Should we hire a genealogist?
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Should we hire a genealogist?
If you have been trying to find out more about your family history in order to preserve family memories for future generations, then you’ve no doubt done the basics: compiled old family photographs, asked family members who know more about family history, and so on. But many families choose to take things a step further by hiring a genealogist to help them with their family history research. Should you hire a genealogist? The following guide will help you find the answer to this question.
Should You Hire a Genealogist?
Whether or not you should hire a genealogist for your family history research will depend on what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to find out who is in old family photographs, but you can’t track down living family members who might be able to help identify people in them? Are you trying to find out the former locations of family members but are having trouble for various reasons, such as the time period? If so, then you may benefit from hiring a genealogist who can do a lot of this work for you—and be able to do it to a more efficient degree.
Benefits of Hiring a Genealogist
There are many benefits to hiring a genealogist for your family history work. The following are the most notable benefits that you will be able to receive after hiring a genealogist.
Experience
A genealogist will have at minimum years of experience working in the field. This will give them a massive leg up on the process as they already know the ins-and-outs of researching family history. They will know which archives to check, which online databases are useful, how to connect the dots in research, and so on. This type of experience is truly invaluable and can really help you find out more about your family history.
Connections
A genealogist working in the field will have certain connections that you, as an ordinary layperson, simply won’t have. This can help a genealogist find out more information about your family history than you would be able to do on your own.
Detailed Analysis
A genealogist will be able to provide a more interesting, professional detailed analysis of your family history than you would be able to create on your own. A professional analysis from a genealogist can be very beneficial for preserving your family history, especially when it comes to creating an analysis that can be shared and understood by future generations.
Capable of Foreign Research
If your family history research would require foreign research, then the work of a genealogist will be invaluable. Genealogists will be able to do foreign research, including researching foreign archives, finding international birth and death receipts, and so on. If you aren’t bilingual or you don’t have access to international records, then the ability of a genealogist to do foreign search can mean the difference between finding out family history and it forever remaining hidden to you.
If you are interested in hiring a genealogist, make sure you keep the above benefits in mind.
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