Directors
The directors of Massey and King are Steven Smyrl and Kit Smyrl.
Steven Smyrl
Steven Smyrl has practised as a specialist in legal and probate genealogical
research since the late 1980s. He founded Massey & King Ltd. in 1993
and it remains the Republic of Ireland’s only incorporated firm
dedicated to legal genealogy. Steven was admitted to membership of Association
of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI) in
1991 and has served as a Council member since 1992; he is a founding
member of the Council of Irish Genealogical
Organisations (CIGO), serving
on its Council since 1992 and acting as chairman during the years
2000 to 2002; in addition, he serves on numerous other voluntary committees.
He is author of Irish Methodists - Where Do I Start? the first in the series ‘Exploring Irish Genealogy’, published by CIGO in 1999. Published in 2000, he is also co-author with fellow APGI member, Eileen Ó Dúill, of number two in the same series, Irish Civil Registration – Where Do I Start? He has published in various journals and is an occasional contributor to Irish newspaper media and radio. Currently he is involved in co-editing A Dictionary of Irish Genealogy with Dr. Jim Ryan, and fellow APGI members, Paul Gorry & Eileen O’Byrne. In 2003, he was instrumental in improving the information recorded in Irish deaths registrations through his input into the Bill stages of the Civil Registration Act 2004. In 2007 he was elected to the fellowship of the Irish Genealogical Research Society. In 2009 his research on Dublin's Protestant nonconformists was published under the title Dictionary of Dublin Dissent - Dublin's Protestant Dissenting Meeting Houses 1660-1920.
Kit Smyrl
Kit
Smyrl came into probate research in the mid-1990s. At that time he managed
much of the company's English, Welsh & Scottish research activities,
and by the late years of that decade he had moved to Ireland on a permanent
basis, taking up position as joint Director. In this capacity he retains
general oversight of the company's UK work, liasing with both clients
and solicitors.
Over the past few years, Kit's IT knowledge has proved particularly beneficial to the company. We now utilise a number of important in-house and Internet-based databases in our everyday work. Generally this has meant that our clients receive answers to their queries much more quickly than would previously have been possible.