History of The Society 50 Golden Years

Origins  |  To the Millennium  | C21 Milestones  |  Officers (1976-)

Milestones in the C21st Century

Forum and Website

An early internet presence was a webpage on the Genuki Cumberland site.

The first full website was designed, created and hosted at his own expense by John Steel, our first and longest serving webmaster.

The domain cumbriafhs.com first appeared in 2005.

There was also a Forum linked to the website, but this was retired in 2023. 

In addition, since the early 2000s there has been a mail list server list-cumbria maintained and paid for by Cumbria FHS. This is still available and searchable.

In 2023, we outsourced our website to a web-design company, Sandlebridge, and David Huddart took over as webmaster. The new site was very short-lived and was replaced in 2024 by a new version designed and built by ourselves using free tools, principally Google Sites. This is the site you are looking at now.

It includes PeopleSearch - an index providing direct access to over 680,000 records for dead Cumbrians.

At the same time we switched to using Parish Chest for the online sale of our publications (as well as new subscriptions and renewals)

Social Media

The Society has maintained a  Facebbook group for  Society Members and non-members. There are over 3500 subscribers. It is admimistered by Patricia Spencer and Kevin  Robinson.

There was also  a Twitter feed at one time.

Archive and Transcription Projects

In 2019(?) the Society purchased a large collection of C19th records from Wright, Brown & Strong a Carlisle solicitors' practice in order to preserve them for future historians. Cumbria FHS has indexed 6500 of these, and they are  searchable with PeopleFinder.

There has been a resurgence in our transcribing and publishing programme with our new Transcriptions Officer Graeme Rogers. Twelve new titles for parish registers and monumental inscriptions were publuished (download only) in 2025.

Landmark Events

In 2005 we hosted the Conference of the North West Group of Family History Societies.

in 2026 to mark our Golden Anniversary there is a Jubilee Conference and Family and Local History Fair in Carlisle