At first glance the black and white image of a 19th-century document recording the marriage of excise officer Alfred Blaker to footman's daughter Victoria Alberta McDonald looks unremarkable.

However, on closer inspection it becomes clear that the young couple were joined at their wedding on November 4, 1897, at Crathie, Balmoral, by none other than Queen Victoria, whose distinctive one-name signature is scrawled half-way down the column listing witnesses.

You would expect the present Queen to be well informed about her family history, good and bad, but when she sees the 111-year-old marriage schedule today on the online archive at Scotland's new genealogy centre, which will be officially opened by Her Majesty, it may be news to her.

These kinds of unknown facts about relations are often what sparks people's lasting fascination with tracing their roots, and the Blakers' descendants might be intrigued to learn that the monarch had agreed to be a witness at their ancestors' nuptuals near the royal family's Scottish home. While the Queen will have a chance to do some research for herself at the £7.5m facility, it is hoped that all kinds of people from Scotland and around the world will file through its doors when it opens to the public on August 25.

Called ScotlandsPeople Centre, the new research base at General Register House and New Register House in Edinburgh brings together the documents held by the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon for the first time on an up-to-date computerised system.

The name change is aimed at attracting the growing number of people inspired to trace family trees by TV programmes such as BBC1's Who Do You Think You Are? but who may be put off by the imposing titles of the bodies responsible for keeping records.

It is also hoped, however, that housing the 168 computer terminals in the newly restored buildings at the east end of Princes Street will allow people to take advantage of technolog-ical advances for research, while retaining the historical inspiration of the centre's surroundings.

While once the curious amateur genealogist was left to tramp painstakingly around graveyards in a vain hope of stumbling upon clues to their origins, the new base will provide access to digital images of more than 60 million records, covering births, marriages, deaths, wills, testaments, census records, coats of arms and parish registers dating as far back as 1553.

As a result it will be possible to go back 200 years within a matter of hours, finding anything from the ubiquitous skeletons in the closet to previously unknown rich relations. Unveiling the new centre yesterday ahead of today's official opening, deputy registrar general Paul Parr claimed it was "the easiest place in the UK, probably Europe and maybe beyond" for people to unravel the mysteries of their families.

Asking for a surname and year of birth, he types both into a search box on screen to bring up an image of the correct original birth certificate within seconds.

He says: "From this you can see the parents' details, including their dates of birth, so you can use that information to keep on going back and back through the archives.

"This is the first time all three record collections have been available in the same location so it is much more convenient for people. The search facilities in this new system are also more advanced, more intuitive."

For around £1 a time, people can download images from the archives, such as coats of arms, on to a computer memory stick. Documents such as birth certificates can be printed for about 50p for an A4 copy. The cost of using the new centre will be a flat fee of £10 a day, far less than the £17 a day which has been charged to use facilities in the past.

Moving into the Adam Dome, named after the famous architect (Robert Adam) who designed it, Mr Parr gestures to 36 terminals in the circular room where people will be able to enjoy free two-hour taster sessions to introduce customers to family history.

Weighty volumes of property records dating back to at least the 1800s line the walls, while a statue of King George III, who helped fund the national registers, stands to one side.

"Some of these records are already online and you could sit at home on the internet and do some of this but it is very inspiring to come to these historic buildings, especially if you are returning to your homeland from overseas," adds Mr Parr.

The benefits to Scotland's tourist industry of such a comprehensive heritage centre are clear, with hopes that countless clan-conscious North Americans, Australians and New Zealanders researching their roots will be inspired to tour the country further.

Mr Parr says: "If you find you had relatives who worked in the jute industry in Dundee, wouldn't it be good to go to Dundee and see where they worked, or if you discover you are related to an Aberdeenshire farmer, wouldn't it be good to go there?"

The centre is timed to open months before the launch of Homecoming Scotland 2009, the inaugural national cultural celebration starting on the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns's birth and lasting until St Andrew's Day.

James Lakie of VisitScotland says: "Ancestral tourism is up there as one of the top reasons people come to Scotland. Now they will be able to do family searches in the same context as exploring Scotland's cultural and scenic heritage."

If the impact of putting Scotland's 1901 census records online in 2002 is any guide, the new centre will be as popular as is hoped. Around 714,000 people around the world are registered users of the online version of the census, including 21 individuals in the Vatican.

The 1901 census for England and Wales caused even more of a stir with 1.5 million hits an hour instead of the 1.2 million a day the system was designed for when it was launched online in 2001.

Meanwhile, with the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, which attracts an average 6.5 million viewers a programme, returning in September, public appetite for more personal intrigue from the past is set to keep on growing.

Patsy Kensit is among the celebrities in the latest series of the show, where she discovers unsettling revelations about her late father, who was an associate of the Kray Twins.

According to the programme makers, the actress was so upset that parts of the programme had to be cut during editing. Sarah Williams, editor of the offshoot Who Do You Think You Are? magazine which launched in October, believes the celebrity factor has helped people search their family's history.

"Serious family historians can be offputting for new and amateur searchers," she says. "People started to look back at what they had achieved and found they wanted to know more. That historical momentum was growing in the months before the turn of the century and has continued."

'My search took me back four generations in 30 minutes'
By Gillian McLachlan
AS I scrutinised the marriage certificate of my great-grandfather, which had popped up on the computer screen only moments before, it appeared that not much had changed in my family in over 100 years.

Archibald McIntyre McLachlan was married in 1900 and died in 1964, 20 years before my own birth. His wife was called Jessie, they called their son Archibald McIntyre McLachlan and their daughter Jessie. They were all born and raised in Glasgow, where my own father grew up too. He's called Norman - so finally a departure from the family naming tradition.

With the current trend in genealogy, stemming from programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are?, I was secretly hoping to discover a hidden link to a publicly recognised figure. I didn't. Instead I became engrossed in viewing birth and marriage certificates of my ancestors which I had never seen before. Three of my grandparents died before I was seven and my memories of them are often faint.

Now I studied their signatures and the details which had been completed on these significant dates in their lives, I felt a surprisingly strong connection with the past, inevitably forcing a comparison with the present.

I realised that there were certain significant differences between now and then.

My great-grandfather was a butcher's salesman in Eastwood. I'd love to know more. If I'd had more time I could have looked at the census records and found out where he lived or who his neighbours were.

In those days, names were passed from generation to generation as a kind of heirloom (rather than derived by the latest celebrity), marriages and careers lasted for life and families stayed in one place. Now many of these factors are deemed temporary and I can imagine future generations going on a similar trip into their family history noticing these dramatic changes.

My search at the General Register House in Edinburgh - obtaining birth certificates to use as a basis for further study - took me back four generations in 30 minutes.