Frequently Asked Questions

Check that you have entered your username or email address correctly.
Your username is your membership number beginning with the letter M. If it contains 0 – this is a number, not a letter.
If you are sure you have entered everything correctly and you still can’t get access, reset your password by clicking on “Lost Password” (just under the Log in panel).

Please note that, for security reasons, the membership team does not have access to your password.

Log in to your account and edit Profile. You can change any of your details and our records will be updated.

If you have forgotten your password, enter your email address and click on “Lost Password” at the bottom of the Login page.
To change your password, log in to your account and click on “Change Password”

If you join online, you can pay by credit or debit card.

If you wish to join offline and pay by cheque or cash, please contact the Secretary of the Branch you wish to join via our Contact Page.

Virtual members are not affiliated to a specific Branch.

Any member can attend the talks given by all Branches but only Branch members will receive direct notifications of meetings and other activities in their Branch.

Two people who live at the same address and apply at the same time may join as Joint Members, paying less than the cost of two individual memberships.

Joint members will receive all the benefits of individual membership but will receive only one copy of the Society Journal, North Irish Roots between them.

The Primary Member should select Joint Membership on the Join the Society page and follow the prompts.

The Primary Member will add the details for both of the Joint Members.

A different email address is required for each of the members. If you do not have a different email address you can easily set up a free one with Gmail or similar. Create a Gmail account here.

Once the Primary Member has checked out and paid online for the membership, each member will have their own account.

An email address is required to complete your membership application online. Joint members each need to supply a different email address.

You can easily set up a free email account with Gmail or similar. Create a Gmail account here.

It is preferable that you have an email address so that you receive communication about your membership as well as activities and events. However if you wish to join without an email address, please request a Membership form from the Society by writing to NIFHS, Unit C4 Valley Business Centre, 67 Church Road, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, United Kingdom BT36 7LS

Our membership is a yearly membership from 1st September until 31 August.

Anyone joining from 1st May will be enrolled until 31st August the following year.

Yes, your payment and membership details will be confirmed by email.

If you do not receive confirmation of an application made more than 7 days ago, check your Spam/Junk mailbox folders, and if an acknowledgement is not found there, please contact Membership Enquiries via our Contact Page.

Your Display Name is the name that will be used for your profile name. Any emails going out to you from the website will be addressed to your Display Name.

To change your Display Name, log in to your account and click on Edit Profile from the Quick Links panel to the right of your screen.

Yes!

You can:
change from a Virtual member to a Branch member
change the Branch you originally signed up to
remove yourself from a Branch and become a Virtual member

These changes are limited to one per year.

You can request these changes from your membership account – click on Membership Change Request in the lower green panel on the right once you have logged in.

Please note that a single member cannot change to a joint membership until the current membership expires.

We are currently completing our new website and the Members’ Area will be available in due course.

You can still log in to the Members’ Area of the “old” website, using the Username and Password which was sent to you with your Welcome letter.

Please refer to the Contacts page on our website to find the relevant person to get in touch with.

If you are a Branch member or wish to know more about a particular Branch, please contact the Branch secretary.

As a member, you will be able to log in to the Members’ Area of our website to access indexes to transcriptions and other records.

Our main collection of publications and records are held at our Research Centre in Newtownabbey and if you cannot get there, you can request a Look Up.

Some Branches also have records related to their local area.

Our new Members’ Area will be available in due course. Until then, log in to the Members’ Area on our old website using the login details contained in your Welcome letter.

North Irish Roots is usually published in the spring and the autumn and is posted to those members whose membership is current at the cut-off date for publication.  Joint members receive one copy between them.

The annual membership fee is set each year by Society Council.

Fees are treated as donations to the Society, and are used to pay ongoing costs such as insurance and rental of the Research Centre.

If you have elected to join a Branch, some of your fee will go to the Branch’s operating costs such as speakers’ fees and room hire.