Hiring help, and what it costs
For families weighing doing it themselves against hiring help.
Some families hire a genealogist by the hour to find records. Others hire a writer to record a parent's stories, and some commission a firm to research the family and write the book. These guides set out what each kind of service makes, what it charges and what it leaves out, so that quotes can be compared on the same terms.
Records in Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish or Russian add translation to any quote, and records held in archives abroad add letters and fees. The guides say where those costs fall.
Every kind of family history service, from prompt books to researched books, with named firms, prices and how long each takes.
Costs
- How much does a family history book cost? Prices for each kind of serviceComparisonPrices for every kind of service, from prompt books to researched histories, with what each includes and what it leaves out.
- How much does a genealogist cost? Hourly rates and project fees explainedGuideHourly rates, the large firms' packages, the expenses billed on top, and a plain way to budget.
Kinds of service
- What a personal historian does, and how that differs from a genealogistComparisonWhat each role delivers, side by side, and where a researched family history book needs both.
- Is hiring a genealogist worth it, or should you do your family history yourself?ExplainerA fair test for when doing the research yourselves is enough, where it usually stops, what help costs, and a middle way.
- Family history book service: commissioning a book, in questions and answersExplainerShort answers on how a commission works, from the first conversation and the dates to the research and the finished book.
Hiring a genealogist or a writer
- Hiring a biographer to write a parent's life storyGuideWhat a biographer does for a living parent and for one who has died, what it costs, and what to ask before hiring.
Comparisons
- Remento vs Storyworth, and other ways to record a parent's storiesComparisonWhat Storyworth, Remento and the alternatives make, how long each takes and what each costs, and which suits which parent.
Zichronos researches a family in the archives that hold its records, then publishes its history as a finished hardcover book. How we work