Volunteers plan new family history facility

The Society of Bexhill Musuems is currently awaiting the start of the building scheme which will greatly increase the Egerton Road centre's size and scope.

One of the new facets society chief executive and colleagues hope to introduce is an area where, for a small fee, the public could make use of museum computers to trace their family histories.

It is hoped complement the new study area with occasional training courses in how to undertake genealogical research.

It was to learn these techniques that Monday's group gathered in the Fairhurst home, under the tutelage of Valerie Fairhurst.

Peter's interest in genealogy was fired by his researches into his grandfather, who designed and built a car in mooring's pioneer era.

Now Peter and Valerie are currently deeply immersed in research into a long-forgotten arm of the family in New Zealand.

Genealogy is a bug. Once bitten, it becomes an ever-growing source of interest and information.

Monday's gathering around the computer screen included museum administrator Don Phillips, society walks and lectures organiser Heather Morrey, fund-raiser Betty Butler and Joan Austen, as catering officer responsible for the excellent refreshments which accompany major museum occasions such as the opening of new exhibitions.

Valerie was soon busy explaining and demonstrating to them the use of specialist search engines such as www.ancestry.co while, on another screen Peter was demonstrating Google's freebmd device.

Everyone, it seemed, had come armed with a sheaf of family birth, marriage and death certificates.

In the kitchen, a print-out of a family tree the size of a scroll bore testimony to the Fairhurst family research which has been going on in parallel in New Zealand.

As Don Phillips began to research his own grandfather, Peter Fairhurst said of the museum family history project: "I think this is going to be a service that the museum can offer.

"There is so much information out there. It is just a question of where to start looking."

Betty said: "I have found that my grandfather had a brother I didn't even know existed. I knew he had three sisters - but not a brother.

"It is fascinating'¦"