Tera Pruitt

Dr. Tera Pruitt is the owner of Scientific Genealogy, offering high-quality family history research services.

Tera received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2011 for research in scientific ethnography and archaeology. She holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Genealogy, Palaeography, and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, focusing on British Records and genetic genealogy (DNA). She also holds a Certificate in American Genealogical Studies from the National Genealogical Society (US), focusing on American traditional document research. She has a M.Phil. in Heritage Management and Museums from Cambridge, with experience in artifact identification and preservation, archival digitization, and online historical exhibition. 

Her particular genealogical focus is in British and American history and genetic genealogy (DNA). For the UK, her particular focus is in Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and Scotland, but she also has experience researching records elsewhere in the British Isles, including more broadly in England and in Ireland. In the United States, her research interests are particularly in the tidewater migrations into Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as early migration patterns in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, but she also has broader experience researching archives in New England, the American Midwest, and California. 

As part of her professional work, she also has experience with successful lineage applications to organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, the Texas First Families Certificate, and the Jamestowne Society.

Tera has worked with historical archives and collections at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Ely Museum in England, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science in the United States. As a postdoctoral project manager at UCLA in California, she worked with the Zuni Native American tribe on a major National Science Foundation collaborative catalog museum project. 

Her past projects include archival work with paper collections, digitization of collections, photography and handling of photographic collections, analyzing artifacts and creating object histories, conducting oral history interviews, and redesigning museum galleries. She has lectured about heritage and museums at the University of Cambridge, as well as presented at conferences including the European Association of Archaeologists and Narrative and Storytelling in Archaeology.

As an American living in England, she is particularly well-situated to help Americans wishing to "jump the pond" and discover more about their ancestry from the British Isles. 

Services include, but are not limited to:

- Family history: rigorously researched genealogy and beautifully presented family history reports

- Genetic genealogy and DNA research

- Lineage applications

- Artifact histories

- House histories

- Digitization and digital preservation of family photographs, papers, and archives

- Archival storage solutions and conservation advice for your physical family history collection