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Karen Boland
Hello and welcome to Progenies, a company set up primarily to provide genealogy and probate research services.
Many years of researching and recording my own family history has taken me on a journey back in time in both England and Germany. An interest in social history has enabled me to put flesh on the bones of those ancestors who lived well before my grandparents and has given me an insight into how they lived and worked.
I have found others researching the same family name in Germany and America with the same common ancestor as my Mother. I met up with them at a family gathering in the village of Dölme, Lower Saxony, Germany, where our ancestors lived since 17th century and which is situated on a bend of the River Weser.
Researching my husband’s family history took me to London and to Clydebank in Scotland and many other places in between. As a child he lived in New Lanark, the site of an old cotton mill with workers’ accommodation. The mill took its power from the River Clyde just below the famous Falls of the Clyde. The area is now a World Heritage Site.
This fascinating hobby of mine is now also my vocation. You too can benefit from my experiences over the years. Your family history is waiting to be discovered!
As a Probate Researcher I utilise my genealogy and people tracing skills to unite heirs and beneficiaries with their inheritance from family members who have died intestate. This may be on behalf of a Solicitor charged with the administration of an Estate, where the work in compiling a family tree in order to prove relationship to the deceased is far too time consuming, or researching and administering Estates from the Treasury’s Bona Vacantia List. "Bona Vacantia" means vacant goods, the legal term for ownerless property which has been passed to the Crown because its former owner died intestate and without any known kin to inherit the Estate.
In the past I have worked as a PA/Secretary to Directors of 2 Companies quoted on the Stock Exchange and also in Recruitment. As a Headhunter I searched out suitable Candidates to fill Executive Positions. More recently I ran my own cleaning business for twelve years. Needing a change in direction I decided to turn what was once a hobby into my work and Progenies was born.