When you embark on a piece of history research or start any new academic or business venture, the clean sheet before you, is both exciting and daunting.

What we have learnt

Thousands of non academic historians are involved in local and family history research, adding immensely to the pool of historical data out there and many are using IT to collate data in one form or another.

We began our own history journey in much the same way. We had worked in IT, science and education, creating business opportunities but some of the problems we met in our own private history projects, caused us to take another look at how we were approaching them.

We were used to sourcing materials and undertaking research. The challenge of problem solving and finding workable solutions formed the backbone of our work but maybe history research was different?

The sheer quantity of data that a family or local history project generates is enormous. How could we curate all that disparate data, in all it’s different media types and most importantly create connections between it?

How have we tackled our own problems?

• To solve problems in history research for ourselves, we had to apply not only established research methods, we needed to explore different approaches and methodologies gleaned from other subjects.
• We have tested IT tools from many different disciplines and applied them to our history research. Tools such as mapping and text mining.
• We wanted our work to be seen and be used by all and so learnt all we could about IT applications and used them, just as we might in business, to solve issues in history research.
• Open access to data is a key issue for us and we wanted to learn about the approach taken in the field of humanities, so that we could better champion the cause.
• We had to learn and then re- learn, how to write good web content, so that people would actually find our work and engage with it.
• This had to be done with little or no cost to ourselves, except for the hundreds of man hours involved of course!

Amanda and I have learnt an enormous amount in the last few years and have helped many in the field of business, education and research to use the tools and approach we have adopted. Our fees are extremely competitive and the value we will add to your project, be it to your history research or to your small business site, will be enormous.

Choose us and let us help you to take your history research in a different direction.