Getting Started on YOUR Project

Why do you want to trace your family history? Does the idea unnerve, yet intrigue you? It’s all over TV, certainly. Who Do You Think You Are? has versions in Australia, the UK and the US. Finding Your Roots on PBS takes it a step further by working with DNA. Genealogy Roadshow, another PBS creation, takes genealogy from town to town, answering simple and complex questions for those willing to stand in line and wait. Not surprisingly, BYU-TV (a product of Brigham Young University and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, long-time leaders in genealogy and family history research) has Relative Race, a reality game show in which participant teams race to find relatives found through documentary research and DNA. And in our daily lives, we all know that family lore makes for fun storytelling sessions at reunions and holiday gatherings.

But what if you don’t have the raw materials of family history? Are you part of a family that hasn’t handed down its stories? Are you an orphan, missing a parent, adopted or fostered? Are you African-American, Native American, Latin American in a country whose records are by and for European-American people? Are your country of origin’s records not computerized, or difficult to find? Increasingly, there are tools available online to help you uncover secrets. It’s natural to want those answers, yet hard to come by them without expertise.

Genealogical research takes WORK, discernment, and experience. Are you short on time? Are you afraid of the dedication required to use a basic Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org account, to decipher the implications of your genealogical DNA test, to use GEDmatch.com, MyHeritage, FTDNA or DNA.land to find your cousins, or to answer even simple questions about your lineage? Do you want to accomplish a specific goal or produce a particular piece of research but you don’t have the expertise?

If you said yes to any of these questions, it might be time to find someone to start your research for you. Ask yourself:

Do you know where your grandparents were born, or how they met?
Do you know where your ancestors were 100 years ago?
What part or parts of the world does your family come from?
Did any of your family members fight in the military during any US war?
Do you ever wonder why you have the eye color, hair color, skin color, talents and interests that you have?
Do you think that your family is just boring, or just like everybody else’s?

Still reading? Work with Ancestors Alive! to build your tree.

I provide three services:

Building trees for descendants of enslaved persons at no cost (explained on my Reparational Genealogy page)
A free podcast on pretty much every podcatcher you can think of (see From Paper To People)
Lessons by phone or Zoom.us at $25/hour on using Ancestry, FamilySearch, the basics of DNA, and general skills.

Let’s start digging into your family history. Your answers lie in research-based genealogy, and possibly in DNA-based genetic genealogy.

You WILL be surprised.

Ready to get started?

In order to start your Ancestry tree, I need data. Please fill out this form, following directions carefully. With this, I can begin working on our collaboration.

CURRENTLY, TEMPORARILY NOT TAKING NEW CLIENTS.

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