• With So-called ‘heir hunter’ firms snatching millions of pounds out of British inheritance pots each year by charging excessive fees to simply track down relatives of the deceased.
• The fees that they charge are 20% of the inheritance on average, but can rise to 30%, according to research.
• It estimates approximately 60,000 people each year discover they are unable to locate one of the beneficiaries of a will because they are either unknown to the family or they have lost touch.

As two thirds of people in the UK die without making a will (HMRC Sources), Burmieston IGPR believes that there is a percentage of these ‘missing beneficiaries’ can and have to be found by probate genealogists, also referred to as ‘heir locators’ or ‘heir hunters’.

‘I see a strong future for my company as the leading company for international genealogy probate research. The feedback from our clients is that they don’t have the experience, the time, the money or even the basic understanding of where to start or what to do to research their genealogy. They would rather have companies like ours do the work for them. We aim to make ourselves the market leader for personal genealogy and archive research and give our clients the benefit of our knowledge and experience.

Kevan Adams
BSc (Honours) Computer Studies, class of 2009

To view the page from Sheffield Hallam University Alumni, please follow the link below.

Sheffield Hallam University: – Alumni Profiles

Originally from Scotland, Kevan moved to Sheffield permanently after graduating in 2009. With assistance from the Enterprise Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, he set up family history research company A Family Tree for Me, where he works as a senior genealogist.

‘There have been many challenges in starting my own business, particularly in getting to grips with the business concepts, rules and regulations and the financial implications. My first challenge was overcoming the fear of failure. It’s a scary time when you first start and I really had to believe in myself and the services that I offer.

‘One of the main challenges was creating an internet presence that would be innovative and inspirational. It turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks I have ever come across and we ended up having four separate web developers working on the project before the website was completed. It was a frustrating time but a great learning experience for me.

‘Throughout the process I was in regular contact with the Sheffield Enterprise Agency, Steel City and the Enterprise Centre at Sheffield Hallam who helped me access the funding and advice I needed to see the website through to its successful conclusion.

‘It has taken over a year of very hard work and learning to get to the point where we are working on several unique family research projects. Each client’s project brings its own set of challenges – from trying to find documents relating to people who have double-barrelled names, to clients that have no knowledge of any of their ancestors at all. We have to do a lot of detective work.

‘At the moment we are working with a variety of clients. We have one who thinks that they may be related to a famous historical figure – they changed history worldwide through the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom. We also have a client who has asked us to try and prove the truth behind an artefact that was sent to them.

‘I see a strong future for my company as the leading research company for genealogy and archives. The feedback from our clients is that they don’t have the experience, the time, the money or even the basic understanding of where to start or what to do to research their genealogy. They would rather have companies like ours do the work for them. We aim to make ourselves the market leader for personal genealogy and archive research and give our clients the benefit of our knowledge and experience.

‘Studying at Sheffield Hallam University gave me the confidence to show that I have a valuable set of skills. It has provided me with opportunities that I had previously thought were unattainable. As a mature student with a disability, I feel privileged to have been given the chance to learn from the diverse range of people and cultures that make up today’s modern university.

‘Being at university was daunting at first, but as time progressed there was an acceptance that knowledge is not only taught by lecturers and tutors, but also by the lifetime of experiences brought by the range of students attending those academic sessions.

‘It doesn’t matter how young or how old you are or whether you are able or disabled, you need to grasp all opportunities with both hands, and give it everything you have. Because there’s only one person that can make you succeed in what you are doing – and that is you’.

Find out more about the business start-up support available to our graduates.

For thousands of genealogists and amateur family historians, the census is helping to re-trace family connections through the ages.

The personal information shared at every census is kept confidential for 100 years. After that, it’s there for the public to explore and find out more about the life and times of their ancestors.

Have you ever ‘lost’ a member of the family, only to rediscover the connection (and perhaps other relatives now living) as you retrace your steps through family history? How thrilling it is to find a long lost name turn up on an old census return. And to see how the famous and infamous completed their census returns long ago.

The 2011 Census is using its online channels to bring professional and family historians together: through the 2011 Census Family History Facebook group and a dedicated family history section on the census website.

Taking part on 27 March 2011 is your chance to help future generations discover their past. By completing your census questionnaire you leave your mark on history. And maybe that’s something your friends and colleagues hadn’t thought about. So we hope you’ll encourage them to do their bit too.

OK. So what do you need to do?

Simply complete your census questionnaire. Every household will get one. All you need to do is answer a few questions about yourself and the people who share your household with you on census day. Everything you tell the census is in strictest confidence and will only be used to produce statistics. ONS will not share your personal information with anyone else.

You can complete your questionnaire online – or by post. But you must do it and get your questionnaire in as soon as possible after census day.

