Professional genealogy research starts from the family's own papers, sets down every spelling of each name, searches the public record collections, writes to the archives that hold the rest, and tests every record before a word of the book is written. The Tarko family history, the example on this site, began with about 26 photographs of documents and became two volumes of 570 pages.
This page follows professional genealogy research through one family's history, step by step, so that anyone can see what the work involves before deciding whether to do it themselves or hire a researcher. The history it follows is the example on this site, the Tarko family history. It traces one family from a small town in central Poland to England in 1945, and from there to America, where the family made its home in Brooklyn. Book One covers Poland from 1895 to 1945; Book Two covers England and America from 1945 to 2008.
The steps are the same for any family, wherever its records are kept. Inside a book shows the finished volumes page by page.
Key points
- Professional genealogy research moves in eight steps, from the first conversation with the family to an updated edition when late replies arrive.
- The research for the example began with about 26 photographs of family documents and one recorded interview.
- Every spelling of each name and town was listed before any search, because a search for one spelling finds only that spelling.
- About 17 public databases and collections were searched, and letters went to about 29 archives and institutions in six countries.
- Each record was transcribed and translated in full, then tested against other records before the book relied on it.
- The finished book states what is still unknown and names the records that might answer each question.
The genealogy research process in eight steps
The steps below are the ones set out on How we work, and each produces something the next one needs:
- First conversation. The family says what it knows and what it hopes the book will hold, and the scope is agreed, including whether the book is needed by a particular date.
- The family's papers. Every paper and photograph is read and transcribed, and kept apart from what relatives remember.
- Searching the records. The public collections are searched under every spelling, and each index entry that matters is followed to its original.
- Writing to the archives. Files that were never put online are requested in writing from the archives that hold them, and every message and reply is logged.
- Reading and checking. Each record is transcribed and translated in full, and each identity is tested against parents, places, dates and numbers together.
- Writing the story. The family's life is set in the history of its towns and its times, with every fact tied to its source.
- Design and print. Maps and trees are drawn for the book, each document is set beside its translation, photographs are restored, and the book is printed and bound.
- The later edition. Replies that arrive after printing are read in the same way and added to an updated edition.
The sections below follow the example through these steps, from its first papers to the edition still to come.
Where the research began
The family held very little. There were about 26 photographs of documents the family had kept, and what relatives remembered of names and towns. There were almost no letters or diaries. A cousin had recorded a long interview about the war years in 1998, and that recording, kept in an archive, gave places and names no paper did.
Most families start with about this much, and it is enough. A name on a landing permit or a town on a certificate is the thread that leads to the next record. The first work was to read every one of those papers in full.
The source map: every spelling of every name
Before any search, the research set down every form each name and town might take. Jewish families in Poland had Hebrew names and Yiddish forms of them, spelled in Polish on official papers, and after the war they took English names. Clerks in each country wrote down what they heard. A search for one spelling finds only that spelling, so the map of spellings decides what the research will find.
| Name | Forms found in the records |
|---|---|
| Natan Tarko | Natan, Nuta, Nota, Mota, Naton, Nathan, and Natan Neta on his gravestone |
| Yoine Tarko | Jojne, Jojno, Joine, Johnny, John, and once filed under Tapko |
| Laya Goldhersz | Laja, Leja, Lola, Leah; Goldhersz, Goldhersch, Goldhersh |
| Frajda Tarko, born Rygier | Frajda, Frajdla, Frajndla, Fraidel; Rygier, Ryger, Rieger, Rugger |
| Łódź | Lodz, and Litzmannstadt in the German records of the occupation |
Four of Natan's records are shown as images on How we work.
The source map also listed where each person might appear: the registers of the family's towns, the records of the Łódź ghetto, the files kept on displaced persons after the war, the British records of the children who came to England in 1945, and the American census, immigration and naturalization records.
