Hiring Professionals

[Ruskie]

Welcome from me too Mitch.

I agree with everyone else's comments - it is much more rewarding to do your own research. You will also get lots of second opinions on here if you are unsure if you are on the right track - just ask and there will be plenty keen to check your 'work'.

Further to Graham's comments about possibly hiring professionals to search for a specific record held in a specific archive, it is still worth requesting a lookup as you may find a rootschatter who lives locally and may have experience researching this archive and may be willing to do a lookup for you. I have had a lot of help in this regard. I live in Australia and have had help from rootschatters in New Register House in Edinburgh and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire to name just two. I have also tried to assist others by providing lookups in my local archives.

In the past rootschat has had members who were "professional" genealogists (with nice websites and scales of charges), requesting help for research they were doing for clients, which was naturally frowned upon on rootschat. I remember that some of those questions were extremely basic and required a two minute search on a free online site. 

On rootschat you will get many contributions from many different people, which also provides confirmation that the research is correct, rather than just trusting the finds of one person, "professional" or not.

The free online course many of us are taking starts next week and it is not too late to sign up:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/genealogy

One more thing - it might be just me, but I find that if you do your own research you understand it better, and can follow it more easily (family history can sometimes get a little confusing and complicated). I can imagine how confused I would be if presented with a fully completed extensive tree. 

[ThrelfallYorky]

So: Have we all encouraged you to save your money for certificates, and roll up your sleeves, and get started on researching yourself?

[tatt1994]

If you are in the UK it's sometimes possible to get free access to a geneology website at a family history centre or even a library.

I managed to trace quite a few ancestors - back to about 1800 on some branches - without paying a penny. Best to do this first and only think of hiring someone when you've made a start and understand the issues.

[stevew101]

Welcome to Rootschat Mitch

I agree with everyone else that you should not have any need to pay someone to do the research.  Once you start looking, you will feel a great sense of satisfaction as you discover your ancestors.

If you get stuck, there are so many excellent researchers on here that will always try to help you.

Give it a try yourself and you will find it is very enjoyable.

Happy Hunting.

[Ruskie]

Let's hope Mitch returns soon. I'm sure we will all be interested to find out if we have managed to talk him out of it. 

[groom]

Hope we haven't frightened him off with our enthusiam! 

[barryd]

The only reasons I would recommend a professional would be the client had money but no time or desire to do their own genealogy.

Secondly the families to be researched came from lets say Poland.

Thirdly most people just do their own genealogy and records exist or do not exist. I find the hardest thing to do is to prove you are a descendant of a Mayflower Passenger, or a Daughter of the American Revolution. Perhaps it would be wise for someone to retain a professional to prove lineage for these two Societies.

[C_W]

You should tell your family that you are going to start tracing your family history. Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. Ask them if they have any photos, stories etc.

You will find most of them will have info, stories, photos etc. which they will be pleased to share and will give you clues that you can follow up. Your family history is also theirs, and you will be surprised what people come up with when asked. Tell people you will photograph and return them. Birth certificates etc. can be copied very easily with phones, digital cameras etc, and the quality is great (take several copies of each). If you get a chance to copy old photos there are some very clever members on RootsChat that can do some incredible restoration.
Even things like an old watch become part of your story.

I have been given some wonderful photos that I would never have seen, had I not asked.

Enjoy yourself, it's a great hobby - but be warned it gets addictive!!

[Rosinish]

Hi,

I would just like to say that I wouldn't ask a "Professional" Genealogist unless it was my only choice in circumstances.

My brother hired a "Professional"...unknown to him at the time that I was doing our family tree.

The Genealogist gave my brother info. which was way off the truth simply because of names on census records tying in with family marital surnames although the surnames were different.
The genealogist assumed the surnames of our ancestors on the census to be an error.

When my brother got in touch with me, I set to work on digging further & managed to find the errors myself.

The errors were simple....2 people with same forename although different surnames had been mistaken by the genealogist as an error & thought/assumed they were the same person.
A closer look myself, I noticed the difference in ages as well as the different surnames albeit my ancestor was illegitimate but was under her father's surname & a sister of the family on the census who were married.
I followed on with getting death certs. & children of the married couple from census etc. & they turned out to be aunt (my ancestor) & niece!!! The niece (same forename) married my ancestor's "partner" 

My brother couldn't believe how I managed to figure things out but I have all the evidence through certs. to prove the genealogists errors.

I so enjoyed it too as it gave me a sense of achievement because if I had gone by what my brother was given, I'd be sitting on a brick wall to this day

Annie