Robert A. Bell is a genealogists on Irish Scots surnames and the author of The Book of Ulster Surnames. His short stories have been published in the Belfast Telegraph, Passage 1 (1987) and The Blackstaff Book of Short Stories (1988), and he has also contributed articles to the Belfast Review. Since 1984 he has worked in the Linen Hall Library, Belfast, where he is supervisor of the Northern Ireland Political Collection.
Bell was educated at Wallace High School , Lisburn. He graduated from Oldham College and in 1979 he came back to Belfast to read Modern History at Queen’s University.