How it all began

My route to a genealogy career was an unconventional one. Researching my own family history had never even crossed my mind.

I was working as a freelance writer when a family friend asked if I would like to help him with a project. He had a box of family documents and wondered if I would be interested in taking a look, and perhaps transcribing the most interesting ones.

The ‘box’ turned out to be a big metal steamer trunk, packed with bundles of family letters from the mid 1800s. Many of them were from my friend’s great grandfather, to his mother and father. This young man had been sent to naval college in Portsmouth in 1858, at the tender age of 13, and his letters plotted his global sea-going adventures – and misadventures – in exquisite detail.

As well as transcribing, organising and cataloguing all the letters, I did some background research on the ships, countries and events described in the letters. I was hooked, and I began to wonder if people did this sort of thing for a living…

I enrolled on the University of Strathclyde’s wonderful postgraduate programme in Genealogical Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies, and completed the Postgraduate Diploma in 2023. I was awarded a Register of Qualified Genealogists’  student prize for my final project, a study of the genealogy and heraldry of the Boughton of Little Lawford pedigree held at the Society of Genealogists in London.

I now work as a freelance genealogist and writer, and am also the sub-editor for Family Tree Magazine.

I look forward to taking you on your own genealogy adventure. Why not get in touch for an informal, no-obligation chat about how I might be able to help you?