Searching the public collections
About 17 public databases and collections were searched, and every entry that mattered was followed back to its original image, since an index is someone else's reading of a record. The main collections, and what each gave:
| Collection | What it holds | What it gave the example |
|---|---|---|
| JRI-Poland and Geneteka | Indexes of Polish Jewish and civil registers | The index entry for a death in Łódź in 1934, of a five-year-old son of the family, naming his father as Nuta |
| The Polish State Archives' online scans | Images of the registers themselves, among them the Jewish registers of Przedbórz, kept in Russian from 1868 | The births of 1895, read entry by entry |
| Arolsen Archives | The international archive of records of Nazi persecution, with camp cards and the registrations of displaced persons | The card on which Natan gave his date and town of birth and his parents' names |
| The names databases of Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Names gathered from lists, cards and testimonies | The registration records of the Łódź ghetto |
| FamilySearch | Free record images and indexes from many countries | The 1950 American census, the naturalization papers filed in Detroit and the American death indexes |
| FreeBMD | The index of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales | Entries for the family's years in England |
| JewishGen | English translations of the memorial books of Jewish towns, and many databases | The memorial books of the family's towns, and its database of the streets of Łódź under their changing names |
Each of these gave a piece, and none gave the whole. The value came from setting the pieces against each other.
Writing to the archives
Much of what matters in a family's history sits in files that were never put online, or in collections that are closed to the public. For these, letters went to about 29 archives, museums and libraries in six countries: Poland, Germany, Britain, France, the Czech Republic and the United States. Every message and reply was logged, about 76 in all.
A good request is short and specific, and it holds these parts:
Checklist
- One person, or one kind of record, per request.
- Every spelling of the name, with the dates and places.
- The index entry or file that pointed to the record.
- A request for a copy of the original.
- Who is asking and why, in English or in the archive's own language.
Archives answer on their own schedules, from a few days to many months, and some never answer. Several requests for the example went out in September 2026. The case files of the committee that cared for the children who came to England in 1945, kept by World Jewish Relief in London, came back in time to be used; the charity answers families' requests for their own files free of charge. Other requests were still open when the book was finished, among them a registration card at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Replies that arrive later go into an updated edition. How to write to a European archive gives the form of such a letter.
Reading and checking
Each record was transcribed and translated in full before anything was decided about it. The case files from London, about 309 pages, were read word by word, twice. The documents came in Polish, German, Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian, and every document pictured in the books is translated in full at the back of each volume, in a section called "The documents in English".
Every identity was then tested against parents, places, dates and numbers together. When an index listed a birth for a Nuta Tarko, the original register read Nuta Marko, and the identification was withdrawn; how to check that a record really belongs to your family tells that correction in full. Where records disagreed, the book set them side by side and said which it follows and why.
The standard professionals work to
In the United States, professional genealogists work to the Genealogical Proof Standard, set out by the Board for Certification of Genealogists. It asks for reasonably exhaustive research and complete citations, then analysis of the evidence, the resolution of any records that conflict, and a written conclusion that explains the reasoning. The steps above put the same standard into practice.
The war years in the records
The middle chapters of Book One cover 1939 to 1945, and their sources are the papers the war left behind. The registration cards and residents' lists of the Łódź ghetto give addresses, work and dates of birth, and sometimes record the children under their mother's surname. The camp office at Buchenwald made out five cards and forms for Yoine, which the tracing office at Arolsen kept in a file under his name; they are the fullest record of him from those years that survives.
After the liberation, the registrations of displaced persons recorded who each person was and whom they were looking for. On the back of the card filled in for Natan at Landsberg in August 1945, his search was printed in capitals: the names of his wife and two of his children, with their last known address, the camp of Auschwitz in 1944. Records like this one carry the story where no letter or diary survives. Where the records are silent about what a person lived through, the book tells what happened to others in the same place, from their own accounts, and says that it is doing so.
Setting the family in its town and its times
Records give dates and places. A family history needs the world those dates happened in. The first chapter of Book One, "A town of carpenters", opens in Przedbórz, a small town of timber merchants and furniture makers on the Pilica river, where in 1897 more than four thousand of the inhabitants were Jewish. The chapter sets the family's trade and street inside the town's history, drawn from the town's memorial book and its registers.
Book Two follows the family through hostels and work in England, a wedding, the crossing to America and the streets of Brooklyn, each set in its place and time. The war years are told where they belong, as one part of a longer family story.
From records to a book
The two volumes come to 570 pages in 29 chapters, with 23 maps and 190 photographs and documents. Each document is shown as it was found and translated at the back of the book. Both sides of the family have a tree, set on facing pages with every spelling of each name. A timeline sets out the years at a glance. Maps drawn for the book show the towns and the roads between them, and two of the maps follow crossings of the Atlantic.
