Enquiry and research service from the Oxfordshire History Centre

How to make an enquiry

• We can often answer simple enquiries by telephone.
• Some telephone enquiries will take more time to check against sources in our collections, and so may be chargeable. We will advise you if we need you to write to us instead.
• Write to us by email, letter or fax with details of your research request.

We provide some information free of charge

A single question on our holdings (for example: 'Do you hold the parish registers for Bampton?' 'What is the date of the Thame enclosure award?') may be answered free of charge. All other enquiries, including those which involve checking a number of catalogues and indexes, will be chargeable.

Chargeable research service

• For chargeable enquiries, we will respond with an estimate of the research costs involved; please note that we require payment in advance of work being done.
• We can make detailed searches of our catalogues and indexes
• We can make specific searches of materials in our Local Studies or Archive collections
• Family historians with more time-consuming enquiries may wish to contact a private researcher. A list of Oxfordshire genealogical researchers is available

How to pay for research

• Research is charged at an hourly rate with a minimum half-hour fee payable. The maximum search time is two hours.
• Pay by cheque - please make cheques payable to Oxfordshire County Council, and please quote our reference
  • We recommend you send an open cheque - leave the figures box of the cheque blank, and write “not to exceed £XX” along the amount line (where XX is the current cost of one hour’s research, in Pounds Sterling, or up to a maximum of two hour’s research).
  • Open cheques allow us to complete them for the exact amount of time used – levying a smaller fee if your research is completed within just 30 minutes, or allowing us to continue searching up to your specified maximum limit.
• Pay online by PayPal – see our Charges page for further details
• We regret we cannot accept payment by credit card or cheque payment in a currency other than Pounds Sterling.