Why choose “Professional Family History” for your genealogy research?

I am a Member of AGRA, the UK Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives, and as such have agreed to be bound AGRA’s Code of Practice. AGRA (with its counterpart in Scotland, ASGRA) is the only UK based professional body which carries out an assessment of future members’ quality of work and business strategy before approving membership. I am also a member of the US Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and have committed to abide by their Code of Ethics.

I am a member of the Society of Genealogists (SoG) and the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS) as well as the family history societies for Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Birmingham and the Midlands.

Before embarking on a career in genealogy I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for thirteen years. I am a qualified Pharmacist and have a PhD in pharmaceutical development. My time in scientific research resulted in my having a proven aptitude for research, analysis and report writing. I have a keen attention to detail and maintain high standards of work. The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated and my history of capturing experiments conducted and assumptions made translates well into a research environment where records consulted must be meticulously captured and sources documented before making conclusions which include a level of certainty. In all, both roles provided me with the appropriate level of research skills, attention to detail and integrity to offer a quality genealogy research service.

Having researched my own family history for many years I decided to leave a career in scientific research behind and move to a career as a professional genealogist. I am committed to Continuing Professional Development and am working towards a Higher Certificate and Diploma in Genealogy from the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies (IHGS).

I offer a level of customer service which is focussed on a high level of customer satisfaction. A program of work is agreed with the client ahead of any research commission and the business has a trust policy of refunding any whole unused hours should initial estimates prove excessive or research not progress as anticipated. My research reports are of a format which reflect my academic training: all reports have a clear background and objectives that have been agreed with the client. The detailed research report includes full citations of any sources used, where they were examined and in what format. Reports also include an analysis of the findings, any conclusions that may be drawn, with an indication of the level of certainty that may be attributed, and suggestions for further work where appropriate

I am registered with the ICO as a data controller under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Many companies produce family trees using the General Register Office (GRO) indexes to birth, marriage and death and census records only and may offer copies of birth, marriage or death certificates at additional cost to the client. Others provide a limited number of certificates. My personal belief is that, unless additional information is available from other sources, the only way of verifying that the correct birth, marriage or death event has been found for an ancestor in the post-1837 indexes is from a copy of the appropriate certificate. Professional Family History’s family tree packages therefore include certificates for all birth, marriage and death events for direct ancestors, wherever possible. At a current cost of £9.25 per certificate around 30% of the package prices are actually purchase of certificates.

Please see the Specialities page for my areas of expertise.