Genealogy as a profession

[dudleylad]

I have recently been thinking about carrying out Family Tree research professionally firstly on a semi professional basis with a view to doing it perhaps full time

Looking at the various package and hourly rate charges by other researchers I wondered if anyone on here did it professionally and how effective is it as a business option

What is submitted to the client and how detailed to do along with what do I need to start up Tax wise etc and also advertisement

[behindthefrogs]

What you charge and provide depends very much on what sort of service you intend to provide.

Any offer of professional work should provide evidence of your ability to search archives and analyse what you find.  Also an appropriate qualification either from one of the recognised institutes or a relevant degree will help.  Similarly previous publications and reports even if in a slightly different field will form a basis of proving what you can offer.

The problem now as compared with twenty years ago is that so much information is available on the internet and any profitable business has to be based a knowledge and experience of using other resources.

You need also to produce a very professional resume of what you can provide.  For example, being rude, an inability to spell "genealogy" will set you back a long way.

I would suggest that you start by providing a simple cheap service accessing information in the archives which are available to you while you still have other employment.  This will enable you to build up a basic set of references and also to determine what sort of presentation of results clients expect.  It will also allow you the time to gain an appropriate qualification if you don't already have one.

David

[dudleylad]

Many Thanks for your feedback David

Your final paragraph is something I have done, albeit without charging, I have produced reports for colleagues etc as a sample to see if I had the same enthusiasm as when researching my own which I found I had.

I was thinking at first offering a cheap service where I could research back one or two lines going back say 3-4 generations, ordering the neccesary certificates and providing to the client in the bases of a tree with genealogy report and also the original certificates etc.

Then moving once gaining the neccessary experience into Occupations, addresses etc.

From my current employment I understand profit and turnover to a certain extent and also estimating costs. I had planned to time my next 'voluntary ones' for a time estimate to try and work some time estimates out to go with potential certificate and publishing costs

As I said the idea is in its infancy

[behindthefrogs]

Nearly twenty years ago I provided a service to a number of Americans based on expenses and a low rate for my time.  However I found they usually wanted me to solve a particular problem for them rather than create a tree.

At that time I had the advantage that simple things like BMDs and Censuses were in general only available in central London, where I worked one day a fortnight with time to spare.  They were unhappy with pre 1800 work if I couldn't provide a specific result, as is often the case.  I have seen what some of the well known professionals of that time produced for one of them and quite honestly I was disgusted by some of the unsupported short cuts that they took to produce a result which later was shown to be completely wrong.

David

[Nick29]

You need to sit down and work out a business plan.   Work out your costs - a wage for you, advertising, travelling, costs of certificates, etc.  You also need to work out how much profit you need to make every week to pay your bills.  Don't forget that once you are running a business (even one that's not making a profit), you cannot legally claim unemployment benefit.  Lastly (my best advice) - get a good accountant - they are worth their weight in gold 

 

[toni*]

what you charge per hour is up to you of course but you need to be aware and make your 'client' aware of extras such as travelling costs if you need to go to a particular archive and if it is so far away you need to stay overnight on top of that you have the costs of cetificates and your rate would need to absorb the subscriptions for the Family history sites such as Ancestry and Find My Past , Fanmily relatives.com etc etc

on top of this if someone were to employ you you need to ask yourself a few questions:
why would they employ you? what makes you different from all the other people? do you have a degree in history or family history or such ? can you demonstrate a positive outcome in previous cases ?

i would suggest also employing an accountant and not trying to do it yourself!

[mshrmh]

Dudleylad -

what do I need to start up Tax wise etc

There are some useful guides via the Directgov site that explain some of the basics - particularly the need to register with HMRC quickly
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/WorkingAndPayingTax/DG_10016920

If you do decide to go into business, as others have said a good accountant is an asset - you can help keep costs down by keeping good and organised records - your rate will probably be less than their's, so do as much as you can to save their time.

[jksdelver]

I carried out professional research after I retired. Also teaching the subject at night school.

My problem was,  say someone tells you that their ancestors come from a particular area. You then spend time looking at the records, but find they actually lived ten miles down the road. You have nothing therefore to give your client for the money he or she has spent.  If that client asked you to paint their house then they would get something. However as a lot more records are on line these day they may at least give you a clue as the the right area.

I always asked for an up front fee before starting on the research. Also you have to tell them that travel, parking fees will also be included in your charges. You have got to consider also how you would get paid, accepting cheques drawn on foreign banks can be very expensive. A web site is also a must these days, I got a lot of work from mine  Generally though I did enjoy it and apart form a couple always got paid. Sorry to rant on