I am a professionally qualified genealogist with thirty years experience who has a passion for investigating the past through people, their relationships and social context. I undertake archival work in the Powys Archives and the National Library of Wales and utilise the internet for research throughout the rest of the UK to provide individually tailored research and reports to meet specific and varied client requests. These might include family histories, solving genealogical ‘brick wall’ problems, house histories, or assessing, organising and documenting research already carried out. I continually update my knowledge with professional development and enjoy new challenges and solving problems every day.

I named my business Understanding Backwards because I believe revealing our relatives’ past can help us understand our present and guide our future. To quote Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher and theologian 1813-1855) ‘Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards’.

I run  the  Brimer / Brymer One Name Study using both documentary and DNA evidence to further the knowledge of these families and their surname variants. Further details can be found at brimer-brymer.org

I live in beautiful mid-Wales with my husband and have 3 children at university. In my spare time I enjoy walking, cooking, reading, cross stitch and rag-rugging and of course researching my own family history.