THE library at the new Westgate Centre is only four months old, yet one group who have set up home in the building can trace family history back hundreds of years.

The drop-in session which is run by volunteers from Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS) allows people from around the world to trace their Oxfordshire blood.

Using online archives of parish records, volunteers can reveal undiscovered ancestors.

According to data from ancestry.co.uk, where archives of parish records used by OFHS are published, the average British person’s DNA is actually only 36 per cent British.

This could result in some interesting finds from experts at OFHS.

The desk service at Oxfordshire County Library is free, however membership – which costs £9 a year – allows members to contact others in the group researching the same surnames.

Founded more than 40 years ago, OFHS aims to promote and encourage the study of family history.

Over the past 25 years, volunteers have been transcribing records from roughly 300 parishes, which detail documents of more than 400 years of births, deaths and marriages in the county, and collating these into electronic format.

Library volunteers use these online archives to equip members of the public with knowledge about their ancestry and provide information on how to use these documents to delve deeper into the research of family history.

These documents are now available to access for free at libraries around the county and are a vital resource for locals who would otherwise be searching through paper archives.

Wendy Archer, member and former chairman of Oxfordshire Family History Society, said: “People who live in Oxford and people who visit from any country in the world can pop in and have a one to one session.

"They can develop a family tree and sometimes clients come away with three or four new generations to explore – sometimes a century further back.”

Over recent years the society has digitally scanned roughly 3,000 registers with a total of 300,000 pages.

Original paper copies are now protected at the Oxfordshire History Centre on Temple Road in East Oxford.

Society publicity officer Gay Sturt said: “Our library service allows users to track those members of the family you heard about as a child but didn’t listen to.”

Volunteer desk services are available on Thursday and Friday at the county library, and are also available at Abingdon, Banbury, Bicester, Chinnor, Hook Norton, Kidlington, Wallingford and Witney libraries.

Users can book an hour slot with the experts by contacting the relevant library.

Membership to the society entitles users to access exclusive content on the website, as well as monthly talks.

The most recent talk hosted by OFHS available exclusively to the members was titled ‘How to date old photographs’ and offered expert advice, tricks and tips in finding the age of photographs dating back to the Victorian era.

For more information visit ofhs.org.uk