RLP 166: When to Hire a Professional Genealogist

Nicole (0s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 166 When to Hire a Professional Genealogist. Welcome to Research Like a Pro

Diana (48s):
How are you doing today?

Nicole (50s):
I’m doing well. And I’ve been having a really interesting research project lately that I’ve been working on. And I thought of you because it’s an Indian territory. This one part of it fun. I was looking at some Dawes rolls and a Dawes packet on Fold three that had all these wonderful questionnaires for the son of the research subject. And it talked about when he moved into Indian territory, how long he had been living there when he was born. And it was really great. Oh my God.

Diana (1m 21s):
If you get one of those Dawes packets with those questionnaires filled out kind of a gold mine for information at that period of time, because there aren’t a lot of other records to give you those pieces of information. That’s fabulous.

Nicole (1m 35s):
Yeah, it really did have a lot of genealogical information. It had the man’s marriage date, you know, if he was married before and he was, and so it also had his first wife’s name and how, and when she died and then it had his second wife’s name and her marriage date to him. And then because they were being very careful about admitting a non-citizen to the Cherokee tribe, because she was a white woman who had married a one-eighth Cherokee man. And so because of the marriage, they wanted her to be added to the Dawes rolls. And so they had to find a witness who had witnessed their marriage and she had her own affidavit and questionnaire, and she had the surname of a FAN club member that I had been looking into that was going to be an interesting link.

Nicole (2m 25s):
So it was really cool. And she was like, yeah, they were married at my house. And it was just really fun to see all these pieces come together, information that normally you wouldn’t find on census or a death certificate. It just was a lot more information. And it was really fun to read their wording and their responses, the way that they gave them. It was done in 1902, well, 1900 to 1907, the questionnaires spanned about seven years.

Diana (2m 53s):
Right. I remember that. And I know when I was working on a Dawes packet, I transcribed the whole thing, and then I went through and put it in chronological order because it wasn’t chronological and I had to get it in order so it would make sense. Did you find that with this one too, it was kind of mixed up by date?

Nicole (3m 10s):
The questionnaires were in order. So they started with 1900 and then there was 1902 and the 1904, but the information inside, I could absolutely put that into a timeline in order. And that would have been helpful. I just kind of transcribed it into some notes in my research report.

Diana (3m 28s):
You know what, now that I think of it, that’s exactly what it was. That the question the heirs gave information all over the place, how fun that’s great.

Nicole (3m 37s):
Yeah. I thought it was really interesting and I was just curious, you know, he, the man was one eighth and I was hoping they would ask him, which of your ancestors was the Cherokee, but they didn’t. They were just focusing on his marriage to this white woman who he wanted to add to the Dawes rolls in order, I guess, in order to get the land that she would be entitled to. Yep. So it didn’t really go to him much about his history. It was mostly about his marriage to her and his first wife and whether he was still married or if the first wife died and that kind of thing. So it was pretty interesting. It did also talk about if they had any children under 21. So there must’ve been some kind of provision. Also, if you had children under 21 that they could have been added or part of something, but they didn’t.

Nicole (4m 21s):
They only had an older son who also did show up in the packet because he was, he had power of attorney for his mom, you know, and he had declared that he was her son and it was so it was, so there was a lot of good relationship and genealogical data.

Diana (4m 37s):
Absolutely. Well, let’s do some announcements and then get to our topic of the day. So we’re excited that we’ve got our next DNA study group scheduled for 2022. It will be from February 16th to May 18th. And if you’ve been thinking you want to join one of our study groups, and that sounds like a good time for you, be sure you go to family law and get on our study group newsletter. So you can get notifications of that. Registration will begin December 13th, and we always have a good early bird price for the study group. And this will be perfect because if you’re looking for a good Christmas present from your family, for you, which I know we like to pick out our own presence, right?

Diana (5m 19s):
So you could always ask for study group tuition. We also will be looking for peer group leaders and you will be able to apply for that. So we’re excited to be thinking ahead, always having to plan for our next study group,

Nicole (5m 34s):
Right? And if you’re not wanting to do the DNA study group, then the next time we’ll be doing Research Like a Pro study group without DNA will be in the fall of next year, 2022, that will probably begin around September 1st and run for about nine weeks. So we’re looking forward to that one as well.

