Do professional genealogists have access to records the public doesn't?

No. Almost nothing a professional genealogist opens is closed to you. At least one research firm says so in its own FAQ, and every document in my public case file is free online or open to anyone who writes the archive a letter. What you pay for is knowing which book to open, reading it page by page, reading the hand it's written in, and writing down the trail. A few things do tilt the field, and I'll name them.

Are there secret genealogy databases?

No. A thread on r/Genealogy asks it the way most people do: if I paid a genealogist, would they have access to anything beyond Ancestry and FamilySearch. The top reply, from a professional researcher, was no; the difference is knowing what exists and how to find it. That's a thread, not an authority, so here is the same answer in writing. Asked in its FAQ whether it has special access to records the public can't see, Legacy Tree Genealogists answers: "No, we don't. But we know how to find them." The firm says it works from publicly available records, holds subscriptions to the major genealogy websites, uses agents who visit archives for it, and has no exclusive database.

So where does the idea come from? Partly from the profession's own marketing. The Association of Professional Genealogists, on its page about why to hire one, says that access to personal libraries, specialized databases, and a worldwide network of colleagues cuts down on travel and on the cost of acquiring certain records. That doesn't describe a locked room. The databases are subscriptions you can buy. The library is a shelf of out-of-print county histories. The network is people who answer an email. Real advantages, none of them a record you're barred from.

Three things do tilt the field.

• Subscriptions. A professional has already paid for the big sites. You can buy a month of the same access.
• Distance. A record that exists only on paper is open to anyone who can reach the reading room. Someone who lives near it, or knows someone who does, has an edge.
• Letters. Some archives open only to a written request stating who you are and what you're researching. A professional has written that letter before. So can you; there's one below.

One thing tilts it your way. Some offices release certain records only to family members. On those, you have access I don't, and the genealogist's job is to tell you what to request and in what words.

What are you actually paying a genealogist for?

Four things, none of them secret, all of them slow to learn.

1. Which book. A burial might be in the parish register (the church's own book of baptisms, marriages, and burials), the civil death book, or a notary's file, and in some towns only one of the three survived. Knowing which to open first is the difference between a week and a year.
2. The pages nobody indexed. An index is the typed list of names a website's search box reads. Legacy Tree's FAQ notes that most records outside the US are held at the town level and aren't digitized or indexed nationally. No search box finds what nobody indexed; someone has to turn the pages.
3. The hand and the language. What an abbreviation stands for, what a priest's note in the margin means, why a surname is spelled two ways on one page.
4. The trail. Every search written down, including the ones that found nothing, so a dead end counts as evidence and nobody pays to repeat it. The APG lists evaluating evidence among the reasons to hire.

Whether those four are worth paying for depends on your question; I went through that in Is it worth hiring a professional genealogist?. Here is what "access" looked like on a real case.

What did "access" look like in the Padre Ballí case?

Padre José Nicolás Ballí is the priest Padre Island is named for, and nobody has ever documented when he was born. The markers disagree with each other, and the statue at the causeway reads "177?". The dated log is on the case page. Here is where each document came from and what it took to open it.

The burial book

His burial entry is in the register of Nuestra Señora del Refugio in Matamoros, the parish's 1812–1920 book of deaths, online at FamilySearch, which is free with a free account. The entry was unindexed and, as far as I can find, uncited anywhere. It sits more than 1,200 images into the film. The access cost nothing. The work was turning those images one at a time.

What it proved: the parish's highest funeral rites, a cause of death (a stroke) no history had printed, and that the death date in every book is actually his burial date. The register already calls him "el finado," the deceased, five days earlier. The correction went to the Texas State Historical Association and the National Park Service with the register as evidence.

The signature

The Reynosa marriage register for 1790 to 1810 is on the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's digital library, free to browse, though the library restricts republishing its images. Nobody writing about his life had cited it. On page 78 his signature appears twice, on marriages he performed in January and February 1807, signed as "cura interino," interim parish priest. The church's own law set 24 as the minimum age for ordination, so a dated page with his signature as a priest gave his birth year a documented ceiling. He spells his name Bally and Ballí on the same page, which is why his records are scattered across indexes. The access was free. The work was recognizing the hand.

