Judie McCourt
Judie is an independent scholar, with a passion for family history going back more than 20 years, as well as a fascination for the local history of her village. After a career with an American multinational company which involved delivering engaging training sessions as well as presenting on technical issues, she is now retired.
In 2021 she was one of the founding members of the Ballantrae History Group, and her presentations on village topics are popular and well received. Judie runs the Ballantrae One Place Study and is a regular contributor to the Few Forgotten Women project.
Debbie Kennett
Debbie is a well known author and speaker and an internationally recognised expert on genetic genealogy. She is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.
She is the author of two books: DNA and Social Networking and The Surnames Handbook and is the DNA expert for Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. She has had numerous articles published in family history magazines and has co-authored a number of highly cited papers in peer-reviewed academic journals.
She has been interviewed about genetic ancestry testing for BBC Radio 4, appearing on You and Yours and The Business of Genetic Ancestry, and has also appeared on TV on the BBC programme Watchdog. She is often asked to comment on DNA stories for the UK and US press and has been cited in numerous publications including The Times, The Observer, New Scientist, The Atlantic and The Washington Post.
Donna Rutherford
Donna Rutherford, a London-based Genetic Genealogist, combines her New Zealand heritage with deep ancestral ties to England, Scotland, and Ireland. Her passion for genealogy began in her teens, leading to her first DNA test in 2015.
Since 2017, Donna has shared her expertise internationally, demystifying DNA research for audiences around the world. As a dedicated Facebook group administrator, she helps others unravel DNA mysteries, offering guidance on complex cases like unknown parentage, surprise results, and foundlings.
For this conference, Donna ventures into a different kind of mystery, using her code-cracking skills to uncover the captivating story of a young couple from Norfolk.
Presentation
Margaret Roberts
Margaret Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an academic author, speaker, experienced researcher, and genealogist who specialises in Sports History.
She works as an independent researcher, although in recent years she has also been engaged on research projects within Higher Education. Her publications include a book on Victorian swimming communities, academic journal papers on women’s football, teacher training, and Victorian swimming baths and their employees.
She has presented on all these topics at several public history and academic forums both at home and abroad. Margaret is the editor of Britain’s only online Sport and Leisure History magazine Playing Pasts [www.playingpasts.co.uk] as well as Chair of the Family History Society of Cheshire, Society Liaison Officer and Trustee for the Family History Federation, Trustee of Devon Family History Society, Independent Researcher Representative and Trustee of the British Society of Sports History, and a core member of the Few Forgotten Women team.
Alan Moorhouse
Alan Moorhouse started researching his family history 1976 whilst still at school after seeing the old Moorhouse family bible for the first time. In time he really focused on his maternal great grandmother’s surname of Farmery and this developed into a worldwide one-name study.
A Guild of One-Name Studies member since 1994, he is vice-chair of the Seminar Team and co-organised their 2019 40th anniversary annual conference and the 2 conferences post-COVID.
He has been a speaker at numerous Guild seminars and most recently at Family History Down Under in Sydney. He is also membership secretary of the Cave FHS.
Dr. Calista Williams
Maggie Gaffney
Maggie Gaffney is a professional genealogist and speaker living in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. A fourth-generation Kiwi, she has traced her ancestors back to Ireland, England and Scotland. Maggie is a tutor with the Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies (IHGS), and holds their Diploma in Genealogy as well as an Advanced Diploma in Local History from the University of Oxford. She is an Associate of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) and a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Her current obsession is a One Place Study on the clipper ship Mermaid.
Recent presentations have been for Connections 2025 Australasian Congress, Unlock the Past’s 18th History & Genealogy cruise, APG, IHGS, Auckland Family History Expo, and local branches of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists.
Paul Blake
is a researcher, lecturer and writer and holds the Diploma in Genealogy from the Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies. His particular research interests are London and Gibraltar.
Paul was born in Wimbledon where he has lived all his life, so far. Until 1996 he followed a career as an interior and graphic designer.
From the mid-1980s Paul taught classes in family history at all levels, from beginners to advanced. He has lectured widely on a variety of family history and related subjects, in England, in North America, Australia and elsewhere overseas, and on cruise ships. He is joint author of the books, The complete guide to creating your own family tree and Discover your roots, and author of Discover Protestant nonconformity in England & Wales and Discover the Poor Law in England and Wales, and most recently, Tracing Your Insolvent Ancestors: a guide for family & local historians.
He is a regular contributor to Who Do You Think You Are? magazine and other periodicals. For many years he compiled the monthly Q&As section for Family History Monthly. Paul has appeared as an expert on Heir Hunters, and both the British and American series of Who Do You Think You Are? He has worked as an advisor to the History Channel and the BBC and undertook research into the family histories of several ‘celebrities’ for the Sunday Magazine.
Presentation
Karen de Bruyne
Karen is professional genealogist with a Post Graduate Certificate in Genealogy from University of Strathclyde and an AGRA Associate. She has over 20 years research experience from around the world, with a particular interest in Occupations, London families and those who passed through British India and Far East and Dutch Indies.
She achieved a certificate in British India Ancestors from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, also an approved researcher at the British Library in Asia and Africa Reading room for family history.
