Kayleigh During is a history enthusiast and a popular YouTuber.
She has over 270K subscribers on her channel History with Kayleigh.
Introduction
Kayleigh Düring was born on 14 November 1991 in Noord-Scharwoude, North Holland, Netherlands.
She hails from the line of Thuringii, a Germanic tribe.
The young Kayleigh’s life wasn’t easy as her parents split when she was just four months old.
Later, she was neglected, abused and bullied a lot due to which she developed a thick skin.
Kayleigh lived with her mother until nine and then lived with her dad. She was partially raised by her grandparents. She left home at 17.
Ancient aliens & history
The young Kayleigh was interested in the beginning of the ancient aliens and this fueled her desire to know about the ancient world. Later when she started researching actual history, she fell in love with it.
She started skimming the pages of encyclopedias, which her mother had the entire collection of, at just five and came across the Stonehenge.
Kayleigh got interested in it but at the time, she wasn’t able to fully read. So, she had to contend with just looking at its pictures.
A year later, she read about Stonehenge and Egyptian pyramids in the encyclopedia and this only made her more curious.
Growing up in a historic town in the Netherlands cemented her love for history. She was also fascinated by her country’s history.
Dropping out
Kayleigh used to thoroughly read history textbooks and always got straight As in history in high school. She also excelled in English.
She was asked to not attend the English class and only take the tests as she used to continuously interrupt her teacher, correcting her pronunciation.
But Kayleigh had to drop out of high school due to personal reasons.
Later, she started studying construction architecture to become an architect in 2009 but she had to drop out in 2011 due to the global recession and lack of internships.
Coccygectomy & Outlander
Kayleigh underwent a coccygectomy (tailbone removal surgery) in July 2012 and became bedridden, confined to the home, got nerve damage and was unable to work and started receiving disability pay.
Being confined in the home made her depressed. So, she started researching about her passion, history and started reading excavation papers to just pass the time.
At the time, Kayleigh watched the Outlander show where she saw a woman travelling through the stones back in the time. She got influenced by that stone circle and this rekindled her passion for history.
She started researching the Craigh na Dun stone circle only to find out that it’s a fictional stone circle only created for the TV show.
Then Kayleigh learnt that Craigh na Dun stone circle was inspired by Neolithic Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.
YouTube
Kayleigh found a 400-page excavation paper on Callanish Standing Stones and read it and decided to create a video on the standing stones.
She wrote the script for the video and filmed her first history video. This started the History with Kayleigh YouTube channel.
After filming her first video, Kayleigh got hooked by video production and publishing and continued producing videos.
As she was interested in both history and architecture at the time, she combined both these passions and produced the “Ancient Structures” playlist.
Video production helped Kayleigh cope with depression and provided her with relief and refreshment from her hectic life.
She later privatized her video on Callanish Standing Stones as she wasn’t satisfied with its audio quality.
Kandy Cats
Kayleigh’s channel was initially named Kandy Cats. She used to film and upload the videos of her cats to learn filming, video editing and YouTube.
Later, when she decided to seriously work on her channel, she was torn between history and true crime.
In addition to history, Kayleigh also loved true crime and used to binge-watch it while young.
But as she was more passionate towards history, she chose to go with it.
Kayleigh wanted to produce history videos on YouTube for a long time but a lack of self-confidence held her back. But she overcame her insecurities and started publishing videos in 2020.
She wasn’t comfortable on the camera for the first year and a half but later overcame it.
Kayleigh started filming videos with just her phone, without a setup and lights. But later, she upgraded to cameras and a gimbal.
After being depressed for a few years, her body started recovering physically and she recovered from depression.
Going all in
Kayleigh’s YouTube channel got monetized in December 2020 but she wasn’t able to make a decent income during her first year as a YouTuber.
When Matt Simpson of Ancient Architects gave her a shoutout in a video, she gained 7000 subscribers, her views exploded and she started making money from her channel.
This encouraged Kayleigh to keep working on her channel and she went all in.
Then her video “Air-Conditioning Invented In 3100 BCE?”, which she premiered on 29 August 2021, went viral.
This has been her most popular video with over a million views. It helped her gain 27,000 subscribers in a month and greatly helped in the growth of her channel.
Kayleigh later renamed this video to “Air-Conditioning Is 5100 Years Old!? Windcatchers In Yazd, Iran.”
As she started making money from YouTube, her disability pay was cancelled.
Kayleigh decided to work harder on her channel to earn a full-time income from it.
She worked 60 hours a week on her channel to make YouTube her full-time job. Likewise, she worked for six months in a small, congested room in her grandfather’s house.
And it worked out and Kayleigh became a full-time YouTuber in October 2021.
