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Genealogist's 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.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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