Diana (5m 54s):
Absolutely. Today, we’re going to talk about when to hire a professional genealogist and we get a lot of these kinds of questions that come in. And a lot of people that send us queries asking how it all works. So we thought it’d be fun to do a podcast and talk about the whole process. So here’s some of the scenarios that you might run up against. You have a brick wall problem that you are just tired of working on, that you can’t break down. Maybe you don’t read the language of the records for your ancestors. You may want to be publishing all of your research, but do you feel a little uncertain and you want to verify it.

Diana (6m 35s):
You want to use DNA, but you’re kind of at a loss as to what to do with it. You maybe want to continue doing the research yourself, but you’d like some coaching to help you through some of the tricky things. You could be planning a visit to your ancestor’s homeland, but you really don’t know what kind of research you could do once your feet are on the ground there. What repositories would be best to visit? You could use some help. And finally, you might want to join a lineage society like the Mayflower Society or Daughters of the American Revolution. Those are just some of the reasons that we have seen, and you might have another reason, but those are all things that a professional genealogists can help with.

Diana (7m 16s):
And in the long run, it can actually save you time, energy, and money, because if you’re having to travel yourself to a repository that someone is already living at and could search for you, and then they’re very efficient, they know their way around, that could save you that expense. So there’s a lot of reasons why for certain cases you’d want to hire someone to help you out with your genealogy.

Nicole (7m 38s):
Yeah. I think it’s interesting all the different types of clients that we’ve had and they have mostly fit into one of these seven reasons that you mentioned. I thought one of the reasons was really interesting. I don’t know if it’s on here, but then we’ve had a couple of clients who’ve done the research themselves and have built a tree at Ancestry, but then they’re not sure if they did it right. And someone to verify it. So I think you kind of mentioned that a little bit, but it’s interesting, you know, everybody has different skill set or level of understanding and especially people who have a brick wall where they’ve worked on it for a long time and they can’t think of anything else to do with it. Those seem to be like one of our most common types of clients where they just don’t know what to do next with it, or if anything can be done.

Nicole (8m 23s):
And so they, they are like, well, I’ve done everything I can do. And now I want someone with a fresh set of eyes to look at it and see what you can do.

Diana (8m 31s):
Yeah. And it’s really amazing how just a different perspective and looking at the records in an organized process makes a difference and then writing it up, no, doing the whole Research Like a Pro process, which is what we use in our professional work. We always do something with those brick walls. We may not always break them down immediately, but we make progress and we figure what to do next. And so, you know, for someone that just has no idea what to do next, they sometimes will take our future research and then just go work on it themselves. And sometimes they’ll say, oh, okay, you guys keep going. So there’s always something more you can do with the research we found.

Nicole (9m 11s):
That’s true. And I just was reminded of Elizabeth Shown Mills 2021 NGS conference, talk about poor ancestors and how a lot of times people will give up on researching them because they just think there’s no records, but she always has such a fun way of talking about not giving up and keeping hope alive that you can find something. And she had a big list of record types, especially at the federal level that poor ancestors might be mentioned in that most people don’t think I have to look at. And a lot of them are not even imaged at the national archives, but they could have helpful information.

Nicole (9m 52s):
And a lot of the types of things she was talking about were like laborers lists and people who were helping with military efforts, but who weren’t enlisted, you know, that they were doing other kinds of jobs. So it was interesting to think about the fact that the major record types that we normally use in genealogy, maybe we can’t find our ancestors on, but then we have to go to those lesser known types and learn about them. And she was saying, sometimes we feel like we don’t know enough about those record types, but her solution for that was just a study. The finding aids that the National Archives has published. And once you do that, you can understand what’s available and have more ideas of where to look, which just reminds me of the importance of learning about records and locations and availability of records, which is such a key part of the Research Like a Pro process when you’re doing locality research.

Diana (10m 47s):
Absolutely. And it’s funny that you mentioned the national archives because I’m working on a blog post right now about African-American resources and there’s an entire book published about all the collections at the national archives that African-Americans could be mentioned in. And it is fascinating to like all of these different collections that we never hear about that not only African-Americans, but you know, any individual in the United States could have been mentioned in. So it kind of opens your eyes to the fact that we’re kind of skimming the top and there’s a lot more we can do.

