Borders Family History Society, (BFHS), founded in 1985, is a members and research society which concentrates on the Scottish Borders region in south-eastern Scotland, comprising the ancient pre-1975 counties of Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, Selkirkshire and Peeblesshire, as well as small parts of the former counties of Midlothian (formerly Edinburghshire), and adjacent counties in England. They have map diagrams of the counties and their parishes. The Society's Patron is the Earl of Lauderdale, who is also the Hereditary Flag-Bearer for Scotland and Chief of the Clan Maitland. Headquarters Their premises are at 52 Overhaugh St, Galashiels, TD1 1 DP, Scotland. The premises contain an extensive library of books, microfiche, microfilms, CDs, family trees, and magazines from some other family history societies - catalogues of which are on their website. There is also an archive and search room, and a study room. There is disabled access. Opening hours vary and are shown on the website. Enquirers can carry out research in the Society's premises or request them to do research for you. The Society encourages family historians to further their genealogical research by recording Surname Interests (free), viewing others' Queries and Surname Interests (currently 7,900 interests recorded - covering about 2,650 surnames), searching the indexes to their publications: the Gravestones Index covering over 5,170 distinct surnames, the Magazine Article Index with over 1,500 different topics, the Family Trees Index (an index to family trees / pedigree charts) with over 4,100 distinct surnames, on their website. Events & Meetings For 8 months of the year starting in September they hold monthly Sunday afternoon lecture meetings in Galashiels, a central point in their 'constituency', and occasionally other places in the Scottish Borders, and admission is free; please see details of the lectures and other events. To celebrate their silver jubilee they held a Family and Local History Fair and Conference on 9 October 2010 in Melrose, and there were talks by well-known local speakers. The Society were the hosts for the Scottish Association of Family History Societies family history conference and history fair held in Galashiels, Scotland in May 2013. There were 160 genealogical delegates and more than 330 people all told visited the fair. The theme was "Migration" and there were five talks from internationally well-known speakers. The research room was exceedingly busy all day, and there were queues at many of the other advice stalls. The conference and history fair received widespread praise