Present day census population statistics are mainly used to identify and understand the variety of needs for public services. They help local authorities, healthcare organisations and other census users to plan services around the needs of local people.

So the census needs everyone to take part in helping tomorrow take shape – and by doing that we help to shape history too.

For more information, visit www.census.gov.uk

Pro Genealogist Blog

Occasionally when discussing NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” with other genealogy enthusiasts they express dismay that only celebrities are featured on the show. Usually these people find it ironic and maybe a little unfair that celebrities like Tim McGraw (who will be featured this Friday at 8/7 central), Steve Buscemi and Rosie O’Donnell are getting free research when they have plenty of money and could afford to pay to have their research done. I can certainly see the reasons behind this frustration, but if you think about how “Who Do You Think You Are?” can benefit the genealogy community as a whole, it’s pretty easy to get past being frustrated.

First of all, it’s important to remember that Americans love celebrities; it’s the reason magazines like People and Us Weekly are so successful. Even if you aren’t particularly interested in celebrities, other Americans are. I think it would be great if a show could feature regular people tracing their roots, but the fact is such a show just wouldn’t have the same mass appeal.

With that said, mass appeal is not only the key to a successful show, but to that successful show greatly benefiting the genealogy community. Look at it this way – as “Who Do You Think You Are?” reaches a larger audience, more people enter the genealogy market. Of course, that’s great for genealogy companies and professional genealogists, but it also impacts other genealogy enthusiasts.

As more people become interested in genealogy, more companies selling genealogy services and products will also enter the market. This means greater competition, which means better quality services and products – all of which will benefit the genealogy consumer.

Resources will also become more widely available. When companies or organizations contemplate microfilming, digitizing or indexing any given resource, one of the major factors they consider is the demand. (Of course there are other things to consider as well like cost, the availability of the records, and who has the rights to the record.) With demand being one of the biggest considerations, and with demand in general going up, the resources you’ve been waiting for are much more likely to become available.

I’m not saying that “Who Do You Think You Are?” is the magic bullet that will fix all the problems in the genealogy world. I do think, though, that when it succeeds in introducing lots of people to our hobby/obsession, then it’s accomplished more than most television shows.

If you’re interested in exploring the records that we hold, our First World War research signpost is a great place to start.

If you’re looking for a soldier or officer, you should head for the digitised soldiers’ service and pension records on Ancestry.co.uk*. You’ll also find medal index cards to download from our website*, along with selected war diaries which describe the movements of army units.

For an intriguing snapshot of the conflict, don’t forget to listen to our Voices of the Armistice podcasts, which offer a unique insight into the variety of our First World War records.

Sheffield Archives will be closed with effect from 11 October 2010 until late summer 2011. This is to allow for the emptying of 45,000 boxes of material from the Archives strong room so that the air conditioning system and boilers can be replaced. To ensure the safety of the unique archive collections, they are being stored off-site during the building works.

Many hundreds of thousands of items have been boxed and wrapped prior to their move. During the closed period all of them will be bar-coded and their details logged on a database. It is essential we get this process right so that we can retrieve a box or document if it is needed by a researcher or member of staff.

We will continue to offer access to fiche and film by removing the Archive’s fiche and film from Shoreham Street to the Local Studies Library in the Central Library (Surrey Street, S1 1XZ). This service will be available from Monday 18th October.

Unfortunately during the period 11 October – 24 December we will not be able to provide access to original archive material. However, from 4 January 2011 we are hoping to make the archives available to researchers on a limited basis. As we will have to transport the archives from the store we will need 10 days advance notice of your visit. It is essential that you ring or email in advance so we can advise you on the availability of the archives.

We realise this closure will have a major impact on your research and the level of service we will be able to offer will be much diminished. However, the installation of state of the art environmental controls in the archive repository will ensure Sheffield’s unique archive collections are preserved in the best conditions and safeguarded for future generations.

We will keep you informed of developments throughout the course of the project by publishing regular bulletins on this web page.

By Bob Rae

Find out more >> Genealogists Global Target

Kevan Adams has combined his IT skills and genealogical expertise to create his own business, with the help of a grant from UK Steel Enterprise.

The former Sheffield City Council IT support analyst has launched his own professional family history research company – afamilytreeforme.com – based at The Hatchery, Sheffield Hallam University’s business incubator.

His interest in family history started a dozen years ago when he began investigating his own Scottish roots.

That led to him adding a post graduate degree in family history to his degree in computer science before setting up his business, with guidance from Sheffield Hallam University and a Kickstart Fund grant from UK Steel Enterprise.

Kevan Adams’ ancestral detective agency isn’t purely web-based, however. He also offers a personal family history investigation service, tracing ancestors, visiting archives, hunting down gravestones and searching parish records.

