Susan Riley, Ph.D.
I earned my bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and my master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. I taught college for twenty-five years until I decided it was time to pursue another passion: family history research.
I became involved in genealogy about a dozen years ago. At first, I focused on my own family’s stories, but gradually began doing genealogy for friends. I found this work so rewarding that I eventually realized I would like to turn it into a profession. Thus, I founded “Find Your Family: Riley Genealogy Service.”
Now, I want to help you find your own family, to discover where your people came from, and to understand the diverse paths their lives took. I have seen how immensely rewarding this can be as people learn, for the first time, the names and dates and places of their ancestors, and even better, personal details about their lives and loves, their challenges and their accomplishments.
As a professor at a liberal arts college, I often taught a section on family history. There is a stereotype that young people are not interested in genealogy, but in my experience, many students were quickly engaged as they uncovered passenger arrival lists, census records and other documents about their very own ancestors.
In our class conversations, students discussed what they had learned through our genealogy project. Here are some of their replies (paraphrased):
- Someday, when I have kids, I will talk about my life so they can pass it down to their children.
- Families can be silent about the past, but we should not be ashamed. We should not be afraid of what we might find.
- I learned a lot about myself, about how we are all shaped by our experiences, family and personal history.
- I found out what it was really like to be alive back then.
- We must listen to and understand our ancestors because our past can define who we are.
- Family history shapes your identity. So, find out who you are and where you’re from.
In her compelling family history book The Grace of Silence, Michele Norris learned that she didn’t really know the people who sat around the dinner table when she was growing up and so she urges all of us to invite a relative, especially an elderly one, to “tell me more about yourself.” Perhaps now is the time for you to take up that challenge.
Find Your Family genealogy services can help you uncover precious records and stories about your family past. Just contact us today!
Genealogical and Historical Society Memberships
Association of Professional Genealogists
National Genealogical Society
Association of Professional Genealogists
Irish Genealogical Society International
Iowa Genealogical Society
Minnesota Genealogical Society
Minnesota Historical Society
Nebraska State Genealogical Society
National Genealogical Society
Norwegian-American Genealogical Association
Norwegian American Genealogical Center
Norwegian-American Historical Association
Red River Valley Genealogical Society
Sioux Valley Genealogical Society
State Historical Society of Iowa
State Historical Society of North Dakota
South Dakota Genealogical Society
South Dakota State Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Society
Wisconsin State Genealogical Society
Genealogist’s Code of Ethics
We follow the Code of Ethics issued by the Board for Certification of Genealogists and the Association of Professional Genealogists’ Code of Ethics and Professional Practices.
Privacy Statement
We respect and protect your privacy.
Genealogical work necessarily requires personal information about you and your family. We will collect this information for research purposes only. We will not disclose your information to other parties without your explicit permission. And we will provide the results of this research only to you.
We will collect your name, address and other contact information for billing purposes. We will not share this with other parties for other purposes. If you have any questions about our privacy policies, please contact us.