree—and how best to use it. The Family Ivy is a concept that sits somewhere between the FAN method, pedigree collapse, and those pesky rabbit holes.

Dai Davies (they/them) is a professional genealogist, speaker, and writer with a passion for connecting people with their Welsh ancestors. The foundation of Dai’s approach is their background in anthropology—MA and BA (Hons)—which they use to explore themes of social identity, culture, and history. Dai’s personal family history research is focussed on rural south Wales, the farming class, literary culture, religious nonconformity, and migration. This Welsh research, which is notoriously challenging, is the starting point for Dai’s exploration of universal questions around how to break brick walls, develop new research methods, gain an in-depth knowledge of your ancestors, and thoughtfully tell the fullness of their stories. You can find much of Dai’s work for free on their blog (www.GenealCymru.com) or join the more than 1.3 million people who have watched the GenealCymru YouTube channel.

Free to our Members and Students via your login until 3rd August

Only £10 for visitors https://www.ihgs.ac.uk/talk-of-the-month-7

The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies                       Terms and Conditions 80-82 Northgate Canterbury Kent, CT1 1BA UK Tel: +44 (0)1227 768664

23/06/2026

Come and join us on 4th July for Canterbury's annual Medieval Pageant. This year the trail has a Bayeux Tapestry theme, in honour of its arrival at the British Museum later this year, and for the first time IHGS is going to be opening its doors as part of the pageant, and welcoming pageant attendees to its historic premises on Northgate. It joins venues across the city such as the Westgate Towers, Beaney Institute, St Augustine's Abbey amongst many others, offering 20 different trail activities. Collecting stamps along the way in turn earns you a chocolate coin from Canterbury Cathedral!

Further details regarding the trail and where is open, together with the trail map, can be downloaded here,

Parade and Family Trail