Is Professional Genealogy Only for the Elite?

Pause for a moment and consider your circle of friends and family. How many of them have hired a Professional Genealogist to research their family history?

For those of you that know someone personally who has hired a professional genealogist to research their family history, consider yourself one of the few and possibly one of the elite.

For those of you that cannot think of anyone within your circle of family and friends that has hired a professional genealogist, you are not alone.  Only a very small percentage of the general population contract directly with professional genealogists for research services. The majority of professional genealogy research services are provided to organizations, businesses, and government agencies rather than individuals. There are several reasons for this chasm between individuals and professional genealogy services.

1.      Cost: Currently enlisting the services of a professional genealogist can start at $1,500 to $3,000.  For the average person, this cost is much too high for the level of priority that family history plays in their lives.

2.      Risk: The nature of research work is that a contract allows for a specific amount of research time based on a professional hourly rate. Delving into the unknown, it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the level of results that can be achieved in that set amount of research time.  This results in a significant level of risk for the client in that they are committing to a significant amount of investment with no guarantee of the extent of research results that will be provided.

3.      Final Product: The industry standard product provided by a professional genealogist is a professional research report documenting the research completed, the source documents found, a summary of the results, and suggestions for additional research.  However, to the average person, a technical report, although it serves an important technical role in documenting the work, does not satisfy most individuals desire to have something tangible and visible to share with family and friends.  Often these reports get filed, stored, and unfortunately sometimes forgotten.

I am proposing a few solutions to close this gap and make professional genealogy research services more accessible to the average person.

1.      Family Groups: When individuals join a family group, they can pool resources to share the cost of research for common ancestors.  Any given ancestor may have tens, hundreds, and even thousands of descendants that can share in the cost of the research if given an organizational structure to work within.

2.      Lower Risk: As the costs of professional research are lowered for the individual, a person is more willing to take a risk.  Also, with a family group client and potentially a larger budget, the professional may be able to provide a minimum level of results built into the contract with perhaps a money back guarantee to assure the client a minimum level of results

3.      The professional genealogist could include a well-designed graphic family tree as a product of their research in addition to a research report summarizing the research results, document sources, and recommendations for future research.

As we find ways to bring professional genealogy research services to individuals searching for their ancestors, we can bring this important service to the average individual rather than perpetuating the status quo that only the elite of our society are privileged enough to obtain these services.