How do professional genealogists find ancestors?
On ancestory dot com they pay professionals like 0 to find one person.
What do they do that I’m not doing?
(I’m having trouble find somebody in South Carolina during the years 1790 to 1810) How would they- the professionals- find her?
Tagged with: south carolina
Filed under: Research
Professional genealogists usually specialize in a specific area of research - often in the place where they live. They research at the local archives, courthouses and other repositories on a regular basis, and become very familiar with the history of the area and the records that are available. So they often know about resources that you might not be aware of.
Of course, you can do the same things they do. You can talk to experts on the area and learn what records are available, and where to find them. You can read up and educate yourself about conducting research in that area. You can travel to the area and scour the archives and courthouses, and ask the archivists and clerks for help. But if you don’t have the time, money or inclination to do those things, hiring a professional can be worth the cost. Especially when you’re just looking for one specific thing.
If you do hire a professional, look for one who specializes in South Carolina research; ideally, one who lives in the area or has experience researching in the county where you’re looking. But keep in mind - there’s no guarantee that they’ll find what you’re looking for. Courthouses got burned; records were sometimes lost; events sometimes went unrecorded. There simply may be no record in existence to answer your question. And you’ll still have to pay the researcher for their time. However, a professional will provide you will a report telling you what resources they checked. So if you want to continue searching, at least you’ll know where NOT to look and you can try other avenues.
They dig through records, and often have to travel for miles to do that much…. that is about it! They, of course have to know which records to dig through and get permission to do so,.. often paying a fee for access. Sometimes they find someone quickly, sometimes they look for days and find nothing. The price seems high until you think about it.
Figure that you pay most LICENSED electricians $175.00 to walk through your door, and THEN the charges start. If he is Union…. hell, forget it and buy a new house! I can’t afford a Genealogist, but I don’t think that their fee to TOO much out of line with the world.