Helen Parker-Drabble

A Counselling Background: A Family Historian Turned Geneatherapist.

I am a former counsellor, a genealogist and a family historian. For this series, I bring the three fields together to become a ‘geneatherapist’.

Fascinated by psychological theory and the stories we develop to make sense of ourselves and our family, my original quest was to understand my Victorian grandfather, Walter Parker, born in 1885 in the English village of Upwell on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border.

During my research a transgenerational legacy of loss, trauma, anxiety, and depression unravelled. It revealed repeated patterns of behaviour that I too had unwittingly passed on.

Family history does not survive unless it is in print. So, I pondered how to share what I had learnt. Inspired by the few trailblazers, I set out to write an engaging and accessible series. One that could encourage others to pass on what they have painstakingly discovered.

As a geneatherapist, my mission is to benefit present and future generations:

1. by exploring common experiences that affected your ancestors
2. by introducing family historians to current and historical theories of mental health, psychology, and neuroscience
3. by helping you deepen your understanding of your Victorian ancestors
4. by offering an example of family history writing to encourage you to leave a legacy.