The success of her channel allowed her to travel to places like the UK, Malta, Sweden and tour Egypt.
Currently, Kayleigh has 273K subscribers on her channel.
She also sells history themed merchandise.
Her YouTube inspirations are Curtis Woodside, Matt Sibson (Ancient Architects) and Jimmy Corsetti (Bright Insight).
Kayleigh lives in North Holland, Netherlands and is 1.76 meters tall.
Tidbits
- Egypt is Kayleigh’s favourite civilization to study. She loves the length of Egypt’s history, its monuments and Egyptians’ beliefs and religion.
- Her favourite queen is Hatshepsut. She loves the memes of Kara Cooney.
- Kayleigh grew up with a father who loved sci-fi. She watched her first sci-fi movie Stargate at 7 and this is her favourite sci-fi movie.
- Her favourite artifacts are Mace-heads from North Wales made out of stone.
- She tried to learn German for many years in high school, but was unsuccessful and gave up.
- Kayleigh knows Dutch and her favourite country is Egypt.
- She loves the movies of Robin Williams and grew up watching his movies. She also likes Jahannah James.
- Her favourite culture is Neolithic culture and she loves megalithic builders.
- She loves fantasy and her favourite books are Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, Crescent City, Twilight, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
So, how are you inspired by the success story of Kayleigh During?
Share with me in the comment section below.
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18 Comments
Dion · April 6, 2026 at
“She hails from the line of Thuringii, a Germanic tribe.”. What is that about? She is just Dutch, we dont have Germanic tribes anymore XD No-one claims to ‘hail’ from Germanic tribes, they haven’t existed for many hundreds of years. Also basically all Dutch people are polyglots.
Eric Maynard · March 31, 2026 at
I have been watching Kayleigh’s videos for several years now and, it has only been recently that I became more curious about the merit of the information Kayleigh conveys in her videos.
Most anyone can post videos on youtube.com but not everyone has viewers that subscribe and consistently visit their youtube channel. Clearly, Ms. During has people that find her rhetoric about history compelling enough to keep selecting the links that map back to her channel, myself included.
Like everything else on the internet I take in all the information with a grain of salt and do not consume the information as if it were from a primary source. Skepticism notwithstanding, I tend to pick up what Ms. During is putting down! She is clearly passionate about the subject of history and most everyone responds positively to someone else’s passionate point of view.
Her videos are well crafted and she acknowledges the work of other scholars in the field and she doesn’t allow her bias to color what the evidence suggests, a core tenet of scientific inquiry…”these are the facts and every person learning these facts is free to develop their own conclusions about what these facts suggest”.
Suffice it to say, I am a fan of Ms. Kayleigh During and hope that one day, if the opportunity were to arise, I could meet her and express how much I appreciate her effort to present historical facts in an engaging manner.
Louis Daniel Marecek · September 16, 2025 at
I just recently saw Kailey’s review of the 130,000-yr old Mastodon Site in Southern California.
And it was interesting that the critics, that did not agree with the findings, are so short sited.
What was found was a butchering site and not a tool making site. The site was a hunting and butchering site. There is a site just north of there outside of Bastow “the Early man site” that was a tool making site of at least that old and it too has been highly contested, but they all agree on the age (even Mary Leaky). So, I believe the two sites added together do show human activity of roaming hunter gatherer’s making do with their surroundings. I am sure more will be found, it is just a matter of time.
Paul Crawley · August 29, 2025 at
Wonderful insight. Amazing how much we have in common. I learned history in much the same way. Our interests are all the same but I’d add military history to the list. Well done !!!!
GEORGE sutton · March 24, 2025 at
A happy energetic bright and inspiring lady, keep it up. Am also a history geek, MD, fighter pilot and unstoppable reader and never ceasing dreamer, known as WOLTA (world’s oldest living teen-ager).
Naveen Reddy · March 24, 2025 at
It’s great to know!
JOHN B B GILBERT · March 17, 2025 at
I am so impressed with Kayleigh and her interests and trials and tribulations. I have been a history nut all my life. Studied anthropology and environmental sciences (double major) and applied anthropology in grad school. Had numerous spine surgeries which almost left me bed bound during my 30’s. have done a few digs in Florida while in school there. I simply love Kayleigh’s presentation.
Naveen Reddy · March 17, 2025 at
It’s great to know John!
Boyd Ramsay · February 17, 2025 at
I saw Kayleigh’s podcast on the “Hobbits” of Flores. Given the” many legends of “little people”,
“leprechauns”, etc., I wonder if there are some old bones in colder caves or dryer places – that
could be linked to “Hobbit” genes in modern populations. I remember seeing Wilson Smith
on TV, about his many-times great grandfather’s bones, DNA, and the story of the Siriac Farm,
and how it became the Smith farm. I suspect you will enjoy the story of Journeyman Smith
and his wives, too.
