The BALCHIN FAMILY SOCIETY was founded in 1991 by Sir Robert Balchin (link), the late Professor William Balchin (formerly Professor of Geography at Swansea University) and the late Mrs Patricia Green, a very gifted amateur genealogist and herself  a descendent of the brother of Richard Balchin an early nineteenth century surgeon and mayor of Godalming.  Today it has a very hard-working committee drawn from family members from all over the country.

It is likely that all people with the surname Balchin are in some way related, for the Balchins are an ancient Surrey family which has clear, proven documented evidence for over twenty generations of direct male descent from that Henry who was living in East Worldham in 1327. The first written mention of the name is in a British Library manuscript dated 1191: a Latin deed drawn up by Bernard III, Count of St Valery in France. He owned vast lands around the Somme but also on the other side of the Channel in Oxford.  In 1191 he accompanied King Richard I, Lionheart on crusade and before he went he granted a Charter to a monastery in the hope that the monks would pray for his soul. The document mentions a woodland near Gamaches in Normandy which he purchased from ROGER DE BALCHEN. The said Roger was almost certainly a crusader knight in the Count's service and was a witness to the document. In 1207 Sir Roger de Balchen is mentioned again when Bernard's son, Thomas confirmed the grant to the religious order.

Within a few decades the Balchin family (spelled occasionally Balchen, Balchild, Balchyn, Balchyne), starts to appear in Surrey contemporary manuscripts. Many, perhaps most, Balchins still live today in the Surrey area, although the more intrepid have migrated to all parts of the United Kingdom, to Canada, the USA,South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and many belong to the Balchin Family Society.

If your name if Balchin or you are descended from, or married to, a Balchin, you will be most sincerely welcomed as a Member of the Balchin Family Society.