A FACEBOOK page and website which were set up to help preserve Aireborough's history have become hits around the world.

The Aireborough Historical Society website was launched in 2013 and now attracts more than 430,000 hits per year from countries across the globe.

The society's Facebook page, set up a year earlier, attracts thousands of viewers each week - with some individual photographs getting as many as 30,000 views.

Carlo Harrison has digitally archived thousands of photographs and documents over the last few years.

He said: "The first scan I did was on 12th April 2012 and the last scan was on 1st January 2017, including photographs given to us, donated digitally and the original albums I have scanned and archived 14,778 photographs and documents. The scanning of photographs is now at an end although I am sure there are still very many which will be loaned or donated by email in the years to come."

He was helped in his task by meticulously detailed hand written notes left by former member the late Bob Girt, who listed the dates, places and names of each photograph. The finished scans were sent off to society member

Christine Lovedale for text to be written.

The AHS Facebook page has grown from having just a hand-full of followers at first to thousands of people each week.

Carlo said: "Our facebook page started at the same time as I started to archive the photographs in 2012. There were only a few followers at first which steadily grew as people mentioned the page to others and especially as people saw photos of relatives from times gone by that they had never seen before.

"The pleasure of having people say to me that they have seen a photo of their mum or dad which they had never seen before from their youth is truly magical.

"We now have 7 to 8,000 people a week look at our facebook page, most individual photos and text are viewed by at least 1,200 people and some run as high as 8, 10 or even 30,000 people if the photo's are shared across the globe.

"Our web-site attracts over 430,000 page hits a year, when I look at the break down of countries that have viewed our site more than once as this could be by accident, it is just about every country in the world, all of Europe, Asia, Africa, USA, Russia etc.

"Ex pats living abroad love the site and followers of history love the photos and text that accompanies them."

Carlo said he knew of several academics, genealogy magazines and history publications who used the site for information and referencing.

He added: "Both the website and facebook page feed the quest for knowledge about our ancestors, doesn't matter if you came from Aireborough or a long distant relative did, we have photographic evidence which is so much better than lists and directories.

"When I contacted a lady from Indonesia who had asked to use one of our photos from the Guiseley section and asked her what her interest was, as she clearly had a native Indonesian name, she said that her great granddad came from Guiseley and she was researching the family tree. This is not a rare occurrence."

Vist http://www.aireboroughhistoricalsociety.co.uk or https://www.facebook.com/AirboroughHistoricalSociety to find out more about AHS and its work.