How do I hire a professional genealogist?

Hire a professional genealogist the way you would hire a contractor. Find someone you can check, ask six questions before any money moves, get the scope, price, time frame and deliverables in writing, and walk away from anyone who guarantees a result. A credential helps you find people. Only the work tells you whether they are any good.

I am someone you might be vetting, so here is my position up front. As of October 2026 I am a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, which I joined this month. Membership is not a credential, and I hold no certification or accreditation from the profession's credentialing bodies. What I offer instead is work you can inspect: File 001, a public case file with every record cited and every dead end logged. At the end of this guide I run the checklist on my own quote.

The six steps, in short:

1. Write the goal in one sentence, and gather what you have.
2. Find candidates you can check.
3. Judge the work, not the ads.
4. Ask these questions before you pay.
5. Compare how the money works.
6. Get it in writing.

First, the reasons people hire, because your reason changes what you ask at each step.

Why do people hire a genealogist?

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) lists the reasons its members get hired on its Why Hire a Professional? page, from DNA results you need help understanding to citizenship in an ancestral country, a brick wall, documents you can't read and writing your family history.

The questions readers leave under hiring guides are more specific than the guides. Here are six real ones, left in the comments under one hiring guide. For each one, here is what a genealogist does, what to look for, what to ask and what you get. The people are kept anonymous.

Finding an Italian ancestor's hometown, for citizenship

A reader looking for an Italian great-grandfather's hometown, in order to apply for dual citizenship.

The genealogist's job is the paper chain. The hometown, the comune, often comes out of American records first, above all naturalization papers. Before September 27, 1906, any court of record could naturalize, and the National Archives says no central index exists; later files sit with the USCIS Genealogy Program, which copies the records of deceased immigrants for a fee. The birth record is then ordered from the comune; the Italian consulate in Chicago's current instructions ask for it "in the extended version", and for every American birth, marriage and death record as a certified long-form copy. The same instructions say to check everything word for word: a typo, a missing middle name or a nickname is a discrepancy, and discrepancies in your own records must be corrected, or the application will not be accepted.

The rules changed in 2025. Under Law 74/2025, in force since May 24, 2025, the Chicago consulate explains that a person born abroad who holds another citizenship is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship, unless:

• the application was filed, or an appointment confirmed, by 11:59 p.m. Rome time on March 27, 2025;
• a parent or grandparent holds, or held at death, only Italian citizenship; or
• a parent lived in Italy for two consecutive years after becoming a citizen and before the child's birth.

On March 12, 2026, Italy's Constitutional Court announced that it had rejected the challenges to the law raised by the Tribunal of Turin. A great-grandparent is not on that list, so a line through a great-grandfather alone may no longer qualify. That is a legal question for the consulate or an Italian citizenship lawyer, not a genealogist; my own reports are research findings, not legal advice.

• Look for: Dual Citizenship and "researches in" Italy in the APG directory; Dual citizenship, Italy and Italian in the BCG directory. I take Italian lines too, but my published case work so far is in Texas and Mexican archives, so ask me, like any candidate, whether I have ordered records from an Italian comune before and how I would check them word for word.
• Ask: "Will you order certified long-form copies and check every name and date word for word?" And: "Who decides whether I qualify?" The right answer names the consulate or a lawyer.
• You get: the chain of birth, marriage, death and naturalization records from you to the emigrant, with every inconsistency flagged before the consulate finds it.

Proving a German line, with the records in Germany

A reader whose grandmother's parents were born in Germany and emigrated, looking to prove the line for German citizenship or residence, with the documents held in Germany.

The German Missions in the United States give a rough screen: there is a chance you hold German citizenship if your ancestors came to the US after 1904, did not naturalize before their children were born, and the descendants born in the US between 1914 and 1975 are all male. A line that runs through a woman born in the US in those years doesn't fit that screen; that is exactly the kind of case to put to the mission. The missions only pre-assess; the Federal Office of Administration in Cologne verifies, the certificate costs EUR 51, and processing may take two to three years. Residence is a separate immigration question for the mission.

