Genealogy research, for one ancestor at a time
Give us a name, rough dates and a place. We search the old records for that person, one name at a time, misspellings and all, and send you what we find: the records themselves, read in plain English, their story with every fact cited, and exactly where to look next.
Start with one ancestor · $49One flat price. A PDF by email within 7 days. If we can't find them in the records at all, you get a full refund.
See what you get before you pay
This is a real report we made in October for a family who asked about Lillian Paolini, born in Los Banos, California, in 1919. They gave us her name, two dates and her father's name. What came back included her father's village in Tuscany, in his own words, on the 1917 draft card he signed. The family said we could show it.
The records we search
- Census records, 1850–1950Who lived in the house, ages, birthplaces, jobs, and where the family moved from one count to the next. (Almost all of the 1890 census was lost to fire.)
- Draft cards and enlistmentsWorld War I draft cards, often with a signature, an employer and a physical description; the World War II draft cards that are online (mostly men born 1877–1897); and the WWII Army enlistment index.
- Social Security recordsThe death index, and the Social Security Numident, built from the application forms, which for many people names both parents.
- Births, marriages and deathsState and county indexes and, where they're online, the certificates.
- Immigration and citizenshipPassenger lists and naturalization papers, which can name the town or village they came from.
- Old newspapersObituaries, wedding notices and local news from digitized papers.
- Burials and veterans' gravesCemetery records and the VA's national gravesite records, which often give rank, branch of service and dates.
- Land and court recordsLand, probate and other county records, where they're indexed online.
What we find depends on what survives. A family with a farm in Ohio and a draft card shows up far more often than a boarder in a big city. The report says what we found, what we didn't, and why.
How it works
- Tell us about one person who has died. Their name, about when they were born and died, where they lived, and anything the family remembers. A nickname or a town is often the key.
- We search the records. Claude, an AI made by Anthropic, does the searching, reads the original pages and writes the report. Patrick White runs the business, and you can write to either of us. Every fact is tied to its source, and where we're reasoning or only have a lead, we say so.
- You get the report within 7 days. Their story, the image of each record wherever one exists online, a one-page family summary where we can make one, and the open questions with where to look next. We leave out anyone who may still be living.
- Questions after? Reply to the email. If you remember something new, send it.
One ancestor · $49
- A search of the online records above, one name at a time
- The image of each record wherever one exists online, and a plain-English reading of every record we find
- Their story, written out, every fact cited
- What's still unknown, and exactly where to look next
- By email within 7 days. Full refund if we can't find them at all.
Want it as a gift? The gift edition adds a short film of their life, about ninety seconds of maps, documents and places, for $99.
Questions
How is this different from hiring a genealogist by the hour?
Many professional genealogists bill by the hour, and a project often starts with a block of hours paid up front (here is what they charge). We charge one flat price for one person, and you can read a finished report before you decide. A professional can do things we can't: visit a courthouse, read records that were never put online, or take on a hard case for weeks. If your question needs that, the open-questions section of our report tells you which records to ask for, and that's a good brief to hand a professional.
What if you can't find them?
If we can't find them in the records at all, you get a full refund. How much we find depends on what survives, and the report says what we searched.
Do you research living people?
No. We research people who have died, and nothing we make names anyone who may be living.
Does it include DNA?
No. This is research in the written records: censuses, certificates, draft cards, newspapers and the rest.
They came from another country. Can you trace them there?
We start from the American records, which often name the town or village they came from (the sample report found an Italian village on a draft card). Where records from that country are indexed online, we search those too. Where they aren't, the report says which archive holds them.
Is this a certified document?
No. It's research, and we aren't credentialed genealogists: our conclusions are our reading of the records, with the evidence shown so you can judge. Where you need a certified copy, the report says which office issues it and how to order it.
Can you go further back?
Each report is about one person and the family around them: parents, spouse, children where the records show them. To follow a line further back, order the next person; the report you already have will say who they are and where to look, where the records show it.
Questions first? desk@familyhistoryresearch.org