There’s far more to genealogy than building a family tree, as our previous work on Who Do You Think You Are in the UK, Ireland, Australia and America has shown – it’s a journey of discovery into history, viewed through the eyes of your ancestors.
We can help you investigate your roots, connecting you with previous generations and telling their stories, no matter how grand or humble their origins. Many clients find they have a greater understanding of their own place in the world as a result.
If you’ve already undertaken some research, we can verify what you’ve found and extend your family tree, using online sources as well as material held in archives, libraries and other collections that are not available online.
Alternatively, you might want to focus on one particular problem – a ‘brick wall’ in your research – that we will try to resolve. Sometimes this might involve DNA testing, as we attempt to connect to other branches of the family that help hold important clues.
However, family history can be complicated to research if you’ve not attempted it before, and we can work with you over an extended period of time, investigating all branches of your family and writing biographical accounts of key ancestors.
We can also offer consultations and ‘guided research’ projects, where we work with you in archives and libraries so that you learn all about the key research methodologies, enabling you to conduct future work yourself.
It’s very difficult to estimate how long a project will take, so we will review your research request and any supporting material, and then suggest a research plan for you – usually breaking the work into 4 or 8 hour blocks of time, with each 8 hour block starting at £360 (£300 plus VAT).
Most of our work takes place in the UK and Ireland, but we have associates around the world to whom we can refer you for more extended pieces of overseas research.
At the end of the agreed block of time we then report back with our results in the form of an interim report, along with recommended further lines of research – this way you always control the budget, and the direction of the project.
For longer commissions we may ask for a deposit in advance, but usually invoice at the end of each phase.
We usually produce a written report, emailed to you as a PDF – along with digital images of key material we’ve found (usually supplied as link to a Dropbox folder so you can download them for free).
However, for longer projects we recommend a printed, bound version as this allows us to treat the whole commission as a book, which is zero-rated for VAT.
Alternatively, we can produce stunning publication-quality products, the perfect gift for future generations to enjoy.
We are happy to provide sample reports, and can discuss various pricing options with you.