Keighley Library was inundated with people wanting to make sense of the 1901 census.

The public queued up in eager anticipation at the start of Census Week last week, waiting for the library to open so they could be the first to handle the information. Reference Librarian Pauline Barfield said: "I'm absolutely delighted with the response. It's been a very successful week.

"We've had a lot of interest from people who have done no family history before, and people who are interested in who lived in their house in 1901.

"We even had one lady who had been sent a list of family from relatives in Canada to check on the new census.

"I'm also very grateful for all the help Keighley and District Family Historical Society have given us."

Members of the society were available all week, eager to help anyone with queries about the records, and library users made sure they were kept busy.

As Pauline explained: "The interest in family history has certainly grown over the last few years. We're quite busy normally but more people are wanting to start.

"They've been queuing up to find out what to do"

Margaret Anderton from Nessfield Road, Keighley, has spent 15 years tracing her family roots. "At the moment I'm trying to find out about an old house my daughter's just moved into," she said.

"More and more information is available now, especially in Keighley, than when we first started. Before I had to go to Bradford. It's better now than it used to be."

Molly Bell from Eastburn has only recently begun looking for her family history. "I started last October because I was looking at old photos at mum's house and they showed people who I didn't know," she said.

She enrolled and went on a night course on family history at Keighley College, and has since found her maternal family have been in Silsden for 200 years.

As she says: "It's not difficult to do. The staff have been super - they're immediately there to give you a helping hand."

For anybody whose curiosity has been aroused, Molly has this piece of advice: "Ask relatives that are still alive about older generations - ask anyone who may know anything. Write it all down, and that's your starting point."