In 1987, Blake Court founder Alistair Quinlan, a Scot with an Irish surname, decided that he would like to find out more about his ancestors and, in particular, his Irish roots.

He began his research in a pre-internet environment, questioning elderly relatives, writing cheques and making postal enquiries as well as using the resources of the public library within the LDS Tabernacle just around the corner from the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The initial records were recorded in notebooks and a card indexing system, taken over pretty rapidly by an Alan Sugar Amstrad computer using adapted LDS Personal Ancestry File (PAF) software.

Very soon after beginning this task, Alistair added his late wife's family (an Irish lass with a Scottish surname) to his research and became well and truly hooked on the concept of gaining knowledge, not simply of names and dates, but the whole history and social fabric that his and his wife’s ancestors lived with and, in many cases, were very fortunate to survive in. To date he has uncovered over 3,400 individuals.

The most interesting project to date involved one family directly descended amongst many other very interesting individuals, from nine Kings of England, two Kings of Scotland, one Saint, two Kings of France, one King of Sicily and one Emperor of Rome, stretching back to the year 596. Not many clients are likely to be that fortunate.

Over 30 years on, both research and the recording of results have moved on enormously and during the intervening years Alistair’s knowledge and experience has helped many other people gain the same insight to their ancestors’ lives. ‘Blake Court’ would be delighted to either set you off on the same route of discovery or assist you in trying to find a way around your own research brick wall.