A NEW programme of courses designed to help local people explore their family and local history has been announced by the South West Heritage Trust.

The courses start in November and will be held at the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton.

The centre provides access to 20 million historic documents and local history sources, the earliest of which dates from the 8th century.

The 2016–17 courses will focus on how to use and interpret key archive sources for a range of topics including house, familyand local history.

They will be tutored by experienced archivists from the heritage centre.

The programme is:

  • New for 2016 - Online Resources help day – November 21 (detail below)
  • Resources for Local History: November 23, 10.00am – 3.30pm (£15)
  • Archives for House History: March 13 and 20, 2017, 9.30am – 4pm (£48)
  • How to Read Old Handwriting : February 21, 2017, 9.30am – 4pm (£20)
  • Archives for Family History: May 9 and 10, 2017, 9.30am – 4pm (£48)
  • Archives for Family History follow on (4 weeks): Mondays from June 19, 2017 to July 10, 2017, 10am – 2pm (£48), For the first time the heritage centre will also be offering a day of free bookable sessions to provide assistance with online resources.

These include the recently re-launched Somerset and Devon Archive Catalogues.

The sessions will run as part of the national Explore Your Archive campaign and will be held on Monday, November 21, from 10am – 3.15pm.

Sessions on offer will be half hour help sessions designed to assist people with specific research enquiries and one hour general sessions designed to give an overview of online resources.

Space on all courses and sessions is limited.

To book your place please contact the Somerset Heritage Centre on 01823 278805 or email somersetarchives@ swheritage.org.uk.

The Somerset Heritage Centre is part of The South West Heritage Trust.