“I want to work nationally and internationally and envisage 75 per cent of my work will come from places like the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia and New Zealand where people need help to trace their British roots,” said Kevan.

UK Steel Enterprise executive, Allan Wood, said: “The interest generated by television programmes into researching family history has opened up the market for such websites and Kevan’s added personal ancestral investigation service could prove a winner, especially for overseas customers.”

n UK Steel Enterprise is a subsidiary of steel giant Corus, which was set up to encourage economic development in areas hit by steel cutbacks and closures.

The organisation makes equity investments of up to £750,000 and provides unsecured loans of up to £50,000 in addition to funding local community projects which share its objectives.

It established the Kickstart Fund last year to provide small grants to help new entrepreneurs establish businesses in the steel areas of South Yorkshire, Scunthorpe and the West Midlands.

 Published Date: 30 July 2010

Find out more >> Sheffield Telegraph Kevan branches out.

With degrees in computer science and family history, mature graduate Kevan Adams was the perfect choice to set up an internet genealogy business. Made redundant in 2007 by Sheffield Council where he was an IT support analyst, Kevan has started his new business, guided by Sheffield Hallam University to find financial help from a UK Steel Enterprise Kickstart grant to get afamilytreeforme.com up and running.

But the ancestral detection does not end with the computer. Kevan offers a personal family history investigation service, tracing ancestors, visiting archives, hunting down gravestones for their information and searching parish records.

His interest in family history started with his own Scottish background over 12 years ago and continued as a hobby. He then did a post graduate degree in family history and decided to set up his own business.

He said: “I want to work nationally and internationally and envisage 75% of my work will come from places like the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia and New Zealand where people need help to trace their British roots.”

Allan Wood, executive at the Sheffield-based Corus Group subsidiary UK Steel Enterprise ommented: “The interest generated by television programmes into researching family history has opened up the market for such websites and Kevan’s added personal ancestral investigation service could prove a winner, especially for overseas customers.”

UK Steel Enterprise established their Kickstart Fund last year to provide small grants to help new entrepreneurs establish their new businesses in steel areas in South Yorkshire, Scunthorpe area and the West Midlands.

Find out more >> The Star Sheffield – The Thrill of Going Back

Are you of noble stock? Are you a pauper?

These are the types of questions that drive family tree researcher Kevan Adams’ insatiable appetite for genealogy.

“I find it really exciting – it’s a thrill every time I am asked to do a family tree,” he says.

“It’s fascinating to see the lifestyle changes people have gone through over generations. My family were all farmers but at the turn of the 19th century it started to change, some became shop owners and set up small businesses.

“And then when it comes to my generation it’s different again – I was one of the first in our family to go to university.”

Despite the modern notion that one’s family tree can be discovered at the click of a mouse, Kevan’s work is far more hands-on.

“My research often takes me to graveyards and churches, that’s what I do. It’s such an immense thing – it’s a big undertaking. A family tree is tangible – it’s something we can touch and feel.

“It also increases the sense of family and belonging which I think has been lost in recent years. And it allows people to look at how historical events – such as the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, and the introduction of policy such as the Poor Law Act of 1834 – have impacted on their family history.”

Kevan’s passion for genealogy is such that he has put together a genealogy education package and is planning to push it in schools.
“It would be great to get this in primary schools and the early years of secondary education.

“Genealogy incorporates so many subjects. Just taking children around a graveyard covers maths – the grid patterns of a cemetery – and English because the poems and messages on the gravestones point to a particular era, so you can see how language has evolved. It brings history alive.
“If you took children to a World War One cemetery the history would have so much more meaning after they had studied the family tree of a child who had relatives in the war.”

And it does more than bring history to life, as Kevan explains. “It teaches children about values, commitment and conduct. You need to take your time when researching a family tree.”

Genealogy has become increasingly popular since the advent of the BBC series Who Do you Think You Are? There are thousands of people contacting sites such as Ancestry.co.uk more than three million of us tracing our family trees via the National Archives.

But it’s not as easy as people think.

“Researching your family tree isn’t a quick job done at the computer,” says Kevan. “You need all the right documents such as birth, death and marriage certificates, and these take time to collate because you are waiting for items to arrive in the post.”

Kevan has consulted teachers and parents in Sheffield about his plans to try and introduce his genealogy learning package into schools and – he says – the response has been positive.

“Parents have said what a good idea it is – not only does it help the children learn but it also means the children can teach the parents about their family history.”

Kevan is now an associate lecturer in the methodology of genealogy at Sheffield Hallam University. “It’s absolutely fascinating,” he says. “I even get excited talking about it,” he says.

Its branches reach far into history, often entwining major historical events and the odd family secret. Kevan Adams talks to Rachael Clegg about the joys of genealogy and his plans to introduce family tree research into Sheffield’s school