A former district commissioner of Bermuda's Girl Guides and founding member of the Association of Church Fellowships has died in Edinburgh.

Kathleen Cory, 78, was a celebrated genealogist who published the runaway bestseller 'Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry' in 1990.

Mrs. Cory was working on the third edition of the book at the time of her death last month.

Born Kathleen Reed in Portsmouth, UK, Mrs. Cory came to Bermuda in 1952 with her husband, Paul Cory, a clergyman.

Mr. Cory returned to the UK to begin her startling rise in the field of genealogy after her husband died in 1973.

She was soon listed as an approved researcher by the Scottish Genealogy Society and by age 70, had taken on the chairmanship of the Heraldry Society of Scotland.