Nicole (11m 25s):
And another thing she mentioned for those poor ancestors that I liked was finding where they lived within the community by looking on the census for the landowners around them, and then kind of plotting that on a map and then looking at the community leaders and doctors and people who may have kept other kinds of records like lease records and doctor records. And then looking on those people’s records to find your poor ancestors name, it’s just a different way of doing it. And it really goes back to fan club research and branching out to other people, not just looking for that person’s name, but looking for their associates and neighbors.

Diana (12m 1s):
Absolutely. And I have found a lot of it comes from experience and as a professional genealogist, I’ve worked done a lots and lots of different projects. And you start to hone in on those little clues that you see in the records and something that someone without your background or experience with just pass over it, it becomes this big red flag that, you know, you need to research more on that part and that’s going to draw you to the answer. So a lot of it just comes from experience and working and having some of those methodologies, like the FAN club research under your belt.

Nicole (12m 36s):
Yeah. And just also learning about how other cases have been solved, which is why I love our NGS quarterly study group, where we read those difficult case studies and kind of see some of the strategies and with a recent client project that I was working on, we exhausted a lot of the record types that we had planned on doing and had more time left and decided that the time would be best spent eliminating other candidates to be the ancestor’s father. And that proved to be really fruitful. And most people don’t know how to do that on their own. And so that was another way of attacking the problem of just showing like, well, we know the county where he was born through New York state census records consistently saying he was born in this county at this time.

Nicole (13m 22s):
And there were only like seven men who lived there before. And after that time and the census record. So we just took that list and worked on eliminating all of them. We were able to eliminate everyone except for two candidates. So it really helped bolster the case. Right.

Diana (13m 38s):
And we use that strategy a lot in some of these cases just eliminating everybody else. And you had the last man standing who has to be the right person. Yeah.

Nicole (13m 49s):
Especially with those cases where you’re building a case with indirect evidence, that’s an important strategy because you don’t have anything that states directly that this is the father, but you can build a strong case if you do that well, let’s talk some more about how a professional can help you, what kind of things they can do. First of all, they can help with dealing with documents. And, you know, if you’re needing to get at a document, that’s from an archive or repository, a professional researcher can go and get that for you. If they live in the area, you know, if it’s difficult for you to get there yourself, you know, you have to think about travel costs and hotel food, transportation, when you’re there, it could well exceed what you would pay a professional to just go get the record that you need, unless it’s something that you want to do for the experience.

Nicole (14m 40s):
And for fun, it’s usually a much more efficient to just hire someone who lives in that area to go pull the record. Another thing that a professional genealogists can help with as far as documents is translate records from another language, which it can be really challenging to try to figure out what a record says and another language, unless you have a little bit of experience reading that language. I studied Spanish in high school for four years. And so I can usually figure out what a Spanish document is saying. But if it’s in any other language, I’m pretty much stuck unless it’s like a form they’re filling out like a baptism for me, you know, I can usually figure out Latin and I’ve even figured out there’s a Hungarian baptismal record that I was able to decipher, but it was challenging.

Nicole (15m 26s):
And so if I had like a full page document in a like Hungarian, I would not be able to figure that out because just using Google translate would not produce the correct translation. So that’s when you really need a professional who regularly works in that language and documents from that time period who can translate the will or the document for you and have it make more sense and be accurate. And then sometimes even if you’re working in your own language, you might just need some help reading the old handwriting, especially if it’s an older document or just transcribing and abstracting a really difficult record that has multiple pages like an estate file or a court case where there’s a lot of legal documents and evidence that doesn’t really make sense to you because there’s a lot of contextual information that you need to understand.

Nicole (16m 13s):
So hiring someone to help transcribe an abstract and help you make sense of that case file could be really well worth your time to get all the helpful information and evidence out of it.