The will

His 1828 will survives as a typescript inside his 132-page island file at the Texas General Land Office, Spanish Collection SC 000136:2A, and the whole file is a free PDF from the GLO's land-grant search. I read it cover to cover. The original is not in the Matamoros archive, which confirmed in September 2026 that it went missing decades ago.

The archive that needed a letter

The one document that legally had to prove his age is his ordination file, because a priest had to present a baptismal certificate before ordination. It should be in the archive of the Archdiocese of Monterrey. I wrote to the archive in August. The archive's director replied, said the archive is open to the research, and invited me to consult it in person; he could not confirm the file survives. Its access process then required a formal letter stating the research and whether the findings will be made public; I sent it that same week. Matamoros required a signed request before releasing a digital copy of the one Ballí document it still holds, the 1828 survey file. Anyone can write either letter. What a professional adds is knowing the file should exist, and why.

A network buys one more thing. The researcher who indexed the Reynosa books gave me two leads by phone: an 1811 will and a shipwreck. Both turned out to be in the Texas Supreme Court's 1944 opinion in State v. Balli, which anyone can read. The lead was the favor; the record was public.

And what no access buys: his baptism, the record that would settle the question, was most likely lost when a flood destroyed Reynosa in 1800. Nobody can open a book that no longer exists.

Can a professional read old Spanish handwriting?

Yes, and reading or translating documents is one of the few items on the APG's list that is genuinely slow to do yourself. Reading old handwriting is called paleography, and it's a skill, not a credential. On the Reynosa page, "Br." stands for Bachiller, a degree, and "D." for Don. "Cura interino" is what told me he was serving Reynosa in 1807 while the histories place him in Matamoros from 1804. One word, "finado," overturned a death date printed for 150 years.

I read Mexican parish registers in the original Spanish. Honest both ways: a reading can be wrong. Some hands I can't read on the first pass; the method then is to compare the doubtful letters against the same clerk's other pages. Every finding in my files is labeled by how sure I am, and a doubtful letter is marked as doubtful. Ask that of anyone you hire.

Do professional genealogists use AI?

Some do. I do, openly, and the policy is on the pricing page. It speeds up the searching and keeps every person, conflict and source cross-referenced, so contradictions surface instead of hiding. It never decides what's true. Every claim is checked against the record itself, and every finding is labeled by how sure it is.

The limits matter as much as the uses. A machine reading of an 1807 hand is a draft, not a fact, and a page where one man spells his own name two ways is the kind that fools it. Nothing enters a file of mine on a machine's word alone. Legacy Tree's FAQ, as of October 2026, doesn't mention AI, so if it matters to you, ask whoever you hire two questions: do you use it, and what do you check by hand.

Will a genealogist travel to the archive?

Sometimes, and it should be the last step. The order that saves money is online images, then a written request, then a person in the room. Many archives will search or copy a record for a fee if you ask precisely. Legacy Tree says that when onsite international research is needed, the extra charge follows the agent's costs and travel, often minimal and rarely more than $200, as of October 2026. In File 001, I wrote to Monterrey and Matamoros before planning any trip; the Monterrey archive's director then invited an in-person visit, and that is now on the plan.

If your case needs someone in a reading room, it goes into the written scope and total you approve before any payment is captured. Paper copies work the same way: in the 1900 and 1800s packages, each costs the archive's own fee plus a $10 handling fee and is ordered only after you approve it. In the 1700s and 1600s packages they're included wherever the archive will release them. The rest of the questions to ask before you pay anyone are in How do I hire a genealogist without getting ripped off?.

If you'd rather have this done, start with the $300 Discovery assessment. It's a brick-wall check and a written research plan, credited in full toward any package. Start with the Discovery assessment.