Britons are "obsessed" with maps and love looking at them in their spare time, with many keen to find out more about their local area and the history of their home.

Almost three-quarters of respondents to a poll by website old-maps.co.uk said that they enjoyed looking at maps, while two thirds said that they would like to know what was on the land before their home was built.

Two out of three people quizzed said that they would be interested in finding out where their great-grandparents came from and many associating houses with a "sense of family".

Historian and expert on BBC show Who do you think you are?, Nick Barratt, commented: "These findings underline a growing desire to find out more about our roots - not just the people we are related to, but the places we came from and the communities in which we lived.

"This fascination with our ancestral and current houses shows that personal heritage is taking over from family history as the new way of understanding the world around us."

The poll suggests that Britons are interested in their family geography, with Scots having the best knowledge about where their family comes from and Londoners knowing the least about where they live.

Interestingly, younger people were most interested in learning more about the site history of their house and women were more curious about their geographical past than men.

May is Museums and Galleries Month in Britain, with the theme People, Who Are We? exploring the relationship between museums and identities, with family history and genealogy workshops being held at some site and the past being examined as a means of better understanding identity.