Diana (16m 25s):
Yeah. Those documents can be a challenge. I agree that just getting some help, you know, even as professionals, we can’t all know everything. And so I know I was working on a project that was in Texas, but it went down into Mexico and one of our colleagues reads Spanish. And so I had her do a lot of the transcription for me. And it was so helpful because she did it much faster than I would of slogging through it because I took French in college. I can read French, but Spanish is very close. And I can, like you said, you know, you can get the words off of those records where they’ve just filled in the blanks and that makes it easier.

Diana (17m 5s):
But sometimes it’s difficult to figure out, you know, something that’s completely written out. So,

Nicole (17m 12s):
Okay. I could do French at all. Even though it’s similar to Spanish, it’s just, yeah, it’s, it comes down to how much time do you want to devote to learning this language? You know, like it’s usually much more efficient to just have somebody else do it. Who knows how to do it, they can do it quickly. And then you don’t have to spend four hours staring at it. Right? Another thing professional genealogists can help you with are organizing your papers. You know, maybe you have a big thick folder of documents after years of research that you’ve found and you’ve gathered all of your data, but you just haven’t organized it and figured out what’s inside all of those documents and you have some ideas, but it just feels unorganized.

Nicole (17m 56s):
I had a client once to send me her whole folder of documents like that. And she just really needed help getting it organized and finding out what information she had and then making the research plan to go forward. So we spent a couple hours just organizing her documents, making a timeline, reviewing the current evidence, and then going forward with the research objective with the rest of the time. And some of the conclusions she had drawn were incorrect, but most of them were good. So we were able to just really build on top of that foundation. Sometimes people have boxes of genealogy that they don’t know what to do with. And so that’s another thing a professional could do for you is just help you get out of that feeling of just being overwhelmed and paralyzed about what to do with all of the documents in your boxes and just getting them organized and maybe helping coach you through that.

Nicole (18m 45s):
I know Diana, you’ve done that before with a couple of clients who just needed some coaching or how to get through their boxes actually.

Diana (18m 54s):
Absolutely. And it’s fun because I have them prioritize, you know, before we even meet together, you know, what is the most important thing for you to do? And I feel like they often just want to talk to somebody, you know, it’s just helpful to have someone else to go through your ideas and help you to make that prioritize list and then give you ideas about how to do it. So yeah, in an hour or two, I’ve, I’ve helped several clients make a plan for organizing all of their stuff. And it’s been super fun. I really enjoy doing that. I also do a lot of consultations per brick wall problems where we just talk through what they have and I give them ideas for what to do.

Diana (19m 38s):
And some things they already, like you said, they already have good ideas, but they’re just a little unsure and like verify and say, yeah, you are definitely on the right track. And have you thought about this? And you know, that’s just an hour or two of consultation. And that’s a really good thing to do sometimes if you want to do the work, but you need a little bit of time.

Nicole (19m 56s):
Yeah. I think a lot of people would like to know what they can do next. And especially with DNA analysis, I think when people take the DNA test, they kind of get started with it. But then they’re just not sure what the next steps would be to really solving the case with DNA evidence. So they need a little bit of guidance. And so I’ve done several consultations where we just go through where they’re at and the research. And then I just start giving them some ideas of how to expand their pool of base test takers and what to do with those results when they get them some ideas for clustering in the matches, figuring out who’s in the cluster and then making some connections.

Diana (20m 37s):
Right. We have a lot of projects that come in now with when DNA, as part of it, because it really is helpful in breaking down those brick walls. And especially if you have a long-standing mystery, like maybe an unknown grandparent or an adopted parent, there are so many cases that DNA can help. And a lot of our clients have all these test results and they’ve had people tested, but it’s confusing and it’s difficult. And so we can often in a 20 hour project put a lot of order to the DNA and really get them started. And then they can either continue it on their own or we can continue if it’s not solved in that timeframe.

Diana (21m 22s):
So working with your DNA is a really good time to hire a professional. If it is just not something you want to delve into, some people really love it and want to learn it. And others just don’t want to touch it. We’ve we’ve seen all sides of the spectrum. Okay.

Nicole (21m 39s):
Absolutely. So one of the most common reasons why someone might hire a professional is to just learn more about their family, especially if they have a brick wall, like we talked about. So when somebody comes to us with a difficult case that they’ve been working on for many years, we will analyze all of their previous research and then approach the problem with new perspective, new eyes and with our lens of experience. And sometimes people want to, you know, discover a specific thing like a revolutionary war ancestor, so they can join a lineage society like Diana mentioned earlier. So if you are doing that, it’s helpful to find a professional genealogist. Who’s really proficient in the rules for that society because each linear society has different requirements for their applications.