The records are the genealogist's part. Civil registration began in Prussia in October 1874 and in the rest of the German Empire on January 1, 1876; before that, you are usually in church books. The FamilySearch wiki says most registers are still at the local Standesamt, and births become public after 110 years, marriages after 80 and deaths after 30. Within those periods, German law issues certificates to the people in the entry and their spouses, ancestors and descendants, so some requests may have to come from you.

• Look for: "researches in" Germany (APG); Germany and German (BCG); the Germany areas in ICAPGen's directory; or the Verband deutschsprachiger Berufsgenealogen, which the FamilySearch wiki lists. Ask whether they read the old German handwriting. I take German lines too; my published work so far is in Spanish-language records, so ask me that question as well.
• Ask: "Which requests will you make, and which have to come from me as the descendant?"
• You get: a chain from you to the emigrant, each generation tied to a certificate or a church entry.

A family history to give a parent

A reader looking for a family history his mother could sit down and read.

Choose the deliverable before you hire. Legacy Tree's hiring guide says the standard finished product is a written report, and a report is evidence, not a story. Ask for what she will actually read: a narrative, a printed binder, a website the family can open on a phone, and ask for a writing sample, not only a report. Be realistic about the date: Legacy Tree's BASIC25 package page says most projects are completed in four to six months, and archive copies can take months on their own. My terms say research takes as long as the records take, so I don't promise a date for a birthday.

• Look for: the Writing / Publishing specialty in the APG directory, and a writing sample you would enjoy reading.
• Ask: "What will she be able to read, in what form, and when?"
• You get, from me: the written family narrative, every claim sourced (an add-on from $1,500, included in the flagship); a printed binder of the records and photos (from $150 on the 1900 and 1800s packages, included from the 1700s up); and a private family website, included from the 1800s up. The sample family site, built from File 001's public records, lets you click through a real one.

Making sense of DNA results without mistakes

A reader who had tested and wanted help understanding the results without making mistakes.

Look for genetic genealogy experience specifically. BCG certifies it as its own credential, the Certified Genetic Genealogist (CGG), and the BCG and APG directories both filter for DNA. Ask how a candidate applies the Genetic Genealogy Standards, presented in 2015 by a committee of genealogists, genetic genealogists and scientists.

Don't hand over your password. AncestryDNA shares results by role: a viewer can see the full results but can't change anything, while a manager can permanently delete them and download the data. Give the smallest role the work needs, and ask where your DNA goes. With me, it never goes into AI tools, Claude included; I analyze results by hand and in Ancestry's own tools, and they are deleted from your file when you ask, as my privacy policy says.

If your line runs through African American records, ask about experience with sets such as the Freedmen's Bureau files at the National Archives, which include marriage records from 1861 to 1869. BCG's directory has an African American research specialty, and ICAPGen accredits a US African American area.

• Ask: "Which Ancestry role do you need, and where does my data go?"
• You get: each match explained against the paper trail, with what it proves and what it doesn't.

"Does the genealogist do the DNA test?"

A reader unsure whether a genealogist runs the test or reads the results.

They read the results. You buy the kit from the testing company, activate it and mail your sample back, and the results appear in your account there. The FamilySearch wiki names 23andMe, Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA and MyHeritage as the companies that sell kits, and separate services that help you interpret results; a genealogist is the second kind. ICAPGen puts DNA interpretation at $100 to $1,000. My DNA tie-in is an add-on from $250, included from the 1700s package up; you buy the AncestryDNA kit, about $100, and results take about six to eight weeks.

• Look for: someone who interprets results. The test itself is bought from the testing company.
• Ask: "Which kit should I buy, and what will you do with the results?"
• You get: the results explained against your paper trail.

A long brick wall built on family stories

A reader whose line, from England to New Zealand, had been stuck for years on hearsay, a marriage certificate, a death certificate, shipping and army records, and family stories.

The method is the same in any country: treat each story as a lead to test against a record, write down what each document says and doesn't, and keep a list of the searches that found nothing, so nobody is paid to repeat them. More on that in When should I hire a professional genealogist?

