Tracing Your Ancestors : About Us

Jane is a qualified teacher/lecturer, former Ofsted Inspector of schools and educational adviser for a UK local education authority with responsibility for providing training courses and organizing conferences. She has produced numerous educational publications and has been consulting editor to a number of educational publishers. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and has been engaged in genealogical research for the past sixteen years. This has included providing research services for members of the world's largest family history website - serving clients in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada and Australia.

Jane is committed to offering a professional service to those wishing to trace their family tree either through conducting research on their behalf or through teaching them how to conduct their own.

Beyond providing research services and training, Jane specialises in developing family trees, family history books and websites that ‘bring to life’ the period of history in which your ancestors lived. As such, in developing books or websites for clients, or in teaching clients how to develop their own, great emphasis is placed on the inclusion of supporting material that provides an insight into how people lived their lives in a particular location, at a particular time in history. For example, research of a recent client’s family led to For another client, discovery that one of his ancestors had served with Nelson in the late 1700s led to inclusion of information about what life was like for mariners who served under Nelson in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Following the death of my parents in the 1990s, I realized that I knew very little about my father’s ancestors - only that his father had been born in London, England and his mother in Ireland. My quest to learn about my roots led me on a journey of discovery of people and places that I would never have imagined and gave me a fascinating insight into how people lived at certain points in history.

That this quest became addictive is an understatement and over the years my tree grew to include not only my main paternal line traced back to the 1500s but also branches of this line, one of which I traced back to pre 1066. Further research included maternal line ancestors, by which time I had discovered ancestors who were farmers, blacksmiths, shopkeepers, shoemakers, collarmakers, dressmakers, clerks, innkeepers, master mariners, coastguards, Sheriffs of Devon, Earls, Kings of England and Norman Knights. The trail led me across counties in southern England & Ireland, and grew to encompass other European countries.

As time passed I came to appreciate a number of valuable outcomes in my quest to discover my ancestors. One being a renewed and almost insatiable interest in history and another the discovery of living relatives not only in the UK but also in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

From becoming inundated with requests from friends to carry out research on their behalf or to provide them with training, I moved on to taking clients on a professional basis. I now provide research services, training and genealogy holidays in England and Southern Spain. I am passionate about all things to do with genealogy and carry that passion into my work for my clients.

I wanted to be able to pass the book on to my grandchildren so that they they could learn about their Scottish origins! We were amazed to discover that the whole family on both sides came from Ireland via Scotland and that you even managed to find the Conville ancestors living in a mountain village in county Derry. My sister and I are planning to visit there next year. Many, many thanks for a superb book.
P. Conville, Marbella, Spain

It was fascinating to learn that one of my ancestors had served as a boatswain under Nelson amongst others before going to run an Inn in Swansea's port district. We just loved the tale of how Nelson recognised the sound of Tom's old boatswain's whistle from among the crowds when he visited Swansea in 1802. Quite something to have in the family history book! You have inspired us to carry on with the work. Thank you so much for a job very well done!
B. Evans, Cardiff, Wales