Society for One-Place Studies

The Society for One-Place Studies is the leading organisation for anyone studying the family and local history of places around in the world. Those places include towns, parishes, villages, hamlets, streets, or even individual buildings, with some studies focusing on burial grounds or memorials; the boundaries for a particular study are chosen by the person carrying it out. One-place study research allows you to explore people and families in their physical and social contexts, using a range of sources including historical records and community stories, analysed alongside the local and national background. By learning about the community as a whole and studying the historical environment and events of a place, you can better understand the people – be they your ancestors or otherwise – who lived there.

Our mission is to advance the education of the public in one-place studies, to encourage and assist those interested in this field of research, and to promote the preservation and publication of material relating to one-place studies, maximising its accessibility to the public.

We publish a quarterly journal, Destinations, and present a regular series of online events as well as an annual conference, covering topics relevant to one-place study research, data synthesis, and publication. We are also active on social media and host a weekly discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #OnePlaceWednesday.

We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Society, whereby students on our First Steps to a One-Place Study course, who are not already members, may claim free membership of the Society for One-Place Studies for their first year. Existing members of the Society can claim a discount on the Pharos One Place Studies course (see member benefits section of their website).