Scotland is to have a new museum dedicated to retelling the story of the thousands of Scots who sought a better life overseas in the past 200 years.

The Scottish Emigration Museum will bring together online stories of the hopes, fears and ambitions of the Scottish diaspora that left to seek a new life in places such as Australasia, the US and Canada. It will be one of the first new projects to be co-ordinated by Museums Galleries Scotland, the new guise of the former Scottish Museums Council.

Museums Galleries Scotland, which launches its new identity today, is the new name for the former SMC, a body which represents more than 340 museums and galleries in Scotland, and whose membership includes all the 32 local authorities, more than 160 trusts, nine universities and three national collections, including the National Galleries of Scotland.

The Emigration Museum is one of two major new projects set to be part funded by Museums Galleries Scotland, alongside a project, called Their Past, Your Future, which will try and document and archive the wartime experiences of Scotland's veterans abroad and on the home front.

The Emigration Museum, which will cost around £300,000 to establish, will be organised in concert with the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library and museums in local authority areas. It is hoped that its first content - testimonies, pictures, stories and archive sounds and footage - will be online by 2009, which is to be marketed as the Year of Homecoming by the Scottish Government.

A funding programme, launched by Homecoming Scotland, a Scottish Government initiative, is also aiming to encourage Scots and people of Scottish descent to return to Scotland in 2009, which marks the 250th birthday of Robert Burns. The museum will not have a building but will work online, covering the events and consequences of the Highland Clearances, post-war emigration, as well as the rich history of Scots who made their fame and fortunes overseas.

"We have already had massive interest in the museum from other countries about this idea, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as you might expect," said Carl Watt, the MGS's head of external relations.

"We now will begin mapping all the archives across the country to see what material we have already. The site will be essentially a history of Scottish emigration, just like a physical exhibition, but online.

"It will be a very extensive museum, and will tell the story of the influence Scottish emigration has had and continues to have."

He added: "The Scottish diaspora now numbers in the millions, and there is still a fascination with Scotland in that community. People with Scottish descent are very proud of that fact, there is an interest in family trees, and people always want to know where they have come from."

Their Past, Your Future is the second part of a war archive project, and is hoped to be completed by 2010. It will gather memories and other materials from veterans. Like the Emigration Museum, it will utilise the many local authority museums, and £570,000 has been set aside for it - already 22 different bodies have applied for its funds in order to begin the gathering of material.

"It is a very powerful initiative that in its first phase really connected the older generations with the young," Mr Watt said.

"The stories are obviously sometimes very powerful. In this second phase we hope to put together 200 of the stories on a website to anyone can access them."