Book an appointment to visit our Help Centre

Thank you for your interest in our Help Centre sessions. 
We want your visit to be as productive as possible, so we ask you to provide, in advance, 
a little detail about your contact details (as you'd expect), and 
"what aspect of family history or local history research are you interested in?".  
The simple appointment form to do this is password-protected 
(only so that we know that you're not a robot!), 
but the 'way in' is explained fully below.  

Please DO take time to read these brief instructions RIGHT TO THE END FIRST, 
before you click the arrow icon on the right (below), 
which will be redirecting you to the next screen.  

1.  We also ask that you give us at least seven days' notice of your intended visit, 
to ensure that we're fully prepared for you.  Please don't just 'turn up'.  
We now have an 'on-call' rota for first and third Saturday mornings, 
but a session will only be held if appointments have already been made.  
Sessions can be arranged at other times (for example for out-of-area visitors), 
but only if we can arrange volunteers to staff it and the venue to suit.

2.  Although it’s not compulsory, we’d encourage you to look at our "Index of Resources", 
the many local-interest items that we hold at our «Help Centre», 
to see if there are any relevant to your research needs.  
It's helpful to do this before you start completing the form, 
in case your connection times out.  

You can download the Index via the «Downloads» and «Help Centre» webpages, to view it.  
As it's an Excel-type spreadsheet, you can also use conventional "Search"/"Find" facilities.
If you then find that you'd like to view specific items of interest, 
please take a note of their TITLE (in Column E of the Index), 
and also each's unique nine-character Reference (ID/REF-ID in Column G).  
We'd expect you'd find something to view, unless your area of interest is very narrow — 
for example, just a single family that you can't find listed in our Index (though many are).

3.  When you click on the arrow, you will first be redirected to a log-in screen. 
Just type ‘All’ into the box marked ‘Email’, and ‘Alderton’ in the box marked ‘Password’.

4.  If you're now clear what is required and are ready — click on the arrow …

However, if you prefer 
to download a physical booking form for manual completion, do so by clicking here — 
or indeed, you could use it as a crib-sheet for completing the online form
(and later as your checklist during your visit).  
You'll find instructions on both the online and physical forms on how to proceed.  

Thank you and we look forward to meeting you soon.