The records on this route are well kept. Certificates for England and Wales come from the General Register Office through GOV.UK, £12.50 for a standard copy as of October 2026. New Zealand's historical records search shows marriages from 75 or more years ago and deaths from at least 50. Archives New Zealand has digitized the service record of every New Zealander known to have served in the First World War; its search matches exact words only, so add an asterisk after the first letters of a surname to catch the spelling variants.

• Look for: AGRA, the professional body for research in England and Wales, or "researches in" the United Kingdom or New Zealand in the APG directory.
• Ask: "Which family stories will you treat as evidence, and how will you test each one?"
• You get: a written plan that says which records support, contradict or leave open each story.

How to hire a professional genealogist, step by step

Each of those lessons lands in one of these six steps.

Step 1: Write the goal in one sentence, and gather what you have

The golden rule of genealogy, as the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library's genealogy librarian puts it: "start with yourself and work backwards adding one generation at a time." Go as far as you can, then write the goal as one sentence naming the person, the record and the place. "Find my great-grandfather's comune and order a certified copy of his birth record" is a goal. "Find out about my Italian side" is an invoice with no end.

If you are still deciding whether to hire at all, start with Is it worth hiring a professional genealogist?

Gather certificates, photos, letters, tree exports and the family stories, marked as stories, plus the searches that found nothing. Share access by role, never by password; FamilySearch advises caution about giving a researcher your login, because you stay responsible for the account.

Step 2: Find candidates you can check

Genealogists are generally not required by law to be licensed or certified, and the FamilySearch wiki adds that many competent genealogists never seek a credential. FamilySearch doesn't provide a list of accredited genealogists; it points to these three directories.

• APG's directory. APG says it represents more than 2,000 members in forty countries, all of whom agree to its code of ethics and take continuing education each year. Membership is not a credential; the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society notes it is open to anyone with an interest in the field. The directory is still the best map of specialties, with filters such as Dual Citizenship, DNA, Immigration / Naturalization, Document Translation and Handwriting / Palaeography, and for where someone researches. APG shows the listings in good faith and accepts no liability for errors, so check what you read.
• BCG's directory. The Board for Certification of Genealogists awards the Certified Genealogist (CG) after at least three judges evaluate a portfolio of work, including a research report for another person and a kinship-determination project. CGs renew every five years and are judged again. BCG also awards the Certified Genetic Genealogist (CGG).
• ICAPGen's directory. The Accredited Genealogist (AG) credential is regional: ICAPGen says AGs are tested on finding the best sources to solve research cases in specific regions, from England, Germany and Italy to Mexico and US African American.

The National Genealogical Society calls BCG and ICAPGen the two credentialing organizations that evaluate and test applicants. Outside the US, the FamilySearch wiki lists others, such as the Register of Qualified Genealogists.

Where I stand. As of October 2026, I am a member of APG (I joined this month), I am not certified by BCG and I am not accredited by ICAPGen. APG membership is not a credential, and I don't claim BCG's or ICAPGen's. What I do is follow APG's and BCG's published codes of ethics, the Genealogical Proof Standard and the Genetic Genealogy Standards, as my ethics page sets out. If a credential matters to you, hire from these directories. If you want to see how someone works before you pay, read on.

Step 3: Judge the work, not the ads

Ask every candidate for a finished report with the client's name removed, and read it against the Genealogical Proof Standard, which BCG sets out as five tests: reasonably exhaustive research, complete and accurate source citations, thorough analysis and correlation, resolution of conflicting evidence, and a soundly written conclusion based on the strongest evidence.

Legacy Tree's 2016 hiring tips add a specific warning: be wary of a sample on pre-1850 ancestors that uses only easy sources such as other people's online trees. Why that matters is in Can you trust other people's family trees? Then read public reviews; Legacy Tree's hiring guide suggests searching the name plus "reviews".

My work, to judge the same way: File 001 cites every record by archive and page or image number, with the dead ends logged beside the finds, and the sample family site shows what a finished family file looks like.

