Sawyer, Karen

Description

Shwmae! I live on the Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire border in Southwest Wales. I have a MSc degree (with distinction!) in Genealogical, Paleographic, and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde.

As a family historian, I aim to provide more than dates and facts by telling the stories of your ancestors’ lives using a wide variety of sources; including postcards, photographs, maps, letters, newspapers, gravestones, and local archives (and when these are in Cymraeg, I can translate). Each project I research, however big or small, is provided in a fully referenced PDF report.

What inspired me to begin my journey as a family historian was discovering that one of my 3x great-grandfathers was one of the first photographers in Galloway, Scotland, in the late 1800s; William Hunter, of Newton Stewart. This was a revelation that our branch of the family knew nothing about – and has since put us in touch with many long-lost cousins. In September 2022, I even organised an exhibition of William’s work (which I now collect, as many of his images were printed onto postcards and CDVs). My dissertation was an exploration of the first photographers in Southwest Scotland.

I believe that rediscovering our ancestral stories is an important part of discovering ourselves; who we are, and where we came from… after all, we literally carry part of their DNA within us!