The Channel Islands Family History Society
Every month our newsletter will be featuring one of the over one thousand genealogy societies listed on
www.familyhistoryplace.net. If you are interested in having us profile your society in an upcoming edition please
contact our editorial staff.
This month we are pleased to feature The Channel Islands Family History Society.
Here's some information about the Channel Islands courtesy Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_islands):
 The Channel Islands are a group of islands in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy, but dependent
on the British Crown. They comprise two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey,
and have a total population of about 160,000. The respective capitals, Saint Peter Port and Saint Helier have
populations of 16,488 and 28,310.
The Islands were annexed to the Duchy of Normandy in 933. In 1066 the Duke William the Conqueror invaded and
conquered England, becoming the English monarch. Since 1204, the loss of the rest of the monarch's lands in mainland
Normandy has meant that the Channel Islands have been governed as separate possessions of the Crown.
In recognition for all the help given to him during his exile in Jersey in the 1640s, Charles II gave George
Carteret, Bailiff and governor, a large grant of land in the American colonies, which he promptly named New Jersey
, now part of the United States of America.
During the Second World War, the Islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth occupied by Germany
(excepting that part of Egypt occupied by the Afrika Korps at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein).
The German occupation 1940-1945 was harsh, with some island residents being taken for slave labour on the Continent;
native Jews sent to concentration camps; partisan resistance and retribution; accusations of collaboration;
and slave labour (primarily Russians and eastern Europeans) being brought to the islands to build fortifications.
The Royal Navy blockaded the islands from time to time, particularly following the liberation of mainland Normandy
in 1944. Intense negotiations resulted in some Red Cross humanitarian aid, but there was considerable hunger and
privation during the five years of German occupation particularly in the final months when the population were
close to starvation. The German troops on the islands surrendered only a few days after the final surrender in
mainland Europe.
The Channel Islands Family History Society
In 1978, a small group of people in Jersey met to discuss the formation of a Society dedicated to the study and
tracing of the family histories of Channel Islanders. The first meeting (Nov. 1978) was at St. Lawrence Parish Hall,
Jersey and more than fifty people attended. Membership passed the one hundred mark during the next year.
 It was an early intention to form local CIFHS Branches in the other Channel Islands and elsewhere but as time went
on this proved impossible so the voluntary Officers in Jersey assumed the complete role of the CIFHS Committee.
Membership Nos. are given on application and are never repeated, and in the year 2004 the membership numbers are
approaching 2,500. Paid-up Membership is now fairly static between six and seven hundred, with very many members
abroad.
The backbone of family history is in the old church registers of baptisms, marriages and burials. Jersey members
of CIFHS have been busy over the years, on a voluntary basis, transcribing and indexing all these local registers
and making these indexes freely available to all. CIFHS housed its growing collection over the next twenty years
in small premises in Hilgrove Street. When the Jersey Archive service was established in 1993, (administered by the
Jersey Heritage Trust) plans were discussed to house the entire CIFHS Collection at the Jersey Archive -
to be purpose-built in Clarence Road, St. Helier. The Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Philip Bailhache, opened the
building on 24th July 2000 and since that time the CIFHS Collection has been available on 'open' shelves.
In 2003, The Channel Islands Family History Society celebrated its twenty five years of existence with special
silver covers for the quarterly Members Journal.
For more information on The Channel Islands Family History
Society
please visit http://www.channelislandshistory.com
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