Our Services

What specific services do we provide?

We offer genealogy and family history services to meet a wide range of goals and interests!  Consider which of our services below is most appropriate to your needs, whether you prefer to focus on a particular ancestor, a specific branch of your family or your entire family story.  Our services can be tailored to your desired goals.

Find Your Family

Who are your ancestors? We can build a family tree for you or add to an existing tree.

• We can trace your pedigree back in time.
• We can identify the descendants of a particular ancestor or ancestors.
• We can expand your tree laterally to include siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and children of a particular ancestor or ancestors.

Locate Documents

We can hunt for a variety of records about your ancestors including birth, passenger arrival lists, census, marriage, military, naturalization, death, burial and more. Other, less official documents, such as city directories and newspaper articles, may also be revealing.

Answer Specific Genealogy Questions

Do you have a particular mystery that you would like solved?  Have you been working on a vexing family history puzzle for some time?  Another set of experienced eyes can help find the answers.

Or perhaps you want to fill in some of the blank spots in your family’s story.  There are so many intriguing questions to explore:

• Where are your ancestral homelands?
• Who was your first ancestor to arrive in America? Who was the last?
• Why did your forebearers come to the US? Were they immigrants, enslaved people, or refugees?
• When did your ancestors arrive?
• How did they travel? By land? By sea? By air?
• Did they travel alone or with extended family, friends, or neighbors?
• Where did they arrive? What was their final destination in the US?
• Where did they first live?
• What languages did your ancestors speak?
• What levels of education did they achieve?
• When (if ever) did they become American citizens?
• When and whom did they marry?
• When did they have children and how many? Where was each child born?
• What occupations did they pursue?
• How did your ancestors die? Where are they buried? What happened to their family after their death?

And so much more!

Understand the Context of Your Ancestors’ Lives

What social, economic, political, cultural, and other events shaped your ancestors’ lives?  We have expertise in these historical factors and can identify relevant trends and specific incidents that impacted your predecessors’ options and decisions.

Recreate the story of your ancestor’s life

We can weave together personal information you provide along with data from official and unofficial documents and historical events to recreate the story of your ancestor’s life.

This may take a variety of forms, including:

• A timeline listing the events in your ancestor’s life from birth to death.
• A more detailed timeline with significant historical events and relevant images.
• A professionally written story of your ancestor’s life with photographs and other images.
• A story written for a younger audience, such as grandchildren.
• A booklet that incorporates the stories of multiple members of your family, for instance, your grandparents and all their children.
• There are other possibilities we can discuss in our free consultation!

Writing and Editing Assistance

We have decades of experience in this area and so can expertly help you write and/or edit your own family history, whether you are just beginning or already have a manuscript in a drawer. Together we can turn those pages into a work you will be proud to share with your relatives and friends!

Tutoring

Family history is a great hobby! However, it can be difficult to learn how to navigate a new database or understand an unfamiliar type of record. Let a professional genealogist assist you through tutoring sessions that will make your own efforts less frustrating and more productive.

Find Your Family Offers You Expertise!

We specialize in 19th and 20th century genealogy and family history, and have experience in tracing the lines of European Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans.

Geographic Specialties: We can conduct research on ancestors who lived in any state of the union — with a specialty in the upper Midwest, in particular, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

We can also trace your family in Canada and in English-speaking European areas, in particular, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. We also have some experience with Norway.

What is your motivation for seeking genealogy services?

Curiosity?
Do you wish to learn more about your ancestors? The who and when and where and how?

Forging a stronger connection?
Do you want to build a more powerful bond with a particular ancestor, or perhaps learn more about a specific time or place that your ancestors lived?

Honoring a loved one?
Will your parents or grandparents soon celebrate a major birthday or anniversary?  Give them the gift of family history.

Have you lost a loved one and so wish to learn more about that family line? We can locate sources that document the life paths of those special people.

Or have you gained a loved one, perhaps a child or grandchild, and would like to place that little one in the long line of your family history? We can help you preserve precious memories that you can share with the next generation.

Or perhaps something else entirely?
There are many reasons to seek information about your family’s past—let us join you on that journey.

World War II draft registration card, 1942