Published: Wednesday, 3rd September, 2008 14:00
Ellen knows JUST who she is
By Adam Hewitt
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Ellen Hughes
Pic by: Andy Evans
FAMILY trees might seem a world away from animal diseases.
But Ellen Hughes, 25, is juggling work as a genealogist on BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? with training to become a vet.
Ellen, a former Maiden Erlegh School pupil, said: “I was interested in genealogy when I was little. As a kid I was always the one who knew how everyone was related and who was whose cousin. But people said you couldn’t make a career out of doing it.
“So after university I got in touch with every professional genealogist I could find, and asked them how they make a living out of it. One of them, Helen Osborn, was expanding her business at the time and took me on. It’s a fascinating job!”
She worked at Helen Osborn Research in London for two years, mainly for private clients, and it was while working there that she got the call from the BBC.
She said: “As people reach a certain age, they like to find out more about where they came from, and sometimes after doing research themselves they hit a block and want somebody with experience and expertise to give them a hand.”
But she was tired of living in London and decided to throw herself into another great passion, working with animals. She has been studying at Cambridge to become a vet for the past year, and outside of term time, lives with her family in Instow Road, Earley.
But she still spends her spare time buried in dusty old documents, and has helped again on the current series of Who Do You Think You Are? researching the family history of model Jodie Kidd. For last night’s (Wednesday) programme on presenter Esther Rantzen, she appeared as the on-screen expert.
She is also researching her own family, and has found that a woman pictured with her industrialist great-grandfather in an old photograph was not just his mistress, but lived with him as his wife and in his will he left everything to her.
Ellen is now starting up her own genealogy consultancy business – contact her on 07779 543076 or email: genealogymatters@gmail.com
Link (due to go live next week): www.genealogymatters.com
To watch Ellen in last night’s programme visit www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
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