I’d like to opt-out of emails, unless Kayleigh wishes to send me one.
Naveen Reddy · February 18, 2025 at
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Alexander · February 7, 2025 at
First of all… as human beings… we see what we want to see, and believe in what we want to believe (proof: religions, reincarnation, political ideologies, ghosts, hell, heaven, etc.”
Secondly… throughout the history of humankind (especially for the last thousand years or so), there were countless claims and hoaxes, proven and unproven beliefs throughout the so-called “mainstream scientists” (e.g. early mainstream scientists believe the earth was flat, until proven wrong later… and they killed the guy who proved that earth is NOT flat, and it’s NOT the center of the universe – as in it’s revolving around the sun. Well-known and credentialed Egyptologists used to believe that the pyramids of Giza was built by slaves, until recently they have proven wrong that it was built by volunteers, citizens and paid workers).
Thirdly, this host is not a credentialed historian or archaeologist or geologist… but rather just a host of a show who repeats what “mainstream” scientists have established with their own beliefs under their own available knowledge. And by experience and history, we’ve known and proven “mainstream” scientists can be wrong again and again. NOT only that, they (among these groups of mainstream scientists) do have their own hidden agenda, their own beliefs, and their own power struggle just like politicians and other academicians. The proof is in the rise and fall from grace mainstream scientists like the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass. There are always biases, partisan politics, and hidden agenda among these so-called “mainstream” scientists. Think of Galileo and the Catholic church, Zahi Hawass and Mubarak and the western museums.
And lastly, the way she presents her video here… so convincingly and believing (even mocking and degrading her subjects… not only in attitude and gestures, but also passionately in her tone of voice and context) in what she is saying… there are absolute biases and NO room for open-minded possibilities… even though she is not a trained and credentialed archaeologist, historian, or even a practicing scientist! Her background is some schooling in architecture and… reading a lot of encyclopedias!!!
Tim Thurmeier · October 7, 2025 at
Good God, man. Get over yourself. She has never claimed to be any of the things you deride her for not being. In actual fact, she goes to great pains to mention she is NOT a professional in any of those fields, but is sharing her passion and personal research into the things that inspire her. She tries to be as thorough as possible in all her research to avoid ill conceived and unsupported theories, and addresses this in many of her videos.
She is transparent about this almost to a fault! I applaud her rigor, her passion for her subject and the immense personal journey she has been through to get here from where she was and everything she has had to endure in order to recover from her personal challenges and to find her way to shine. I have never met her, but if I did I would shake her hand and thank her for her inspiration in learning how to thrive instead of just survive in the face of everything she has faced.
I have a very impactful friend who is in that same part of the recovery process and hearing her story and seeing what she accomplished with the things she is passionate about, really informs the process my lovely friend is going through. It shows me what I can best do to help my friend in her recovery, so history videos aside, her story is inspirational and impactful in amazing ways in ways she probably never expected. I doff my cap to Kayleigh, both for her resilience and her insightful videos.
You, sir, are a gadfly.
Gerard Allen Hinson · June 3, 2026 at
History isn’t just about the dry data from professionals. It’s also stories in the wider sense, and those who convey it draw attention to it from the ‘lay population’ in proportion to how well they perform the presentation. Fraulein During doesn’t engage in the silliness that some others do; as a modern aficionado (-ada?) she does have a certain wry sense of humor about some aspects of the past; I don’t find it offensive, unlike some modern obsessive intellectuals. She does devote effort to gathering and presenting information in a charming manner without childishness.
AND, if only “certified experts” should make formal conclusions about anything, why bother having students produce research papers? Might as well just have them be ‘stacks gophers’, so to speak. That’s where your logic could lead. Might as well ban all ‘lay persons’ commentary about every important issue, which leaves –what to discuss?
Wayne · November 26, 2023 at
I have only just discovered Kayleigh’s videos on YouTube, and I am hooked! I am so glad that she persevered and beat back what must have been pretty awful challenges, to emerge into the sunshine of a new dawn and to now be able give all of us such high quality, immersive experiences.
Kayleigh, you are simply amazing and your fans clearly adore you.
Jim · June 30, 2023 at
I can’t get enough Kayleigh. She is delightful!
Naveen Reddy · June 30, 2023 at
Yes, indeed!
Pablo Kagioglu · June 27, 2023 at
Thanks for publishing this, I was curious about her. I follow her on YouTube, interesting content.
Naveen Reddy · June 27, 2023 at
You’re welcome, Pablo!