Step 4: Ask these questions before you pay a genealogist

APG publishes five questions to ask a professional genealogist:

1. "What is your pricing structure?" Package, hourly or project minimum, and when payment is due.
2. "What will I receive at the end of the project?" A report or an online tree, by email or by mail.
3. "What is the time frame?" Mention any deadline; many genealogists have backlogs.
4. "What skills or experience do you have that align with my project goals?" DNA, say, or a language.
5. "What information do you need from me to get started?" So nobody repeats work you have done.

I add a sixth: what happens if the record isn't there? ICAPGen says no researcher can guarantee that your family will be found in the records. The right answer describes what you receive when the answer is no, and what it costs.

Then ask the one for your situation:

• Citizenship: "Will you order certified long-form copies and check every name and date word for word?"
• Records abroad: "Which requests will you make, and which have to come from me?"
• A gift: "What will my parent be able to read, in what form, and when?"
• DNA: "Which access role do you need, and where does my data go?"
• A brick wall: "Which family stories will you treat as evidence, and how will you test them?"

Step 5: Compare how the money works

Genealogists price work in three ways.

• By the hour, often in blocks. ICAPGen's cost page says many professionals charge $50 to $200 an hour, and most ask for a retainer up front; APG's hiring page gives $30 or $40 to well over $200. What hours buy, in Legacy Tree's words, is "a pledge that a genealogist will use paid time effectively", not a result. Older guides still in search results quote less: JewishGen's page, last revised in 2000, says $20 to $75.
• Fixed packages. Legacy Tree's BASIC25 is $3,200 for one research goal, and PREMIUM100 is $11,500 for a 100-hour project with up to four goals, as of October 2026. Read the payment terms: on BASIC25's split-payment plan, Legacy Tree says it will not provide specific research updates or results until all payments have been made. ICAPGen's flat-fee bands run $500 to $5,000 for basic family tree research and $5,000 to $25,000 for comprehensive family histories.
• A defined target. This is how I price, by how far back and which lines: from $900 for both sides back to about 1900, up to $9,500 for both sides back to the 1600s. The 1900, 1800s and 1700s prices are starting prices; if your written quote comes out higher, you see it in writing before you say yes. The two 1600s packages are fixed prices.

ICAPGen also warns: "Beware of any professional researcher making claims to solve your research problem for XXX number of generations for XXX amount of dollars." That warning points at pricing like mine, so here is the test I would put to anyone, me included: is the price a promise? Mine isn't. On the deep packages, which are billed in four equal parts (at the start, when the research reaches 1800, when it reaches 1700, and on delivery), a true wall stops the billing at the last milestone reached and you keep everything found. In the first week I check whether your lines can realistically reach the target; if one can't, you choose between switching lines and a refund, minus the assessment fee if one was done.

Hours suit a narrow question with one record to find: you control the spend, and the risk that the hours run out first is yours. A defined target suits a depth goal, and the risk of a wall sits in how billing stops, so ask exactly how. The figures side by side are in How much does it cost to hire a genealogist?

Step 6: Get it in writing

APG's code of ethics asks members to keep written agreements on scope, timeframes, deliverables, fees, expenses, payment structures, ownership and disclosure. BCG's code says certified genealogists take paid work "only after a clear agreement as to scope and fee" and return any advance that exceeds the hours and expenses incurred. APG's hiring page says the agreement can be an email, a letter or a contract, and should settle copyright and publication rights; Genealogy Explained's guide adds the completion date and extra expenses such as travel and repository fees.

Make sure yours also says:

• The payment schedule, and what you get to see while you are still paying.
• The deliverables by name: not "a report" but "a sourced report, digital copies of every record used and the research log".
• That you can keep the result, copy it and pass it down.
• That there is no guarantee. It reads like a hedge; it is the truth told before your money moves.
• What happens at a wall: whether billing continues, and what you keep.
• For DNA: whose consent, which access role, and when the data is deleted.
• For citizenship: which certified copies will be ordered and in whose name, since Legacy Tree's dual-citizenship page notes that many records can only be ordered by direct family members, and that eligibility is for the consulate or a lawyer to decide.

Then read the refund terms before you sign. Mine are on the terms page, and how no-guarantee works on the bill is in Can a genealogist guarantee results?

