Elaine had a career as an antique dealer for over 25 years. As the past and social history had always been part of her working life, moving into genealogy and probate research was a natural progression. She retrained in 2010 and started her own probate research company in 2011 called ‘Rightful Heir Probate Research’, she renamed her business in 2016 to ‘Timeline Genealogical Services’ to better encompass the more varied work she was taking on for private clients and local Solicitors alongside the “cold case” work of Bona Vacantia.

As Elaine has other business interests and takes on considerable work for Solicitors, she focuses on high value cold cases with difficult genealogy or evidence issues, and has had some considerable success in this field. Whilst her services cover all of the UK and overseas, some specialisation has developed for assisting beneficiaries from overseas countries, in particular Asia, Africa, and the Orient where there can be specific challenges with language and available documentation.

Elaine has been a member of FPAR since its inception and a Director from early on.

Steve comes from a background of geophysics and aviation working for exploration companies in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and then for five years at Department of Mineral & Energy Port, Moresby.

For over 30 years, Steve has had interest in genealogical research where he traced his own family tree back two centuries. He has many years' experience researching genealogy for various private clients and tracing beneficiaries. He was a member of the Heir Hunters Association from 2013, becoming a Director, whilst also joining the team of its sister company, Asset Research Ltd, and remained for its duration. Since FPAR was conceived Steve has been one of its Directors.

Steve has been married for 40 years and has two adult daughters.

After researching her own family tree in 2007, Tracey quickly became hooked on breaking down mysteries, she has been able to reunite many people with lost family members, as well as adoptees with their birth families. In 2010, she started working on probate cases, firstly part-time then progressing to a full-time career.

In 2016, Tracey and her family moved to Orkney to start a new adventure running a small holding; fulfilling a personal ambition of keeping and rearing animals, living sustainably, and enjoying a slower pace of life. However, probate research was still close to her heart. Orkney offered new opportunities and experiences of completing Scottish Bona Vacantia cases, she embraced the differences in UK and Scottish probate processes and enjoyed enhancing her knowledge base; she brings valuable knowledge to FPAR on Scottish Bona Vacantia procedure and is also very well-informed with regard to Administration practices.

These days, Tracey splits her time between the farm work and researching high value, difficult cases to crack, as well as completing people tracing services for other companies. Tracey comments, “one thing is for sure, two days are never the same!”