About

Helena Sanderson is an Associate Member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) and an experienced and professional genealogist, house historian and oral historian.

Qualified with an MA (Merit) in English Local History, she has been researching family history for over twenty years and loves the buzz of excitement involved in tracking generations of families through time, in particular solving genealogical problems and dismantling brick walls where client’s research into their family tree has come to a frustrating halt.

In December 2024, she gained a Distinction for the Pharos Tutoring & Society of Genealogists Intermediate Certificate in Family History Skills and Strategies. The syllabus included modules on seventeenth and eighteenth century sources, Victorian crime and punishment, apprenticeships, nonconformity, and military sources. In addition, she completed a separate module on medieval and early modern English local history, in collaboration with the British Association of Local History.

Helena specialises in the lives of ordinary people between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Her MA dissertation was an indepth genealogical investigation into a working-class family from Haslingden, Lancashire. She is currently researching and writing a book about the upstairs and downstairs household of an Edwardian Manchester industrialist’s Lake District holiday home.

An experienced oral historian, Helena was trained by the Oral History Society in interviewing, editing and archiving recordings. She has managed projects for the National Trust and the Woodland Trust, as well as interviewing many private clients. Oral histories are a wonderful way of preserving treasured family memories for future generations.

Her excellent analytical, research and problem-solving skills continue to develop through further study. During 2025, she is compiling evidence for a PhD research proposal that will focus on Westmorland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Palaeography, the art of deciphering old handwriting, is a particular interest that she continues to pursue, and she is learning medieval Latin to take family trees even further back in time. Also in 2025, she is studying a selection of Advanced Pharos modules in medieval genealogy, title deeds, Chancery Court records, and manorial records.

Helena is a Member of the Society of Genealogists, Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), Cumbria Past, Lancashire Ancestors, Oral History Society, British Association of Local History (BALH), British Agricultural History Society (BAHS), Kendal Oral History Group, and a Friend of the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster University.