Author Topic: Earning money for genealogy research?  (Read 2770 times)

Offline rubymelia

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Earning money for genealogy research?
« on: Sunday 21 April 19 17:43 BST (UK) »
Hi all,
Sorry I wasn’t sure which topic/forum to post this to.
I am a final year university student and in the past year have found a great passion for searching my family history. I have a long summer ahead and came up with the idea to maybe lend out the research tricks I have learnt in the past year to find other people’s ancestors.
My idea was to offer a service whereby people would ask for maybe 3 generations back including names, locations, occupations etc of their ancestors. (I would be offering this in my local area only)
I was wondering what other people’s perspectives were on this? Whether you think it’s a viable thing to get into for the summer? And any tips/tricks on going about it. Or how I could charge for what information?
Thankyou for any input, I appreciate your views.
Ruby

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #1 on: Sunday 21 April 19 17:48 BST (UK) »
Good luck - but be prepared.  There are always those who EXPECT everything for NOTHING.  :-X
Transcriptions and NBI are merely finding aids.  They are NOT a substitute for original record entries.
Remember - "They'll be found when they want to be found" !!!
If you don't ask the question, you won't get an answer.
He/she who never made a mistake, never made anything.
Archbell - anywhere, any date
Kendall - WRY
Milner - WRY
Appleyard - WRY

Offline oldohiohome

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #2 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:09 BST (UK) »
Some random ideas off the top of my head.

1. See if you can find out what people are charging for similar research, maybe from ads in  a genealogy magazine or journal. Or Google terms to find people who are offering the service. Some might put their prices on line. "genealogy research <my county> or <my city>" <- something like that.

2. pick any local family and just do it. You will get an idea of how long it takes to do the job. then price per hour according to what you want to make.

3. I assume you are already familiar with local resources, where they are, and if they will cost you to access. factor in the cost of paying for them, photocopies, etc. price them in,  tell people there may be charges tacked on for research (bad idea), or keep in touch with them as you go along and offer them the option.

4. there are probably faster ways to make better money. Maybe plan on doing this on the side.

5. When I turned 62 (in the US), I thought I might do this as a second career, then realized I was more familiar with the resources in the area where I was raised than where I lived. Also that I really wasn't going to feel like driving around to local court houses and town halls, hassling clerks all day to look at wills and deeds.  - Still, you are younger than that, and it beats flipping burgers.



Offline rubymelia

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #3 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:14 BST (UK) »
Some random ideas off the top of my head.

1. See if you can find out what people are charging for similar research, maybe from ads in  a genealogy magazine or journal. Or Google terms to find people who are offering the service. Some might put their prices on line. "genealogy research <my county> or <my city>" <- something like that.

2. pick any local family and just do it. You will get an idea of how long it takes to do the job. then price per hour according to what you want to make.

3. I assume you are already familiar with local resources, where they are, and if they will cost you to access. factor in the cost of paying for them, photocopies, etc. price them in,  tell people there may be charges tacked on for research (bad idea), or keep in touch with them as you go along and offer them the option.

4. there are probably faster ways to make better money. Maybe plan on doing this on the side.

5. When I turned 62 (in the US), I thought I might do this as a second career, then realized I was more familiar with the resources in the area where I was raised than where I lived. Also that I really wasn't going to feel like driving around to local court houses and town halls, hassling clerks all day to look at wills and deeds.  - Still, you are younger than that, and it beats flipping burgers.

Thank you so much! You have given me a lot to think about :)


Offline hallmark

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #4 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:16 BST (UK) »
Good luck - but be prepared.  There are always those who EXPECT everything for NOTHING.  :-X





 ;D  ;D

 
Give a man a record and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to research, and you feed him for a lifetime.

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #5 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:18 BST (UK) »
It may be an idea to look at the following website.

https://www.agra.org.uk/
CHOULES All ,  COKER Harwich Essex & Rochester Kent 
COLE Gt. Oakley, & Lt. Oakley, Essex.
DUNCAN Kent
EVERITT Colchester,  Dovercourt & Harwich Essex
GULLIVER/GULLOFER Fifehead Magdalen Dorset
HORSCROFT Kent.
KING Sturminster Newton, Dorset. MONK Odiham Ham.
SCOTT Wrabness, Essex
WILKINS Stour Provost, Dorset.
WICKHAM All in North Essex.
WICKHAM Medway Towns, Kent from 1880
WICKHAM, Ipswich, Suffolk.

Offline Marmalady

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #6 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:27 BST (UK) »
So many records are easily available on-line, that anyone paying for research is going to want their brickwalls busting -- which will be a a difficult time-consuming task -- and often with no results to show at the end of it.

And tbh, someone who has only just discovered their passion for genealogy in the past year whilst also studying at university does not necessarily inspire confidence that they have the depth of knowledge required to undertake research for others.

As Oldohio says, there are probably quicker and easier ways of making money over the summer
Wainwright - Yorkshire
Whitney - Herefordshire
Watson -  Northamptonshire
Trant - Yorkshire
Helps - all
Needham - Derbyshire
Waterhouse - Derbyshire
Northing - all

Offline oldohiohome

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #7 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:38 BST (UK) »
I was writing this, so some of this was covered by marmalady just now.

A few more thoughts.

Can you do lookups in your home area for people whose family have moved away? For example, 'my gg grandmother was born in <your town>, can you find her birth record? It's not online."

Figure out what you can do that someone can't do for themselves in a few hours at the library.

Pick a price per hour for open ended research, like "my grandfather left his wife in the 1920's and was never heard from again. Can you find out what happened to him?" -- If I had $1/hour for the time I spent looking for my wife's grandfather I'd be a rich man. Many people might not be interested in their whole ancestry, but they have one or two questions like that, or a family story they want proven true or false, or a skeleton in the closet, etc. Lots of questions on rootschat also center around "out of wedlock" children and trying to find them. Can you do that? And finding birth parents for adoptees, and adoptees for birth parents.

And the hardest part of getting started is figuring out how you are going to get the word out widely enough to get customers. For my real job, I went from store to store and office to office with calling cards. But genealogy research is a bit more difficult. I never really got past that hurdle. If you do a few, you might start getting word of mouth references.

When I said above to just pick one family and do it, maybe do a friend's for free, preferably a friend with a lot of other friends they can tell :).

Talk to your local library's  research librarian. He/she might get requests for more than they will do in house, and also might know others doing the same work you are trying to get into. Also, is there a local genealogy society? The members would be your competitors to some extent, but also might help network starting out. Weigh the two and decide.


Offline groom

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Re: Earning money for genealogy research?
« Reply #8 on: Sunday 21 April 19 18:45 BST (UK) »
I'm afraid that I have to agree with Marmalady. There are so many forums such as this and on places such as FB, where people with far more experience than you will do research for nothing. If I was going to pay for any research I would want to know what qualifications the person had.

You also need to check, if you use subscription sites such as Ancestry and Find My Past to help you, whether or not you are breaking their T&C and copyright laws.
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