Red flags when hiring a genealogist

• A guarantee, or "X generations for $X". ICAPGen warns against both: no researcher can promise a family appears in the records.
• No written scope. "Find whatever you can" is an invoice with no end.
• Nothing to show. No sample, no citations in it, or sources that read "Ancestry.com" and nothing else.
• A tree built from other people's trees. Every parent-child link should rest on an original record.
• A request for your password. Ancestry has sharing roles, so you never need to give one out.
• The whole price before you have seen a page. A retainer is normal, as ICAPGen and APG both say. Being required to pay for everything up front, with no way to see progress, is not.
• A surname crest, or a "family history" book sold by surname. The College of Arms says in its FAQ: "There is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'." Arms are granted to one person and pass down the legitimate male line. HowStuffWorks lists the crest beside the mass-marketed family history book con; Colorado sued one such company in 2005, claiming it had taken $49.95 each from 150,000 people, mostly seniors, for books of generic filler.
• A promise that you will qualify for citizenship. My rule, not a quoted one: a genealogist proves a chain of records, and only the consulate decides eligibility.
• Vague answers about your DNA. Also my rule: if someone can't say where your results go and when they are deleted, don't share them.

The checklist, run on my own quote

The directory check: partial, on the strict reading. I am an APG member, but membership is not a credential, and I am not a CG or an AG. The substitute is public. On File 001 you can read the burial entry I found unindexed in the Matamoros parish register, which showed that the death date printed in the histories is really his burial date; his own signature in the 1807 Reynosa marriage register, a documented boundary on his birth year, because canon law set a minimum age for ordination; and the Matamoros archive's answer that the original 1828 will went missing decades ago, logged as a dead end. Finds and misses on the same page.

The six answers:

1. Pricing: by depth, as in step 5. The $300 Discovery assessment is credited in full toward any package; the full table is on the pricing page.
2. What you receive: in every package, the sourced report, the research trail including the dead ends, and digital copies of every record used. The rest is in What do you actually get when you hire a genealogist?
3. Time frame: the exact scope and total in writing within two business days of checkout. After that, as my terms say, research takes as long as the records take, and if you ask where things stand, I tell you.
4. Skills: Spanish-language parish registers, read page by page, and archives on both sides of the US-Mexico border. I take cases from any country, including Italian and German lines for citizenship by descent. If your line needs a specialty I don't have, I'd rather say so in the quote than learn it on your money.
5. What I need from you: your documents, photos, tree exports and notes, on a private foundation page after checkout, with the sure facts marked apart from the stories.
6. If the record isn't there: Padre Ballí's baptism was most likely lost when a flood destroyed Reynosa in 1800, and no fee brings it back. What you receive when the paper runs out is the written trail showing where it ran out, so the next generation doesn't pay someone to look again.

The written agreement: at checkout your card is authorized, not charged, and the payment is captured only when we have both said yes, you to the written scope and total and me to the case. If either of us says no, the hold is released and nothing is charged. You get a perpetual personal, non-commercial license to everything delivered. The lines that cut the other way are on the terms page too: milestone payments are not refunded once reached, paper copies are not refunded once the archive has been paid, and refunds after capture lose the processing fee Stripe keeps, about 3 percent plus 30 cents.

The checklist to print

1. My goal fits in one sentence: the person, the record and the place.
2. I have worked back from myself as far as I can, with a list of the searches that found nothing.
3. I have marked which family facts are documented and which are stories.
4. The genealogist is in a directory I can check, has public work I can read, or both.
5. I have read a finished sample, and its sources are records, not other people's trees.
6. I have asked APG's five questions and the sixth: what if the record isn't there?
7. I have asked the question for my situation: citizenship, records abroad, a gift, DNA or a brick wall.
8. I know how the price works (hours, package or target) and what I see while I am paying.
9. The agreement names the goal, the deliverables, the price, the payment schedule and the expenses.
10. It says who owns the result and what happens if a line hits a wall.
11. Nobody has asked for my password, and I know where my DNA data goes.
12. Nobody has guaranteed me a result, an ancestor or citizenship.

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, and at checkout your card is authorized, not charged. Start with the Discovery assessment.