Our Instructors

Sherry Irvine, BA (History), MSc. CG, Courtenay, BC, Canada

Sherry has been teaching family history for over 25 years. In the classroom she has taught for college adult education and credit programs. She has lectured in Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. She has been teaching online for eight years and was one of the first to present genealogy classes via the Web.

Sherry's genealogical background includes establishing and managing her own business for 11 years, a bookstore and research service. She sold the business to concentrate on writing, teaching and lecturing. Sherry is the author of Your English Ancestry (2nd ed. 1998) and Scottish Ancestry: Research Methods for Family Historians (2003) and co-author of Finding Your Canadian Ancestors (2007). From the start of her career she has been involved in local and professional organizations. In 2005 the Association of Professional Genealogists presented her with the Smallwood Award of Merit for services to the organization and to genealogy.


Courses:

• Scotland 1750 - 1850: Beyond the OPRs
• Ireland: A Practical Approach to Family History
• Researching Irish Ancestors Before 1820
• One to One Tutorial

Publications:

                 

Buy Sherry's Books Now - simply click on the book to be taken to the Ancestry Store.

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Helen Osborn BA (History), MA (Archives & Records Management) Merton Park, London, UK (Website)

Helen has been teaching and lecturing on local history, historical records and genealogy for more than 15 years. She is the author of a University of Liverpool accredited distance learning course on records management, and was for many years the Archivist at Young & Co's Brewery PLC. Eleven years ago she established a successful genealogy research company, Helen Osborn Research Ltd.

Her professional research work originally concentrated on census and civil registration but she is mainly to be found nowadays at The National Archives, Kew, where she is one of their independent researchers.  An occasional contributor to family history magazines, she is also the author of three books relating to public houses and brewing.  Helen's Website can be accessed here: http://www.osbornresearch.co.uk.
Courses:

• Introduction to One-Name Studies
• Second Stages in English Research
• The National Archives Catalogue – Searching for People

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Gill Blanchard, BA (History, Sociology), MA, Norwich, Norfolk, UK (Website)

Gill holds a Post Graduate Certificate in adult education and for many years has been teaching courses in family history. She has taught for the adult education program of Norfolk County Council for several years. Independently she has planned her own family history courses and presented them at locations across Norfolk.

Her professional research experience includes working for the Norfolk Record Office and establishing a successful research company. Gill has provided research services for private individuals, academic institutions and authors; her clients are from many parts of the world.

Other genealogical work includes presenting talks for family history societies and other local organizations and writing for journals and magazines. Gill has been working as a genealogist since 1992. Gill's Website can be accessed here: http://www.pastsearch.co.uk.

Courses:

• Become a Better Genealogist
• The Poor, The Parish and The Workhouse: Records in the 1800s
• Searching for Wills and Administrations in England and Wales
• The Parish Chest: There was more to life than baptism, marriage and burial

Publications:

        

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Liz Carter, Huntingdon, UK (Website)

Liz has been teaching and lecturing in family, local and social history for 15 years through adult education centres, the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (based at Madingley Hall, Cambridge) and the Workers Education Association (WEA). Her initial interest in family history soon broadened into local history - everyone has to live somewhere; and then included social history - our ancestors were affected by local and national events. Her specialist areas are 19th century social history, techniques for exploring local history, poverty and death! As well as teaching, Liz also runs a genealogical research business - Backtracks - established in 1989 and appears on the Experts Panel in Practical Family History magazine, answering reader's queries. She has also written and co-edited several local history books.

Courses:

• Victorian Families - Your Ancestors in the Census
• Victorian Law and Order - Links from Court Records
• Enclosure Maps and Records for Family Historians
• Your Family in England 1714 to 1830

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Brian Drescher, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, UK (Website)

Brian has been a trainer for over thirty years, and now teaches family history for the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association). He is the author of WEA courses for beginners and more experienced family historians. Brian also runs his own genealogy research business, English Roots, with customers in the USA, Australia, Canada, the UK and elsewhere in Western Europe. His research for international customers has taken him to many archives in England and Wales. Brian is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and has been awarded the Higher Certificate in Genealogy by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.

Most of Brian’s professional research has been in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His particular interests are in writing family histories and researching occupations. Brian’s “Drescher” ancestors were watch and clockmakers who came to England in the early nineteenth century from the Black Forest area of Germany. His Drescher family history was the focus for a family reunion that took place in 2005 and will be repeated again in 2007.

Courses:

• Writing Your Family History

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Guy Grannum (Website)

Guy Grannum has been researching his English and Bajan ancestry for over 20 years and runs a website dedicated to Caribbean research www.caribbeanroots.co.uk.

