Membership Benefits

1. Why Join?

Tracing your family tree is one of the world's most popular pastimes. The Genealogical Society of Victoria is a leading Australian family history society and exists to assist members in tracing their ancestors and to promote the study of genealogy.

At our centrally located Research & Education Centre in Melbourne you can work with our experienced volunteer research assistants. With their guidance, you can efficiently organise and record the family information you already hold. Then you can investigate our many resources and background information to confirm the facts and fill in the gaps.

Enjoy socialising with people who have like-minded interest in the people and circumstances in the past.

2. Membership Benefits

• Access to research assistants - friendly volunteers trained to help with library resources.
• Access to our comprehensive library collection of family history records not available in commercial databases. It includes indexes, books, family histories, digital resources and unpublished material. 
• Access to commercial databases within our library: Ancestry™, Findmypast™, TheGenealogist™, British Newspaper Archive™, MyHeritage™ (now access from home is available to members) and Biographical Database of Australia™.
• Login from home and access to parts of Our Collection, including the library catalogue, the Genealogical Index of Names (GIN) and Milestones database.
• Our quarterly award-winning journal, Ancestor.
• Regular online blog 'Family History matters', Facebook and social media groups.
• Discounted or free events: orientation, training courses & classes, seminars, library research days and talks.

• Interest Groups plus free access to their online Notice Boards with copies of meeting notes & presentations

• Online Forum 'members HELP members' for sharing research queries and experience with other members.
• Members Research Interests online database
• Over 250 webcasts on subjects of interest to genealogists, viewable from home.
• Quick Lookups - free for members
• Discounts on extended research services and education events.
• Free annual research query (up to 2 hours) for distant members (more than 100 km from Melbourne).
• Free access to the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV) collections when reviewing books from the GSV collection at the RHSV Library.
• Reciprocal rights with other major societies in Australia and New Zealand.
• Save 25% off Pen & Sword Books ​​​​​from their RRP (Recommended Retail Price)
• A FamilySearch affiliate library that has special privileges to limited-access FamilySearch resources that are not available from home.