I am passionate about genealogy! I shall never give up trying to fill the gaps in my own pedigree but I also love helping other people look into their own.
I have helped dozens of clients to solve a wide variety of “problems” about their ancestry. Here are just a few examples:
- Stephen had been told that his grandfather had died in a motorcycle accident in the 1920s. I discovered that he had simply moved to another part of town and lived until the 1970s! Along the way I was able to trace Stephen’s family back five generations.
- Bob had never heard of his distant cousin Mary Ann until I discovered that she had been transported to Tasmania in the 1830s. And that she later raised a large family whose descendants are now in contact with Bob’s family.
- Pam had heard that her great grandfather had led an eventful life but was amazed when I found that he was a soldier who had won a medal in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882.
- David had not heard from a good friend since the 1980s. I found that his friend had died but we put David in touch with his friend’s daughter who was thrilled to meet “Uncle David”.
- One of our local history societies wanted to honour the village’s World War One dead. Over the course of a year I researched over 80 names from the War Memorial and built a website to make the information available to the local community.
- Keith (not me!) asked me to look into a family legend of an uncle who was said to have brought home a “Red Indian” lady in the years before World War One. My research found that the man’s wife was indeed a member of the Cherokee Nation … and that the uncle had been badly injured in a knife fight with his wife’s lawyer in an Oklahoma court-room in 1917!
Not all Family History projects have exciting outcomes but they invariably throw up interesting (and sometimes sad) surprises. And I am pleased to say that my customers are invariably satisfied with their results.