FAQ: Why hire a professional genealogist?
All families have an interesting history and one can learn a lot about the past and present from his/her predecessors. Therewith, one can also better navigate the future (e.g. how one remains with family tradition despite modernity or when one should make reasonable changes). Often time, the skills and know-how of a genealogist is needed to uncover and make sense of the documented clues to construct the biographies that are part and parcel of the family histories.
Yes, family history research is actually far more than filling in a family tree chart with names and places. Each history is really a collection of biographies and discovering the biographies often requires research and analysis similar to that of detective work. Besides finding clues and resolving discrepancies among clues to solve puzzles, often the challenge is to identify the current location of a record.
This is what a genealogist does: find records, study and analyze records, identify and try to resolve discrepancies, and present the information in a digestible and an objective-tailored way.
Our projects have included:
- Family trees and charts of descendants
- Family histories
- Biographies
- Transcription and translation of old documents including letters patent of coat-of-arms and nobility
- 7-30-page “Cases for the parentage …”
- Reports concerning completeness of collections found at different repositories
- City tours (e.g. Vienna)