When should you pay for a genealogy services or a professional genealogist?

Anyone who started their genealogy research in the 1900s knows we are living in a golden age. Many research tasks that used to require in-person visits can now be completed online (see 5 ways to reach out to other genealogists the right way). It’s also possible to communicate with relatives in new ways, to ask questions or share information.

Best of all, there is no financial cost to using services such as FamilySearch, the Internet Archive, genealogy-focused Facebook groups, or certain public archives.

But there is another cost. The abundance of free information runs up against the practical limitations of having only so many hours in a day to devote to genealogy. No matter how efficient we are in terms of using technology or free online tools, there simply isn’t enough time to do it all.

Paid genealogy services

Saving time is a valid reason to consider paid genealogy services. In September, I paid $112.50 for a series of 5 online presentations on New York genealogy offered by American Ancestors. With enough time I probably could have figured out a lot of the techniques on my own, but I wanted to spend my time on my New York genealogy more efficiently and effectively.

The presenters were professionals with deep expertise using local records, starting from New York’s colonial period under the Dutch and English through the 1900s. They revealed new avenues for inquiry, as well as resources that I didn’t even know existed:

• The Fred Q. Bowman vital record substitutes for New York residents based on extracted newspaper references from the 1700s and 1800s.
• In the 1865 New York state census, a special schedule for enlisted members and officers in the Union Army still in service as well as those who had died during the war.
• The 1890 schedule of surviving Civil War veterans and widows.
  Determining an ancestor’s likely religion by looking into the background of the officiating cleric listed in a marriage record.
• How to effectively use New York land deeds and probate records to determine family relationships.
• Unearthing information from family bibles using indexes and images from the DAR, American Ancestors, and ArchiveGrid. 

Genealogy societies and heritage tours

There are other professional genealogy societies that offer similar high-value workshops online or in person, often at genealogy conferences. FamilySearch maintains a list of regional genealogy conferences across the country through next spring.

Some family historians turn to paid heritage tours led by genealogists or historians. There are all kinds of tours to choose from—African ancestry, Sicilian connections, Irish roots, Mayflower origins, and so on.

These tend to cost more because travel is involved, but it’s worth it to participants. Not only can a heritage tour accelerate understanding of immigrant ancestors, it’s a chance to connect with a place and its people in ways that are not possible through a screen or a lecture. Blogger Roberta Estes describes joining one such tour to France organized by a company specializing in Acadian heritage, and shares the discoveries she made.

Hiring a professional genealogist

The ultimate paid genealogy service is hiring a professional genealogist to work on your family history. It can be extremely expensive, ranging from hundreds of dollars to many thousands, depending on the research goals.

About 10 years ago, I turned to a hired genealogist to get through a brick wall for an immigrant ancestor couple. Like a lot of brick wall breakthroughs, it led to more questions but getting that answer (which was later supported by DNA matches from a $99 consumer test) was absolutely worth it - I had a place of origin for the couple, an abandoned hamlet called Ardoch located in the Scottish Highlands.

Genealogists for hire can be found online, but be careful of scams. Also be prepared for the possibility that hard research questions may not have easy answers. A good starting point is the “Find a genealogist” database operated by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Be sure to check out their blog post, 5 questions to ask a professional genealogist before hiring.