  A new method for the determination of open cluster membership based on a
cumulative effect is proposed. In the field of a plate the relative x and y
coordinate positions of each star with respect to all the other stars are
added. The procedure is carried out for two epochs t_1 and t_2 separately, then
one sum is subtracted from another. For a field star the differences in its
relative coordinate positions of two epochs will be accumulated. For a cluster
star, on the contrary, the changes in relative positions of cluster members at
t_1 and t_2 will be very small. On the histogram of sums the cluster stars will
gather to the left of the diagram, while the field stars will form a tail to
the right. The procedure allows us to efficiently discriminate one group from
another. The greater the distance between t_1 and t_2 and the more cluster
stars present, the greater is the effect. The accumulation method does not
require reference stars, determination of centroids and modelling the
distribution of field stars, necessary in traditional methods. By the proposed
method 240 open clusters have been processed, including stars up to m<13. The
membership probabilities have been calculated and compared to those obtained by
the most commonly used Vasilevskis-Sanders method. The similarity of the
results acquired the two different approaches is satisfactory for the majority
of clusters.
