Firebird Directors

DR NICK BARRATT is a specialist archive researcher and historian, working primarily in the media as consultant and presenter. A particular area of expertise is the development and delivery of educational material online, and has developed an archive training scheme for the Higher Education sector. A regular public speaker and prolific author, his most recent project was 'Who Do You Think You Are?' for the BBC, acting as research consultant, presenter and developer of web content. Nick founded Sticks Research Agency in 2000, offering professional research services to media companies, the legal profession and private clients.

A trained medieval historian, having obtained a BA (Hons) and a PhD from King's College, London, he worked for The National Archives between 1996 and 2000, and has acted as a consultant since 2002. He was employed as a specialist researcher for the BBC between 1998 and 2002.

He has extensive professional connections with commercial organisations that provide online access to genealogical datasets, in particular 1837online.com. He also provides research material for national newspapers, and is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.

His TV credits include Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC2 & BBCi, presenter & research consultant), The Family History Project (The History Channel, presenter & consultant), Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (BBC2, specialist researcher), House Detectives (BBC2, specialist researcher & appearances on-screen as document expert), Invasion (BBC2, specialist researcher) and occasional research for Omnibus, One Foot in the Past, Meet the Ancestors (all BBC2) and Breaking the Seal (BBC1). He was also responsible for overseeing the creation of web content for BBCi including programme support for Who Do You Think You Are?, Invasion and House Detectives and of genealogical web pages for The History Channel.