Nicole (22m 27s):
So Mayflower Society wants you to do it one way and DAR has their set rules. So it’s good to find somebody who has experience with that. They can really help you with the application. And some clients just want to leave a legacy for their descendants and they need help writing the family history, you know, with source citations and either put everything into a book for them, or write a series of reports for them. So that can be another thing that a professional can help you with, especially if you, if you don’t have a lot of time to put everything that you’ve researched into written form, and maybe you have, you know, all of your files saved in your family tree belt, and you can give that to the professional and they can write it up for you.

Nicole (23m 13s):
And that can be a really valuable way to use a professional genealogists time,

Diana (23m 19s):
Especially if you’re not skilled or proficient in writing that maybe is that one of your talents, your crate at researching and accumulating everything, but you just don’t feel as capable to write everything up. And someone that writes genealogically all the time can do that for you so much quicker and can give you something that you’re really happy to share or have published. So I’ve had some clients like that. And I absolutely love writing the history is so fun and so interesting because in one particular case, I noticed that there were some wrong information. It was a case of people have the same name. And so we were able to correct the lineage as well.

Diana (24m 1s):
And that was fun. Well, another reason for hiring a professional is the field of forensic genealogy. And that is something you may have heard about are, may be unfamiliar. And this is when you are in a case where you have to locate heirs, you know, maybe it’s a legal case. And you’re trying to find all the people that could have a claim on oil or gas or mineral royalties or land issues and following title. Sometimes you need to do some work because of immigration and citizenship. We had a client project in the last year that the client wanting to get Italian citizenship.

Diana (24m 42s):
And so that was kind of a fun project. So there’s a lot of reasons why you might need to go seek out someone to help you. Forensics research really involves searching for living people. And this also is what we do in genetic genealogy when we’re trying to figure out things about our DNA matches. We’re often searching for living people, if have they are key to our DNA case. And so it’s a whole different field and it has a different set of methodology and techniques. And often the courts or attorneys will be looking for our forensic genealogists to help with this kind of work. Yeah.

Nicole (25m 22s):
Yeah. It’s interesting to think about, I have a friend who we would talk about genealogy and it was kind of her hobby and she started working as a paralegal. And so she started just kind of doing forensic research in her paralegal job because they were looking for a lot of descendants of certain pieces of land that were part of a case that they were working on at her office. So she just, it was kind of by default the person who was doing the genealogy research because she knew how to do it and they needed it to be done so Well once you’ve decided you’re ready to hire a professional genealogist, the next step is to find one that will work for you.

Nicole (26m 7s):
How do you find the right person? Well there’s a lot of different websites that can help you. Probably the first one to look at is the Association of Professional Genealogist and their directory lists almost 2000 people who might be able to help you can search by name, credential research, specialty research, locality, language, place of residence and repositories. So there’s a lot of ways to filter. Usually what I’m doing is I’m looking there for somebody who lives near a repository where I need a record and then can reach out by email and say, Hey, do you want to go to look up this record for me? You live near it.

Nicole (26m 48s):
So, and then another thing, those profiles will list as if they’re taking clients at all. Because some people listed there are not currently taking clients and then maybe they’re taking a break or they’ve retired or something like that. So you can see if the person is currently working, you will probably want to be sure that you feel comfortable with the genealogists level of education and experience. So you can look at their profile on the Association of Professional Genealogist, APG, and you can see what kind of their background have they done any programs like the Boston University Genealogical Programs Certificate, or maybe they have a bachelor’s degree in family history from Brigham Young University.

Nicole (27m 30s):
Maybe they have a credential and you never know, but many excellent genealogists bypass formal programs and learn by creating their own educational programs through going to institutes and conferences, watching webinars and reading books. So you never know, and you can always ask them how they got their experience. If it’s not listed, probably the best way that professional genealogists get experience is by working on research projects. And so it’s helpful to ask them, what’s your experience? How long have you been doing this? How many projects have you done, especially in the location where you want them to do the research. So those are some of the things you can look for and ask them when you contact them.

