The Kelley family claims its lineage to begin with the work of an alchemist by the name of Edward Kelley in the late 16th century. While this is true from a strictly genetic perspective, it cannot be called true from the perspective of magecraft. Edward Kelley was a man who touted himself as a peerless alchemist capable of creating the Philosopher's Stone in the public eye; as a result, it was only a matter of course that he was targeted by the Mage's Association. Kelley himself was assassinated, his Magic Crest confiscated, and records falsified to cast him as a fool who had been incapable of turning lead into gold.
The family descending from Kelley, then, could be said to have started nearly from square one.
The family gathered up what scraps of Kelley's research they were able to salvage, and after a drawn-out political negotiation, were able to obtain a small portion of the family's Magic Crest, enough to retain the technique of conversion, as well as the part pertaining to the efforts to "speak with angels" that Kelley himself had attempted. The vast majority of the Crest and its alchemical knowledge, however, were retained by the Association.
Seizing on what scraps they had consolidated, the family delved deeper into the work that their progenitor had done, and in this manner discovered their own path that they could create charging forwards.
However, throughout this quest, they were necessarily plagued by a curse inherent to their blood. This was nothing other than the whispers of "angels" made to them. Like trying to recall a hazy dream, they were certainly able to understand that "something was being said", but were unable to grasp the words themselves that were spoken. Transcendent wisdom laid just outside of their reach, and this was the Kelleys' curse. If they did not hear those voices to begin with, they would have been content to live on in ignorance of them. If they had been able to understand those voices, they would have surpassed their limits and become something truly outstanding. For after all, it is not the task of turning a zero into a one that plagues humanity, only a true madman, or indeed a factory that made madmen, would think such a thing to be possible. Rather, it is when someone attempts to change a one into a one-hundred, when there is a possibility just out of reach, that tragedy will soon follow.
The first family head went mad in his quest to understand the voices.
The second family head wrongly believed he understood them, and found a salvation in false wisdom.
The third family head ended her life to escape the voices.
The fourth family head followed the same path as the first.
Diane herself is the fifth family head since the time of Edward Kelley.
As with those before her, she grew up hearing the voices that her family called "angels", and learned the family magecraft. She took to it admirably. She was not an outstanding magus, nor was her family itself outstanding. Indeed, in a world of this size, she could not be called anything special on the basis of talent or pedigree. Nonetheless, she accomplished something that nobody before her had. She survived the voices.
For Diane, you see, there was a sort of happy resignation to the voices she heard, accepting them as something that she heard and utilizing them as a sort of flavoring to her life. The best example could be a child having an imaginary friend who only speaks Spanish when they themselves don't understand Spanish. This nature led her to spend more time in her imagination that reality, and while she has continued the family craft, learned the basics of magecraft at the Clock Tower, and the like, she doesn't bear a singleminded obsession towards it like most of her predecessors. Rather, she simply views magecraft as another component of her life, of equal weight to the mundane parts.
"That cloud looks sort of like a rabbit, don't you think?"
"■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■."
"Ehe, you need to work on your enunciation. Anyway, I've gotta get back to work now, try and be quiet for a bit, alright?"
"■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■, ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■."
She's recently taken to writing children's fantasy novels, and is now working on her third book in an adequately successful series about a boy who can see invisible fairies. Needless to say, she's kept up with her duties as the head of the family, but she can't be said to have made the same contributions to their path to the Root that her predecessors have.
Then again, maybe that's for the best.