Genealogy research can be daunting. What do you do when you hit a brick wall (or as one of my clients calls it, a speed bump). I've talked in my previous blogs about going around the wall, extending your research to an individual's FAN club (friends, associates and neighbors), going forward to go back, or using DNA to find the cousin who "got the good stuff." Sometimes, however, the wall may be insurmountable! That's when seeking the help of a professional becomes invaluable.
I am no longer taking clients, but over the past 30 years, I have helped people find their families in Ireland. There's the good and the bad with Irish research. Yes, the fire at the Public Records Office in 1922 was catastropic with 1,000 years of Irish history going up in flames. But not everything burned. Ireland has done a wonderful job of making records that survived available on line, mostly for free, but unfortunately you will likely hit the wall in the early 1800s when records such as church records cease to exist. There may be other records such as land and estate records, but those don't tend to be online. It may be time to hire a professional to kick start that research.
Over the years I have received many requests for assistance. Some begin..."my ancestor, Michael Sullivan was from Ireland. Can you find the information for me?" Unfortunately, the answer to this type of query is usually...no. Your research needs to focus on who, when, where and what else do you know. Who are you looking for, when did they live, where did they live (research is all about time and place) and what else do you know about them that would distinguish them from someone with the same name, i.e. the other thousands of Michael Sullivans that lived in Ireland! That research needs to be done in the US (or wherever your ancestor settled) before you try to jump the pond.
If you're not sure what you have or where to go, a local genealogy society is a great place to start. These groups often offer:
Regular meetings: Participate in discussions and workshops that can broaden your understanding.
Access to resources: Find libraries or archives specifically catering to genealogy.
Guest speakers: Gain insights from experts in specific fields.
Being part of a supportive environment motivates you, especially if you're new to genealogy. Many members bring a wealth of experience and may have faced similar challenges. For instance, a group member might share how they uncovered a great-grandfather’s birth record in just a few hours using a specific online tool.
When your research moves into a speciaized area, it may be time to hire a professional. They may be able to access specialised records, navigate laws and regulations that affect a certain locality, and in my case read and translate documents.
As I've moved to researching my own family after many years, I wanted to look into my grandfather, Fedor Mylytczuk. I have information on him from the time of his immigration, including an emigration record (leaving Hamburg) which named his hometown as Liski. Although family information indicated he was from Austria, the intervening conflicts, including World War I rearranged the borders in Europe. You need to understand these important changes as well as the jurisdictions. Whatever locality you are researching a great place to start is with the FamilySearch Wiki. The 1920 census told me my grandfather was Polish, and in the 1930 census he was listed as Czechoslovakian. Liski is now in the region of Kolemeya in Western Ukraine.
He also changed his name to Frank Mitchell. I was brought up without knowing any of this. Before my father died, he told me that his father had a brother, Nicholas Mitchell who lived in Rochester, New York. So I have done all of the research on the brothers here in the US. The marriage record for both my grandfather and his brother lists their parents as John Mitchell and Mary Prokow. The records that are online for Ukraine are all in the Ukrainian language (and alphabet), none of which I can read.
During a discussion at a recent Irish SIG I run for the local genealogical society, I mentioned my issue and one of the members indicated she and her daughter had hired a genealogist in Poland to research their Ukrainian family and provided his name and contact information. So I have been pulling together my information to send to him. If any of you have followed my blog on creating a research plan, I used the same general format. In putting together the information, I identified my Research Objective (always important is you are hiring a professional) and an outline of what I know about the family. You don't want to hire and pay a professional to redo information you already have.
So if you are thinking about hiring a professional, here is a sample of what I sent to the genealogist in Poland.
Happy Hunting!
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