EXPERTS will be on hand in Wilton next month to help people research their family trees as part of a family history day.

Family history societies from Wiltshire, Bristol and Avon, Berkshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire are expected to attend the event at the Michael Herbert Hall on Saturday, June 21.

Representatives from the Rifles Museum, South Wiltshire Industrial Archaeological Society and Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre will also be in attendance.

“There is a wealth of material available online these days, but nothing beats getting person-to-person advice when we get stuck,” said Bob Knightley, chairman of Wiltshire Family History Society.

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“Whether you’re just getting started or have been researching for years and seem to have come up against a brick wall, we’ll try to help – and it’s all free.”

Wiltshire volunteers recently completed the mammoth project of transcribing the original registers of births and burials – sometimes written in Latin or on parchment – for each of the 300-plus parishes in the county.

The records cover the 300 years until national registration was introduced in 1837.

The earliest are from St Thomas’s, Salisbury, dated 1530.

They have all been published along with marriage records and will be available at the family history day at the Michael Herbert Hall.