Professional Genealogical Researchers

These vary as much as Doctors. There are General Practitioners and Specialists. A general practitioner prescribes medications and knows a little about everything, but will have a very hard time identifying and healing a disease. It is the same with researchers. The following will give a synopsis of each level of researchers.
1. A degree in Genealogy is next to worthless by itself. The only place you can obtain a degree in genealogy by a U.S. College is BYU.

2. There are two places Genealogists generally obtain “so called certification”
• Board for Certification of Genealogists
• ICAPGEN
These two organizations are misleading. They are not Certified by any Federal or State, as are most industries. They are organizations that were created by individuals who test people, who pay a fee, and are accepted. They are similar to a Company with subsidiaries.

There is also a third category.
• Association of Professional Genealogists
These are Professional Genealogists who pay a fee to advertise their profession. These comprise both those who are not certified by the above Organizations and those that are.

The problem with Most Professional Genealogists

If you are an amateur Genealogist trying to obtain information about your Family and ancestors, you probably spend most, if not all of your time on Ancestry.com, findmypast, family search, my myheritage.com. You copy and are relying mostly on others who have already done the work. Unfortunately most of these people have copied others. If there is any documentation, it is scarce and you don’t really know if it is your ancestor. This is a big problem. You are, “How can so many people be wrong?” They were not, only the first person was wrong, and everybody else just copied the information.

People have a very bad tendency to copy and when the see the name that matches their ancestor, they want it to be their ancestor. Hence bias now plays a part and they grab that person as their ancestor, simply because they want it to be.

So what is the difference between a professional and an amateur? Professionals tend to stick to Sources, or factual evidence. Some professionals are great at putting the Jigsaw puzzle together. However there are thousands of pieces to the Jigsaw and many get it wrong.
Most professional genealogists are not good enough to be helping others or charging fees. Yet they do it anyway for money. Most Amateurs hire a Genealogists to do research that they themselves could do. Why is this so? Because 99% of all Professional Genealogists do the same as amateurs.

What do most or 99% of Professional Genealogists do to research?

• Sit in front of a computer and use Professional Database websites.
• Use the Family History Library Resources in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Hire a 3rd party to retrieve records. Unfortunately there is a big difference between a researcher who obtains records and a Professional Genealogists. I couldn’t send someone into a courthouse record room to retrieve a document. The document may not be in the records room. But there may be something that will lead to what I want to know, or there may be a different record that may help. Each Court has numerous different records. It takes years of experience in different Counties all across the U.S. to do this. The second problem is that 3rd party people are underpaid by big companies and take shortcuts. Do you really want that?

• This leads to the most important of questions:
 How experienced and how capable is a Researcher?
 How many different States and Counties has the Researcher personally been to? This is important to see all the different types of records and where they are. The following two examples illustrate this principle.

 In Ozark County, Arkansas, there was a man named John Titsworth born in 1830 and died in 1888. How many people do you think would have this name? And were born in Ozark County in 1830 and died in 1888? Most people including Professional Genealogist would jump to assume None. After going to Ozark County, we discovered that deed books
1 + 2 were retrieved by the Circuit Judge in 1862, fearing the Yankees, would destroy them, and while crossing the Arkansas River, they were washed away. Therefore we couldn’t find out who John Titsworth’s father was. It turned out that the grandfather was named John Titsworth who had 5 sons. Each son wanted to name a child after their father. Two sons had sons born in 1830 and died in 1888! Which one is the correct son? We discovered that although books 1+2 were lost, there was an index. This index was unique, an example of going to the ancestors location and looking at records in person. And having experience to know how significant this record was. Probates cost a lot of money, so the County Clerk in this case, simply wrote the name of the wife into the index, along with the husband’s name, date of birth, and Father. This allowed her to sell her deceased husbands property without any expense of a probate.
Example two: Native American Records for the Eastern Agency in New Mexico: One client’s parent’s records were in Denver, & San Miguel California. The records were not where they lived, yet we found them because of experience in doing research in every State in person.

 The problem with big companies is that almost all their researchers have very little practical field experience. This means they normally don’t know where to find the needed evidence unless it is very simple. But they do want your money!
 The other huge problem is that a normally basic genealogist normally advertises in every category of research when in reality they just want the money, it is obvious they don’t have the specialist skill set to do the research. A classic example:

 Professional Genealogist claiming to know how to perform difficult Native American Research, and it is all difficult.
• Do they know how to speak a Native Language fluently?
• Are they a fully blooded Native American?
• Are they a member of a Federally Recognized Tribe?
• Have they traveled and conducted research from reservations in Maine to Florida to California to Washington, and everywhere in between?
• Do they know how to obtain enrollment other than normal qualifications?

3. Large companies use Caseworkers. This means you are not in contact with the actual researchers. This means the researchers are receiving second hand information. The researcher can’t call you to ask a question while on location. A researcher on location may know something the Caseworker does not. Large Companies also don’t go on location. They hire 3rd Party People. You have no idea who this people are or how qualified they are.

4. How do you determine if a company is worth retaining?

Make sure the company doesn’t use Caseworkers or 3rd Parties. Make sure they send their own researchers to Field locations where your ancestors lived. If it is Native American Research also make sure they have people who qualify as true Native American as explained above. And make sure you talk to the head of the research team going into the field. Stay away from any huge company.

January 25, 2019