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In 2026 Pharos Tutors celebrates its 21st birthday! The business was set up in 2005 by original owners, Helen Osborn and Sherry Irvine, 'to bring short courses to everyone regardless of their ability or experience' with a handful of tutors and courses. The image below shows an early version of our website.
We very much operate on the same principles now, with Karen Cummings now at the helm, keeping class sizes and tutorial groups small to allow everyone to contribute and ask questions, with an emphasis on learning whilst enjoying the journey.
To celebrate our birthday we will be running two events. In September, our anniversary month, we will run a 'Celebrating our Tutors and Courses' event, bringing together course information, talks from our tutors and an opportunity for you to win some prizes! More on that later in the year.
Our first event is an opportunity for us to do something a little different as we hold our first Webinar Week in July 2026, a week of one-hour talks, bringing together some of our tutors with friends of Pharos, old and new.
Our webinar week has the them:
The Ones Who Got Away
We will be exploring this in a number of ways, whether it be how to track down those hard to research or 'forgotten' ancestors and family members, using different approaches to methodology, applying technology in different ways or demonstration by example through case studies.
We are currently working on the details of the programme of events but be sure to make a note of the week of 13th July 2026 in your diaries now.
Speakers confirmed so far include: Andrew Redfern, Dave Annal, Debbie Kennett, Gill Rossini, Janet Few, Joe Saunders, Jonny Perl, Kelly Cornwell, Nathan Dylan Goodwin, Nick Barratt, Phil Isherwood, Simon Fowler and Sophie Kay. A star studded cast, I am sure you will agree!
Topics include a variety of really interesting case studies, AI and when it can be useful (and when it is less so), using WATO+, negative space, gaps in records, LGBTQIA+ relatives, itinerant ancestors, convict transportation and social networks.