THE poet Laurence Overmire once said: "History remembers only the celebrated. Genealogy remembers them all."

That is very much the case with Chippenham resident, Dr Jonathan Seymour, who believes he has traced his ancestors back to the French speaking protestants, known as the Huguenots.

The family mystery started when his mother Doreen started researching the family tree in the 1980's and obtained the marriage certificate of her great-grandmother that revealed her maiden name was Emma Cherry.

At the turn of the century, her son, Mr Seymour took up the researching mantle and went back another 3 generations and discovered the original record showing the ancestral family registering at the French Church in London.

The former scientist then made further discoveries in the Lorraine region of France, then discovered how his ancestors lived near Volkingen in Germany and finally finding out that they had an ancestor, with the surname of Schery, who was born in Switzerland in 1692.

"To make this discovery was just so exhilarating. when you see them for the first time, you cannot describe the feeling," he said.

"I was a scientist in a previous career and it genuinely feels like a scientific breakthrough. When I told my mother, she was so excited and just over the moon.

"This has been a 15-year journey for me and a five-year one for my mother. We both see it like detective work and I hope to uncover more too.

"There was always this mystery around our French ancestry but we had no substantial evidence. The starting point was my grandmother. When my mother asked about our ancestry, my grandmother was adamant that we were linked to French blood but it was all very vague. She took it on herself to delve deeper and that is where it began and I am very happy she did."

After the 62-year-old, of Cepen Park South, had well and truly caught the genealogy bug, he went onto set up and a run a family history project called “MyFamily.MyRoots” at the Big Issue in Bristol for street vendors to better understand their family roots and their links into larger society.

He now runs a new family history research service which is on www.familyhistoryrevealed.co.uk