People with a family history in Rosskeen, Alness and Kiltearn will now be able to carry out genealogical research at The Heritage Centre in Alness, thanks to a funding package from Ross and Cromarty Enterprise (RACE) and the European Community Economic Development (CED) programme.

The Alness Community Association (ACA) received the £4,800 funding to purchase copies of the Ross-shire Journal from 1877 to 1985 on micro film, which has provided a great deal of historical information relating to births, marriages and deaths as well as information on families and businesses in the area.

This new resource, which was part-funded by the EU under the Highlands and Islands Transitional Programme, is in addition to the local census information that the ACA already had on micro film for the three local parishes. Following training they now have nine people trained in research for family lines to deal with daily enquiries from home and abroad.

Joan Ross from the ACA said: "Thanks to this additional source of historical local information, we are now attracting enquiries from the UK, Canada, the US and New Zealand, and in the past year have probably been able to answer around 100 of these requests for local information.

"We are hoping to extend our premises at the Heritage Centre, which will mean that we can offer more people the chance to use the facility, which will save them having to travel to Inverness.

The centre has just reunited a family in Alness, Canada and New Zealand. The New Zealand family got in touch and gave details of their ancestors who had lived in Boath. Through local knowledge and some research the Heritage Centre found their local relatives still living in Alness, who had a family tree drawn up by relatives from Canada. When compared with the New Zealand family tree it was found to be the same family.

This summer, the New Zealanders are making a trip to their Canadian relatives, and then coming to Scotland to meet their local relatives with whom they have been e-mailing for some months.

Helen Houston, Alness CED officer, said: "This is a great resource for the community, and we are already seeing the benefits. The centre aims to become the focus for genealogical research for Easter Ross, and judging by the level of interest from the local, national and international communities, I would say they are on course for achieving this goal.

"The archive copies of the local paper have also proved invaluable for work with schools and for giving talks for visitors as there are many historical facts long-forgotten but retrievable through the pages of the Journal."

For further information about the service, please contact Joan Ross, Alness Community Association, tel: 01349 883005.