Diana (28m 11s):
It’s great to have a website where you can go look through a lot of different profiles and find someone that you are interested in. Now, something else that you can look for is to see if the professional is credentialed and we in the United States have got three credentialing bodies that if you go through a rigorous testing or writing procedure, you can receive a credential. And I know other countries also have credentialing bodies, but we’re just going to talk about the three in the us, because those are the ones we know the most about. There are some benefits to hiring your credential genealogist, even besides knowing that they had to meet a level of proficiency in their research.

Diana (28m 55s):
And one of those is that there is a mediation and arbitration service provided by their credentialing body in case of a dispute over the service or payment. So if a project is done and someone doesn’t pay, or perhaps you don’t feel like the research was done correctly, there can be this independent body to mediate and help with that dispute. And then additionally, credentialed genealogists find a code of ethics. And every five years they have to renew and show proof of their continuing education and show proof of their work. You have to submit a work product to show that you are still at the level of professionalism when you first credentialed the credentialing bodies list, their members in a directory.

Diana (29m 42s):
So that gives you another place to go, to look through the researchers and try to find someone that fits your needs. The International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists, ICAPGen website holds a directory, and this is the credentialing body that I credentialed with. They, you become an age year accredited genealogists, and you’re credentialed in a specific locality. So you can search by the region of accreditation or the place of residence, or simply by name. And then you’ll see a list of professionals and their profile. And so contact information, another credentialing body is the BCG or Board for the Certification of Genealogists.

Diana (30m 23s):
And their website also contains a directory of board certified genealogists. And again, you can search by name, address, education, specialty services, and whether they accept clients. So that will give you another pool of genealogists with specific specialties and contact information. And then finally, if you’re looking for a forensic genealogist, there is The Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy, and they have a website with a directory and you can search by different levels of experience. And on that website, they have advanced, advanced with a credential associate and junior. So it’s great that we’ve got these four different websites that we can just go to and peruse.

Diana (31m 6s):
And you’ll find that some people are on multiple websites. I know that I’m on both the APG and the ICAPGen websites. So you might have people that are on all three or maybe even four, if they’ve got multiple credentials, gives you lots of avenues to pursue when trying to find a professional to work with.

Nicole (31m 24s):
Yeah, I think a lot of times people just type in professional genealogist and then maybe click on the first company that pops up. But I think it’s a really good idea to go and look at these directories instead. And so just helping them tune on the first company that you see, it gives you more of a chance to find somebody that’s focused in your specialty and region that you want. So after you’ve discovered some possible professionals, make sure you look at their websites for public reviews or testimonials, and then send them an email just about kind of your research needs and what type of services you’d like them to do. Another thing you can do is ask for work samples. If they don’t have them on their website to get an idea of the type of report you’ll receive.

Nicole (32m 5s):
And you can also ask for references from past clients to see if they’ve been happy with their research, if possible, you can also set up a phone call to discuss your project and any concerns. Before you talk to the professional, it’s good to kind of refresh your memory of the research you’ve already conducted and be ready to answer any questions they might have about what you’ve found so far. And then if you, and the professional decide to go forward, then you’ll need to gather up all of the records that pertain to the project in the ancestor. In question, sometimes you might even be able to write up a summary of the previous research that will help the professional kind of get a jumpstart on the project and really understand the current state of the known information.

Nicole (32m 46s):
But whether or not you do that, you still definitely need to give them all the documents you’ve already located. And if you don’t, then they might refine something you already have. You can also share your family tree, whether it’s online or a GEDcom file, that you can just email them. And then if DNA is involved, you’ll want to be prepared to share your DNA testing website login information so that they can access your results. It’s important. You know, when you hire a professional to be open to whatever results you receive, and even if the professional can not break down the brick wall in 20 hours, you will still receive valuable research and suggestions for moving forward with the project.

Nicole (33m 26s):
Often the project can’t be solved in a short amount of time like that. And it requires several phases of research. So be prepared that it may not be solved. It might be, but it might just get you a little closer. Very seldom. Does the research come to a complete halt? Usually there’s more to be done, especially now that DNA evidence has added to the possibilities. So even if the research doesn’t find the answer right away, there’s usually a next step that can be done.

