THE Isle of Man Family History Society will be attending the Who Do You Think You Are? Live show at London Olympia next month.
The event, which is Europe's largest family history research exhibition, takes place from February 25 to February 27.
It is set to attract its biggest audience yet with up to 17,000 visitors over the three day event.
The Isle of Man Family History Society will be on stands 32 and 33 - directly adjacent to the main Isle of Man stand - and volunteers will be on hand to help and encourage anyone interested in researching their Manx family connections.
Well known genealogist Dr Colin Chapman will be giving a talk at the show on the Isle of Man's family history records at 4.15pm on Friday, February 25.
The IOMFHS is just one of a number of Manx organisations attending - there will also be representatives of Manx National Heritage and Isle of Man Stamps and Coins, all of whom have joined forces with Isle of Man Tourism to promote the Island at the exhibition and to provide advice about getting people started on their journey into Manx family history research.
Manx National Heritage will be on stand 903 and will preview their new state of the art research facility the iMuseum on February 25.
The iMuseum, a digital research facility, will open in March.
Visitors to Who Do You Think You Are Live will be able to try out the new facility which features a full searchable digital archive of almost 200 years of Manx newspapers from the very first paper printed in 1792 to the start of the 1960s.
More than 400,000 pages of newsprint have been scanned and digitized for the iMuseum project, with the contents broken down into articles, photos and advertisements and the text extracted, so the entire newspaper archive is searchable by keyword as well as dates.
Newspaper Online is only one of many elements of the iMuseum development.
Visitors will also be able to see some of the many thousands of photographs, portraits and museum collections which will be added to the iMuseum over the coming months.
Isle of Man Stamps and Coins will showcase the world's first ever genealogy stamps with a unique set of stamps approved by the Queen.
In addition to top genealogists and researchers, a range of celebrities will be attending including Tony Robinson who will look at what it was like for our ancestors in 1911.
Monty Don and Hugh Quarshie will will recount their experiences of filming the TV show Who Do You Think You Are? and they will provide a fascinating account of their personal experiences of uncovering their own family tree.
And one visitor will win a visit to the Island courtesy of Isle of Man Tourism with "VIP access" to the Manx National Heritage archive, associated collections and a personal genealogist from the Isle of Man Family History Society to research their Manx family connections.
For more about the Isle of Man Family History Society click here
For more about the Who Do You Think You Are? Live show click here
