Speakers

Jason Reeve. As Head of Content & Community for Ancestry.com in Australia and New Zealand, Jason is a passionate advocate for all things to do with history. Joining back in 2016, he continues to work closely with archives, registry offices, genealogical societies and community organisations to uncover new record collections, assist archival digitisation efforts and support family history organisations. When he's not trawling through archives, Jason speaks at events and conferences as well as presenting on radio, television and social media platforms.

Helen Smith is a speaker, DNA specialist, researcher, and author with a strong interest in Australian, English, medical and social history.  has been researching since 1986: England, Ireland, Wales & Australia with various immigration trails to the USA, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. She has registered the surname Quested with the Guild of One Name Studies and collects them anywhere, anytime. She is a regular speaker at genealogy events in Australia, internationally in New Zealand, England, Canada, the USA, on many Unlock the Past Cruises and has regularly presented for Legacy Family Webinars. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Genealogical Speakers Guild.

Duff Wilson, Executive Director of Family Tree Maker, is considered by many as the father of modern Family Tree Maker having been involved in the design of every edition since 2004. He has two decades of software design and development experience and has earned national awards for his work. Duff is an avid genealogist and works closely with countless genealogists, ranging from novice to expert.

Valerie Anderson is director of Christchurch Family Search Centre, a branch of the largest Family History Library network in existence, based in Utah, USA. She has been researching her own tree for 35 years and is also professionally library trained, so brings experience, passion and skills to help others grow their family trees.

Fiona Brooker has served as both President and Treasurer of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists (NZSG) and convened the 2008 and 2018 national conferences. She holds a Higher Certificate in Genealogy from the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies and began Memories in Time to help others trace their family history. She is a co-founder of Talking Family History and a member of the Christchurch Family History organising group.

Liz Grant is a freelance writer with a background in broadcasting. The author of four books of non-fiction, including Migrant Journeys: New Zealand taxi drivers tell their stories, co-written with friend and fellow writer Adrienne Jansen. Liz headed the writing team at Te Papa before returning to Lyttelton in 2011. She is a regular host at WORD events.

Fiona Lees, a first-generation Kiwi, has been researching her Scottish family history and their movements for many years. She is passionate about genealogy education and the need to document information for the next generations who may become interested. Fiona is currently Convenor of the Canterbury Genealogy Society.

Natasha Wells has been researching her family history for over30 years and it very much is an obsession.  She constantly gets ideas for a new research line of enquiry. Her more recent research focus has been 18th century England and Scotland as well as adding further context to her family history narrative.

Katherine Moody graduated from University College London with an MA in Museum Studies and worked for the Department of Research and Information Services at the RAF Museum, and the respective Department of Printed Books at the National Army Museum and Imperial War Museum. After working briefly at the Macmillan Brown Library and Canterbury Museum she now works at Christchurch City Libraries.

Rosemary O'Neil and Amy Ryan are the Archivists at Christchurch City Libraries and have extensive experience in applying conservation practices to family papers held in the Christchurch City Libraries Archive.

Bill Parks is the Media Studio Specialist at Christchurch City Libraries and has previously delivered workshops on working with images to library customers.