How do I contact the Guild?

The Guild's Virtual Office

The Guild contact telephone number is 0800 011 2182. This is a freephone number, manned by the Guild's Front Office Manager, and is available to all who wish to contact the Guild. Members of the Guild, especially those members who do not have online access to the Guild's website, can also use it. Where the Front Office Manager is unable to answer a query, he or she will pass it on to the most appropriate Committee member or Guild postholder.

Non-UK members should dial +44 800 011 2182; however, the call will be charged at normal international rate.

Contacting Guild officials by mail or email

For general enquiries regarding the Guild please write, enclosing a reply-paid envelope or three International Reply Coupons, to The Secretary, Box G, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA, England. Alternatively, e-mail .

For enquiries regarding registering a surname with the Guild, or in the case of difficulties getting in touch with existing Guild members, please contact the Registrar, Dr. David H Mellor, 2 Bromley Road, West Bridgeford, Nottingham, Notts. NG2 7AP, England or e-mail .

Contacting Guild Members

Family historians - whether or not they are members of the Guild - may use the Register to find contact details of Guild members who have registered a name they are interested in. Guild members are under an obligation to answer all reply-paid enquiries regarding their registered names. The term "reply-paid enquiries" means that a stamped self-addressed envelope is provided when enquirer and member are in the same country, and three international reply coupons are provided if they are in different countries. Contacts by e-mail do not of course require a reply-paid envelope!

In contacting a Guild member, you will probably find it most productive if you can ask specific questions rather than general ones and if you can provide specific information relating to your enquiry including full names, dates and locations about the family or families you are interested in.

One-name studies often comprise large amounts of information, much of which may await validation. Research is usually on-going. It is not practicable therefore for members to respond to requests for "all the information you have about the surname X", even when an offer is made to pay the costs of photocopying etc.

If you have difficulty contacting a Guild member, or receive no response to your reply-paid enquiry after a reasonable time, please contact the Guild Registrar who will attempt to take the matter up on your behalf. Please supply the dates on which you sent letters or e-mails, and your own postal address for a response. Our enquiries may take some time so please be patient with us. All Guild officers are volunteers; we all do this for pleasure - our own and that of other family history folk such as you!