Karen is an experienced speaker on family history online or live (20 years adult teaching experience)!
Karen has a website https://notjustanyfamily.wordpress.com, where she shares some of her own family stories and local history.
Presentation
Stuart Stevenson
Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, Stewart Stevenson was educated at the local school – Bell Baxter – and studied Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen, graduating in 1969. Thirty years later, he retired from Bank of Scotland as Director of Technology Innovation. Some of his software, written over 50 years ago, remains in regular use.
He then lectured on project management to post-graduate students at Heriot-Watt University and was subsequently elected to the Scottish Parliament. He served there for 20 years and during that time held the posts of Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, and Minister for Environment and Climate Change. He was also Convenor of Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. He has been responsible for five Parliamentary Acts and 132 pieces of secondary legislation.
In retirement, he studied for an MSc in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies at the Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies, which is part of the University of Strathclyde. He hopes to graduate shortly.
He is editor of the Scottish Genealogist, which since 1954 has been the quarterly journal of the Scottish Genealogy Society (SCIO). He holds the honorary post of President of the Scottish Association for Public Transport.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, a Fellow of the RSA, and a Member at The Institution of Engineering and Technology. He has spoken in every continent bar the Arctic regions and lives in Edinburgh.
Sarah Wise
SARAH WISE teaches 19th-century social history and literature to undergraduates and adult learners and is visiting professor at the University of California’s London Study Center. Her TV work includes providing background material for BBC1’s ‘Secret History of Our Streets’, and BBC2’s ‘The Victorian Slum’, and she has twice been the history expert on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.
Most recently, she spoke about Charles Booth’s Poverty Map on Lucy Worsley Investigates: Jack the Ripper https://shorturl.at/gWJZJ
Her new book is The Undesirables: The Law That Locked Away a Generation (Oneworld, April 2024), which examines the plight of the 50,000 people who were confined under an extraordinarily illiberal parliamentary measure, the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Her debut, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. It was the inspiration for Sky’s The Frankenstein Chronicles. Her follow-up, The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum, was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, and was the basis for the BBC’s series The Victorian Slum. Her third book, Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad Doctors, was shortlisted for the 2014 Wellcome Prize.
Kate Keter
Kate Keter has been researching family trees for over 30 years. Beginning by seeking out the origins of her husband’s surname her research soon expanded to include first her own family, and then others. What started as a hobby grew, eventually took up more and more time and led to Kate completing an MSc in Genealogical Studies from Strathclyde University in 2016. She now works as a professional genealogist at Family Tree Tales based in Linlithgow, a small town to the west of Edinburgh, researching all aspects of family history for local, national and international clients. She is a tutor on the Post Graduate Diploma and Family History courses at Strathclyde Institute of Genealogy. She is a regular speaker and workshop leader at online and in-person conferences on various Family History related topics. Kate is a member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists (RQG) and the Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (ASGRA).
Dr. Janet Few
Janet Few has been actively seeking her ancestors for nearly half a century. She is an experienced family, social and community historian who is sought after as a lecturer throughout the UK, overseas and at sea. She has written several books of interest to family historians and contributes to academic and more popular local and family history journals. Her more recent output includes the Pen and Sword publications, Marginalised Ancestors and A History of Women’s Work. A qualified family historian, Janet also holds a certificate in adult education, a post-graduate certificate in experimental archaeology and a doctorate in applied local history. As one of the team behind the ‘A Few Forgotten Women’ initiative https://www.fewforgottenwomen.com, Janet seeks to tell the stories of women who history might otherwise overlook. She tutors several online courses for Pharos Teaching and Tutoring, including Putting your Female Ancestors in Context.
Janet is passionate about engaging people of all ages with history and heritage and seeks innovative ways to bring this about. Further information can be found on her website http://thehistoryinterpreter.com.
Dr. Gwyneth Wilkie
Dr. Gwyneth Wilkie took early retirement from an academic career in the late 1990s and followed the the Skills courses at the Society of Genealogists. Since then her focus has broadened beyond her own family ancestry. In pursuit of the stories behind the records she has explored topics such as the introduction of civil registration and developed an interest in local history. She has written numerous articles and taken part in a local U3A project Amersham Remembers: the Men Who Gave Their Lives in the Great War. She has volunteered in various capacities, being part of the Events Team at SoG and undertaking various small pieces of research for Amersham Museum. She wrote brief histories of a medical practice, a calico printing firm and the British Schools in Amersham before embarking on a two-year study of the Amersham Union Workhouse. This centres on the career paths of the men and women who staffed it during the nineteenth century.
Presentation
Else Churchill
Else Churchill is the Genealogist at the Society of Genealogists in London with over 40 years of experience as a genealogist and educator. Along with teaching the joint SoG/Pharos course on sources for the long 18th century her main research interests lie in the seventeenth century and the common folk who lived through the English Civil Wars.
Her own family history research is concentrated in SW Herefordshire in the 1670s but having exhausted most of the surviving local sources for this period and with little chance of taking this family back further, she has recently been concentrating more on 20th century scandals in her immediate family and applying DNA studies to her genealogy
