The Conception and Founding of Kent FHS
In May 1974 at the 13th International Congress of Genealogical & Heraldic Sciences, Mr Cecil Humphery-Smith of the Canterbury based IHGS (Institute of Heraldry and Genealogy) referred to various efforts to form Societies before The Society of Genealogists finally came into being at the start of the 20th century. He also outlined early attempts to get genealogists together suggesting they had once been “only interested in their own ancestries … lone wolves; often, indeed, snapping and snarling at those who ventured on their territory.”
In the 1970s the IHGS were invited to arrange the 13th International Congress of Genealogical & Heraldic Sciences, the first to be held in England. The congress took place in Canterbury over the weekend of the 5/6th May 1974 at Eliot College University of Kent. Active in the organisation of the congress were IHGS colleagues Cecil Humphery-Smith, later KFHS vice president, and Duncan Harrington, the Society’s very much-respected past president.
Amongst items debated at the congress was the protection of family histories. Delegates were urged to campaign to save all documents that otherwise would be discarded. Fifty years on and not a great deal has changed. We still hear of deceased researchers’ life work being thrown on the tip and officials wanting to dispose of sources; such as recently in 2024 the government wanting to discard original Wills.
One seminar discussed the lack of local genealogical groups and societies. Various delegates (no doubt some with arms up their backs) expressed a willingness to explore the possibilities of forming local groups and the seeds of several Family History Societies were sown.
A few months later in 1974, Kent along with societies for Essex, Hampshire and the Federation of Family History Societies (now Family History Federation) were established.
In the founding of county societies Kent was in the vanguard holding its inaugural meeting just seven weeks after the congress.
