WORCESTERSHIRE County Council's Archive & Archaeology Service is offering residents the opportunity to find out more about delving into family history in a series of new Exploring Ancestry.co.uk workshops at The Hive.

Ancestry is one of the most popular family history websites, enabling users to search a wide variety of official and church records from around to world to explore their family's past. The site is available for anyone to access on the internet, and Worcestershire's libraries provide an additional benefit to library users who can access the site for free from inside The Hive and any Worcestershire County Council library.

The ancestry website carries a mass of information, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start and what it all means.  These workshops will utilise the experience of Archive & Archaeology staff, aiming to support participants in making best use of the site to gain the best possible results from their family history quest.

The workshops, which run on Tuesday afternoons between 2-4pm in The Hive's Explore The Past area, are Starting Ancestry: The Census, on Tuesday, February 26, Further Ancestry on Tuesday, March 5 and What's New on Ancestry on Tuesday, March 12.

Each workshop costs £5 and booking is essential as places are limited.  For those who can't make it on Tuesdays, the workshops will be repeated on Thursday mornings in May.

For more information or to book a place, phone 01905 766352, email explorethepast@worcestershire.gov.uk, or visit the Explore The Past desk on Level 2 in The Hive.