About Helen Kelly
Helen Kelly is a professional genealogist and a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI). She has been involved in genealogy and tourism since the 1980s and holds an extra-mural certificate in genealogy from University College Dublin (1992), a diploma in Local History from the National University of Ireland - Maynooth (1998) and a National Tour Guide Certificate from CERT (2002).
She is the current President of APGI and has been a member of the Council of that Association since 1996. Together with colleagues from APGI, she has served as an APGI consultant at the Genealogical Office in Dublin from 1995 – and continued to serve as a consultant when that service transferred to the National Library of Ireland in 1998. She also engages in consultancy work at the genealogical service in the National Archives since its inception in 2003.
In 2007, she was appointed consultant genealogist to the Dublin’s prestigious 5 star Shelbourne Hotel, where she holds the unique title of Genealogy Butler.
In addition to genealogy consultancy work, Helen carries out all-Ireland research on behalf of clients. She is particularly interested in the midland counties of Westmeath and Longford, and in the descendants of emigrants from those counties who settled in Argentina.
She lectures frequently on Irish ancestry in Ireland, England and North and South America, and as in 2010, she will be the consultant genealogist on the Tourism Ireland stand at the 2011 Who do you Think You Are show at Olympia, London which takes place from the 25th to 27th February.