Join us for the seventh Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies’ Spotlight Talk featuring Dr Amy Harris, Family History Bachelor’s Program coordinator at Brigham Young University. A recording of the talk will be available for 2 weeks after the event. Her talk’s title is:

Siblings and Singleness: Exploring Family Life Across England and Across Social Classes, 1750-1850

Siblings were essential to family life and household economy in the 18th and 19th centuries. This presentation explores how siblings, particularly those who married late or never married navigated family and property relationships. The experience of the wealthy Sharp family, based in London, Northamptonshire, Durham, and Northumberland juxtaposes with the experience of the Pratt family of southern Sussex to demonstrate how families from different social groups managed households, provided for children, and prepared for later generations. The impact of sibling and property relations on marital choices is also discussed. The case studies are supplemented with findings from a statistical analysis of 9200 co-resident sibling households across England.

Amy Harris

Amy is the current Family History Bachelor’s Program coordinator at Brigham Young University. She has published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, in the Genealogists’ Magazine, and on the history of genealogical practices.

Her historical research focuses on families, women, and gender in eighteenth-century Britain. Her works include Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England (Manchester, 2012); A Single View: Family Life and the Unmarried in Georgian England (Oxford, 2023); and Redeeming the Dead (Maxwell Institute & Deseret Book, 2024).

She competed a family history BA degree at BYU before earning an MA in European history at American University and a PhD in British history from UC Berkeley. She is an accredited genealogist in English research and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Amy, a native of Ogden, Utah is a professor in the BYU Department of History where she teaches history and family history/genealogy courses.

An email with the Zoom webinar link will be sent by 12.00 BST on 24 September 2025.