About Me

I started a small self employed business in professional genealogy and historical research in 1998 and now after over 15,000 hours’ work as an independent researcher have encountered just about every type of research problem and project, small and large. The problems and puzzles I overcame on my journey firstly inspired me to teach others how to avoid all the mistakes I made, and secondly have resulted in a very large amount of writing on genealogy, some of which I hope to feature here in the Articles section.

My own family history project started in the 1980s over many, many Saturdays while my husband worked weekends and now reaches back 20 generations and covers almost every county in England (and some in Switzerland and Italy as well). It is endlessly fascinating and overwhelming at the same time.

I am a qualified archivist and have a first-class degree in history as well as an MA in archives and records management. I have been a member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) with 6 years on the AGRA Board of Assessors, and have lectured at a number of family history society conferences and given many talks on a large variety of historical and family history topics.

I taught family history for many years and in 2006 was co-owner and founder of Pharos Tutors, the first provider of fully online genealogy education in the UK.  I retired from teaching and running Pharos in 2020. I have also been a consultant and researcher for the popular BBC series “Who Do You Think You Are?” as well as the USA version of the same show.

My books include two genealogy guide books, see the Books section for more on them.

I am now retired from client research and concentrating on my own family history and my writing.

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