Hello! I’m Dr Kirsty Hooper, owner of KH Genealogy & Research. I provide a friendly professional research service based on the highest genealogical and scholarly standards.

I’m passionate about helping people connect with the past. I have wide general expertise in English family, local and house history since 1500, with particular expertise in the historic county of Warwickshire. My own family roots are all in England - ‘my’ Hoopers were from Hatherleigh in Devon via Bristol, but I have direct ancestors born in 16 out of the 39 historic English counties. I’ve been carrying out archival and genealogical research for more than thirty years, but I’m always excited to learn new things. I hold a Postgraduate Certificate in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies from Strathclyde University, and in 2025 achieved a Diploma in Genealogy from the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.

My professional background is as an academic, teaching and researching connections between Britain and the Hispanic world. I have particular expertise in the history of Hispanic communities in the UK, with detailed knowledge of London and Liverpool. I hold a BA in Modern Languages, an MSt in Slavonic Studies and a DPhil in Spanish, Galician and Polish, all from the University of Oxford. I have been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Corresponding Member of the Real Academia Galega.

I’m fascinated by languages as a gateway to other worlds, and I offer a range of services to help make multilingual resources more widely accessible to family historians and other researchers. I’m fluent in English, Spanish and Galician, with an excellent reading knowledge of Portuguese, Catalan and French, and a good working knowledge of Polish. I love learning new languages in my own time, and am currently exploring Ukrainian and Swedish with the help of Duolingo and YouTube.

When I’m not researching, you will probably find me playing a brass instrument. I’ve played cornet, flugelhorn and tenor horn for many years and have recently taken up trombone, which is a very different adventure!

I am an Associate of AGRA, the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives and abide by their code of practice and ethics, and a student member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists and abide by their professional code.