Diana (33m 55s):
Right, and I have learned from experience that we don’t always have realistic expectations for what can be done in a 10 or 20 hour project, but it’s really not possible for you to hire a genealogist for 10 hours to trace all of your immigrant ancestors. And so, you know, you might think that professionals have a magic ball where they can just pull that information out of, but really we just do the research and write it up and we can often get you much closer, but we have to be realistic and what can actually be done in a timeframe. And so, as you’re talking to the professional and trying to get some ideas of what can be done, just realize that they want to help you to make progress on your research, but just realize that it is time-consuming to do the work and you will get closer, but you’re probably not going to get all of your immigrant ancestors discovered or all of your brick walls broken down in one 20 hour project.

Diana (35m 1s):
So I have to be realistic. Okay. So what can you expect from a project? So after you have been able to talk with the professional on the phone and, and answer all your questions after you agree on the research goal and the fees and hours, then you should get a contract and this should protect both parties. So you’ll want to read through that, make sure you’re comfortable with that. And if you’re not ask any questions, you know, I’ve had lots of clients that come back and say, I’m not sure what this means, or can you explain this? Or can we revise this? And I’m more than happy to work with every client to make sure we’re both comfortable with exactly what will happen in the project. I feel like that is key.

Diana (35m 43s):
And then once the project is started, you should expect good communication from the professional. And in turn, you should respond to any emails or phone calls while your project is in the research phase. Often as we’re working through projects, something will come up that we’ll need to contact the client about and get a little bit more information or knowledge. So you want to be really good at communicating. And then when the project is all complete, you should receive a research log with all the searches, both positive and negative, because sometimes in a project you mainly get negative results.

Diana (36m 24s):
It could be that all the sources that were searched, didn’t pull up the answer to the case. And so now we have to go in a different direction, but you want to make sure, you know, everything that was searched and all the results, and then you’ll want a written report detailing and analyzing the research, those ideas for the future research, any copies of new documents, physical or digital, whatever you decide you want. And then hopefully you can negotiate to have a follow-up call or meeting to answer your questions about the research. I find that I always like to talk with the client when they would like a phone call and just clarify things.

Diana (37m 6s):
We try to write our reports really clearly and explain everything. But sometimes there’s just a little bit more that can be sent via zoom call or a phone call, especially when working with DNA projects, it’s a chance for a professional to help you understand all of the research and everything that was done

Nicole (37m 25s):
Well, that’s a really good list of things to be prepared to do when you’re working with a professional genealogists. I really like that you threw in there that people should answer the phone and call back the genealogist when they need to talk to you during the project. Because often there are things that we need to ask our clients, and it’s really helpful when they can get back to us quickly. Usually for me, it has to do with DNA and contacting matches and maybe like upgrading to another level of testing or transferring to MyHeritage and paying, $30 to unlock the tools there, or even ordering new records beyond what the contract has outlined, you know, usually in our contracts, we put that we can order records up to a certain amount of money.

Nicole (38m 6s):
And then after that, we need permission from the client. So if there’s a lot of records that need to be ordered, it’s really important that the client is in communication with the genealogist so they can decide if they want it.

Diana (38m 18s):
Yeah. You know, we feel like the client is part of the research process and needs to be involved with what’s going on. So expect that, and in our contracts, we agree to send an email every two or three weeks to update the clients so that they know what’s going on with the project, what we’ve found so that it’s not a complete surprise at the end. You kind of know all the way along, how things are going and not every professional might do that, but it’s nice to have some updates I feel throughout the project.

Nicole (38m 50s):
Yeah. And if that’s something you really want, you can ask them to do that at the beginning so that they know that you’re hoping to hear from them throughout the project. All right. Well, thanks for listening to everybody. And we hope you’ve got some ideas for when to hire a professional and how to do so and where to find them. So good luck to you with your research going forward. And we hope that when it’s time to hire a professional, you’ll be prepared to do so.

Diana (39m 11s):
All right. Have a great week, everyone. Bye bye. Bye.

Nicole (39m 16s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com to share your progress and ask questions. Join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our e-course or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.