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Resource Centre
The Society's Resource Centre is located on the 3rd floor of Clayton House, an attractive Edwardian building on Piccadilly, in central Manchester. The location is conveniently placed for public transport midway between the city's Piccadilly and Victoria rail stations and adjacent to the Piccadilly bus station and Metrolink (tram) station. There is also a taxi rank close by. The city's principal record repositories are all within a 15 minute walk.

 

Access to the Resource Centre

 Access to the Resource Centre is available to all paid-up members of the Society on payment of a small annual fee.

Access is available to non-members at the discretion of the Society on payment of a daily fee. Evidence of name and address must be provided at each visit.

The fees are:
Members: £1.00 per annum
Non-members: £3.00* per half or full day session

* If a non-member, after paying for a session, joins the Society on the day of his/her visit, the £3.00 fee will be accepted in lieu of the normal £3.00 enrolment fee.

Catalogue

 The Resource Centre catalogue can be searched online. CLICK HERE for the search page.

Books

The Resource Centre contains a substantial collection of reference books relating to family history and the history of the Manchester area. There is also a large collection of parish register and monumental inscription transcripts and indexes and census indexes for Lancashire and many other counties. The Society participates in the FFHS journal exchange scheme and has current and recent past issues of many other societies' journals.

Microform

The printed collection is considerably extended by material on microfilm and microfiche. Some of the more substantial deposits include the 1992 issue of the IGI, the index to the 1881 census for mainland , the index to Scottish Old Parochial Registers and Griffith's Primary Valuation of Ireland. An important resource is the index to civil registration of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales which covers the period 1837-1955. Microfilm and fiche holdings include census returns for Manchester & Salford for all years 1841-1901 with the exception of 1871 (which we hold on CDROM). There is an adequate supply of readers and booking is unnecessary.

Computers

There is an increasing body of material available on computers in the Resource Centre. This includes the 1881 census, Surname indexes to the 1851 census for Manchester & Salford (including 180,000 people taken from our transcript of parts of the census damaged by water during storage), the CDROM of Soldiers Died in the Great War and many other useful sources. Resource Centre users also have access to the online GRO index, census databases and other resources provided by ancestry.com and findmypast.co.uk.

Refreshments

A refreshment room is available where visitors on Tuesdays and Thursdays can enjoy a packed lunch. Tea is available for a small donation. The Society does not sell food but there are several sandwich shops in the area.

Disabled
Access

There is currently no wheelchair access to the Resource Centre. We regret this limitation which is imposed by the constraints of the building.

Resource Centre opening hours

The library is open at the following times for members to conduct research.

Monday

10.15am to 1.00pm

Tuesday

10.15am to 4.00pm

Wednesday

Closed

Thursday

10.15am to 4.00pm

Friday

10.15am to 1.00pm

3rd Saturday of the month

10.15am to 1.00pm followed by the monthly meeting of the Anglo-Scots FHS at 2.00pm.

Visitors are strongly advised to consult the programme of meetings published in the Manchester Genealogist
to ensure there is a meeting (and hence that the Resource Centre will be open for research) before visiting on a Saturday.

Last Amended 3 January 2011 - John Marsden