With the observations of spin ice behaviour in Dy2Ti2O7 and Ho2Ti2O7 the rare earth pyrochlores R2B2O7 have evolved as a hot topic of current research activities. In our effort to search for novel 227 rare earth pyrochlores we have synthesized and investigated the magnetic properties of the new hafnate pyrochlore family that has been investigated only to very limited extent. Our investigations on R2Hf2O7 (R = Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb) show interesting magnetic ground states ranging from long range magnetic order in Nd2Hf2O7 to possible glassy behavior in Tb2Hf2O7 due to the critical role of frustration and the crystal field effect. Because of the high sensitivity of muons to extremely small magnetic fields and suitability of muSR for investigating the frustrated magnetism, it would be of interest to investigate the magnetic properties of R2Hf2O7 (R = Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb) using the muon spin relaxation.