A HOLLYWOOD actress who starred in Superman films has returned home to trace her ancestors.

American movie star Margot Kidder wants to track down relatives of her family who originally lived on a farm near Hay-on-Wye.

The actress is world famous after starring in the 1978 blockbuster movie as Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve’s Superman.

Despite her family leaving their farm in Llanigon and sailing to New York from Liverpool in 1854, she now wants to find out more about her ancestors on this side of the pond so travelled back to the area recently.

At Brecon Library she managed to access the 1851 census for Llanigon to look specifically at Llwynllyrd and the Powell families.

She found a printed a list of people with the Powell family name, to cross-reference against the names on the ship’s manifest.

Ms Kidder was then able to use the public computers to correspond with a family member who could shed more light on her research.

Although her search didn’t come up with any immediate results, mainly because the Powell name was quite common in the area at the time, she wasn’t deterred and plans to do more family research.

The movie star thanked staff at Brecon Library for helping her and presented them with two signed posters that advertised the ‘Daily Planet’ – the fictional newspaper that her alter ego Lois Lane works for.