♦ FAQ ♦

1. How long will it take to you to research my family?

I can't really answer this question. Even knowing some details about your family history, I cannot determine how long it will take me to exhaust my resources. I may find that I have no access to records, or I may find vital records in your ancestral village going back two hundred years. Either way, I can never be sure how much I will find about your family. That is why I work at an hourly rate. My first six hours of research will usually determine if I need to do more. Sometimes I will find the US records listing the ancestral town and begin to do the European research. Sometimes your ancestors arrived so early that I can't find the ancestral town and will have to keep searching. And sometimes things will be easier and I will find a plethora of European records about your family in the first attempt. Some families are entirely elusive and others seem almost like they want to be found.

2. Why do you do genealogy professionally?

I love doing genealogy research and I'm good at it. A long time ago, I once read the advice to "find something that you love to do, then find a way to get paid for it." So that's exactly what I did. I love puzzles, and genealogy is a big puzzle. You have to take all the pieces, figure out how they fit together, then search for all the pieces you dropped under the table to fill in the gaps in the picture. I love trying to think of different ways to mispell names to find them in online indexes, or to search through scanned documents on microfilm looking for that one elusive piece of information; a parent's name, a birth place, etc. Of course, the best part of doing the research is when I actually find the information I'm looking for, so I always do my best to find the information about your family.

3. Why are you prices lower than other professional genealogists?

Although I have been doing my own personal genealogy research for many years, I have only been a professional genealogist for four years. My skills and experience continue to expand the more work I do for others, thus my rate increases a little at a time.

4. Why did you increase your minimum number of hours?

When I began doing this professionally, I read somewhere that for every hour of research, I will need two hours to do the write-up. I very often end up doing hours of work for free because I spend so much time doing research and then have no remaining paid-for time to organize it for clients. In order to offset this, I have added an extra hour to my minimum so I can still do about the same amount of research and yet be paid for some of the organizational time.

5. In what areas of research are you most experienced?

That would probably be 19th century Jewish Polish records. I can translate the Polish and Russian language records nearly fluently. I have strayed into other religions in the same time period, where most records are the same format. I have also retrieved a lot of information from the US Federal Censuses in the 20th century as well as New York City vital records.

6. What languages do you know?

I am an American and fluent only in English, but I have always been good with foreign languages, and am trying to learn to speak Russian. I can translate Polish and Russian-language Polish vital records almost fluently. I have known the Hebrew alphabet since I was a child, and can translate that language with the help of a dictionary. I learned French in high school and college, and have been known to help others at the Family History Library with their research in other Latin alphabet languages.

7. Why are you so interested in genealogy?

Good question.

I have given several answers to that over the years. I used to say that I was looking for cousins with my surname. (My father is an only child, as is his only Feldstein cousin, a female.) The truth is, it's a lot of things. A fourth grade assignment got me curious, and my grandparents soon told me that they were from families of 5, 8, and 12 children. I went to a cousin's bar mitzvah when I was three, didn't remember any of it except that there were a lot of relatives in attendance, and hadn't been back to Canada since (until doing genealogy research). I knew I had a lot of relatives, I just didn't know any of them.

As another oddity, I once looked up the Cancer-Leo cusp horoscope (I'm on the cusp, depending on which transition dates you go by) and it actually pointed out that the Cancer-Leo has an interest in family history. Not that I'm saying that I believe in horoscopes...

8. So, now that you've met many of your relatives, how do you keep them interested in your research? How do you get them to contribute?

You can try, but I don't think you can make someone more interested in their family than they already are. Some will be more interested than others. Some will keep you more informed. You may find a few close friends among your relatives and keep in constant contact. You'll usually get updates from them.

I have gathered a lot of information from my relatives. Most of it comes when I visit them in person and not when I simply ask via mail. Some are much more open about sharing, and others need to be coaxed a little. Some have helped monetarily, while others help by giving me a place to stay and feeding me when I'm in their neighborhood.

Keeping them interested is even harder. Beginning in 2004, I have been publishing a family newsletter. Hopefully, in time, many will come to expect the newsletter and will want to contribute occasionally.