He has worked at The National Archives, Kew since 1988 and specialises in Colonial history and genealogy, and especially Caribbean genealogy. He is a qualified archivist and also has a diploma in Genealogy and the History of Family from Birkbeck College, London.

Guy has published two editions of Tracing Your West Indian Ancestors and has written several articles on Caribbean and African-Caribbean genealogy. Since 1993 he given many talks and workshops to archives, family history groups and libraries in London, the Midlands and the South West on sources in the National Archives, genealogy in general, and Caribbean genealogy. Guy was also one of the expert speakers at Who Do You Think You Are? Live in Olympia, 5-7 May 2007.
Courses:

• Caribbean Family History

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Simon Fowler, Kew, Surrey, UK

Simon Fowler is a leading authority on family history and a prolific writer on the subject.

He is editor of the National Archives’ family history magazine Ancestors and a former editor of Family History Monthly.

In addition to his experience as a writer and lecturer on family history, he has been interested in military history for a long time, particularly in the lives of ordinary soldiers and officers. His many books include Tracing Your First World War Ancestors, The Joy of Family History and Army Records for Family Historians (with William Spencer).

Simon lives in Kew.


Courses:

• Military Men and Women: Records of Britain's Armed Forces 1750 – 1920

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Ruth Davies, BA Hons, Postgraduate Diploma Archives and Records Management, Hope, North Wales, UK

Ruth Davies is a qualified archivist who has worked at a number of record offices in England and Wales. She has also worked as the Community Heritage co-ordinator in Chester, which involved bringing local history sources into schools and community centres.

Ruth has also designed and taught adult education classes in family history. She enjoys broadening her students’ perceptions of social history and giving them knowledge or ideas that stay with them. Recently she has started a research service as an independent researcher and transcriber, mainly at the Flintshire Record Office, where her work ranges from transcribing deeds and estate documents to searching parish records for a wide variety of clients.


Courses:

• Old Handwriting for Family Historians

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Barbara H. Baker, BA (Family History), AG

Barbara has worked as a British Reference consultant at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, for 25 years. As part of her work, she has created many British research aids now available online through FamilySearch.org. She has also created and taught numerous classes in British research, particularly for England and Scotland. Barbara is accredited in English genealogical research through ICAPGenSM. She has worked as a professional genealogist, has lectured at genealogical conferences in the United States and Britain, and is currently an instructor in British research subjects for the annual Institute of the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History.

Barbara has enjoyed researching her family history since her teens and has published one family history and is working another. Her ancestry is almost entirely British and most lines have been in America since the 17th century.


Courses:

• Organizing Your Genealogy

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Chris Paton

Originally from Northern Ireland, Chris works as a genealogist and writer in Ayrshire, running the Scotland’s Greatest Story research service at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk , with clients based around the world. Formerly a television documentary maker on history series such as War Walks, Secret History, Time Flyers and Meet the Ancestors, he took voluntary redundancy from BBC Scotland in 2006 after twelve years in the industry.

A holder of a Postgraduate Diploma in Genealogical Studies, and a regular writer for several British genealogy magazines, Chris was also a contributing author to The Sword and the Cross (accompanying the BBC series) concerning the history of the Church in Scotland, and is currently completing a beginners guide to Scottish family history research. He also runs a Scottish genealogy news blog at www.ScottishAncestry.blogspot.com , gives regular talks to local family history societies, and maintains an online database on First World War British civilian POWs interned at Ruhleben in Germany (http://ruhleben.tripod.com).

Amongst Chris’s ancestors are the victim of a 19th Century axe murder, a ship builder on the Titanic, several spiritualists and missionaries, whilst one of his cousins was a chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II for eleven years.


Courses:

• Scottish Research Online

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Kirsty Gray, MChem, PGCE, DipCrim, Reading, UK

Kirsty has been teaching Science and Mathematics for seven years in secondary schools in Berkshire. Beginning family history at the tender age of just seven with her maternal grandfather’s tree in hand, she became obsessed with her great-grandmothers maiden name of SILLIFANT and began a one-name study on the name in 1999, publishing tri-annual journals on the surname for the last five years. Kirsty took up genealogy professionally whilst training to be a teacher in 2002 and now runs ‘Family Business’, undertaking work for private individuals, solicitors, academics and companies worldwide.

She is a regular author for Practical Family History and Family Tree Magazine and a lecturer of wide acclaim. On the voluntary side of family history, Kirsty has been Secretary of the Guild of One-Name Studies (GoONS) since January 2004 and has organised three of their last four annual conferences as well as reinvigorating the local regional meetings in Berkshire. In more recent times, she has taken on the role of Secretary of Devon Family History Society and she is currently working on a one-place study on the Devon parishes of Tetcott and Luffincott with a view to publishing a book on the last two centuries of village life.


Courses:

• Discover Your Devon Ancestors

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