Every fact in the text is tied to its source in the notes, "Where the facts come from", which run to more than fifty pages, so a reader or a later researcher can find each record again. Then came design: the pages were set and the photographs restored for print. The volumes were printed and bound as large-format hardcovers in full color.
What is still unknown
The research left questions open, and the book says so. A closing section, "What we still don't know", sets out each question with what is known and the records that might answer it. Among them are the year of Laya's birth, which the Piotrków registers of 1927 to 1929 would settle; how she reached Terezín in 1945; what became of her father; and the yearly indexes at the back of the Przedbórz registers, which have still to be read for the family's name. The page is shown in the guide to checking records.
The later edition
A family history is never quite finished, because archives keep answering. Replies that arrive after printing are read in the same way and added to an updated edition, which states any correction openly. The log of letters shows which questions are still waiting on which archive, so nothing is lost when an answer comes a year later.
What professional family history researchers do
A genealogist hired by the hour answers one question in a research report, and a personal historian usually writes a memoir from interviews. A few researchers find the records and write the family's history from them. Before hiring anyone, ask which archives they write to and which languages they read, and ask to see finished work with its sources. Companies that write family histories compares the kinds of service, and doing it yourself or commissioning it helps a family decide.
The same steps for a family whose records are in Ohio
The method does not depend on where a family came from. A family whose records are all in Ohio goes through the same steps, with different archives and one language.
| Step | In the example | For a family in Ohio |
|---|---|---|
| The family's papers | About 26 photographs of documents and a recorded interview | A naturalization certificate, a funeral card and what a grandparent remembers |
| The source map | Every form of each name and town, in Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, German and English | Every spelling of the surname, and the counties where the family lived |
| Searching the records | About 17 public databases and collections | The census, passenger lists, naturalization files and Ohio death certificates |
| Writing to the archives | Letters to about 29 archives and institutions in six countries | The county probate court for births and deaths before 1908, and the court that naturalized a grandparent |
| Reading and checking | Records in Polish, German, Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian, each translated in full | Records in English, each read in full and checked against a second record |
| Writing the story | A town of carpenters on the Pilica river, hostels in England and the streets of Brooklyn | The family's town or county, its work and its streets |
| Design and print | Two volumes of 570 pages, with 23 maps | A book sized to what the records hold |
| The later edition | Requests still open in Warsaw and elsewhere | A courthouse or archive that answers after the book is printed |
The Ohio History Connection holds Ohio death certificates from 20 December 1908 through 1970; from 1867 until then, each county's probate court recorded deaths. Before 27 September 1906 any court of record could naturalize, so a county court may hold the papers; federal court papers are usually at the National Archives facility that serves the state.
A family from Manchester or Aleppo follows the same steps with different archives and languages. Most commissions take three to four months. When a book is needed by a fixed date, such as a yahrzeit or a milestone birthday, it can be taken on as a priority commission, with printed copies of a first edition in time for the date. Records that arrive later go into an updated edition, and a priority fee applies.
Sources: the example's own list of sources, printed at the back of each volume; JRI-Poland; Geneteka, run by the Polish Genealogical Society; the Arolsen Archives; World Jewish Relief, on requests for a family's files; the Jewish Historical Institute; JewishGen's translation of the entry for Przedbórz in Pinkas Hakehillot Poland, for the town's population in 1897; the Board for Certification of Genealogists; the US National Archives, on naturalization records; the Ohio History Connection, on Ohio death records. Checked October 2026.
Questions about the research
What does a family history researcher actually do?
A researcher reads what the family has, maps every spelling of every name and town, and searches the public collections, following each index entry to its original. They write to the archives that hold what is not online and test each identity against other records. One who also writes the history sets the family in its towns and times and states what is still unknown.
Can a personal historian help with genealogical research?
Some can. Many personal historians interview a parent and write a memoir without searching records. Others, and genealogists who also write, do both: they find the records, read them in their original languages and then write the family's story from them. Ask any historian you are considering which archives they write to and which languages they read.
Can I find historical records to extend my family timeline?
Usually, yes. Start with the latest record you hold and work back: a death record names parents, a census gives ages and a birthplace, and naturalization papers and passenger lists often name the town abroad. Each record points to the next. How to trace your ancestry sets out the order, starting with the papers at home.
How can I find out more about my family's origins?
Find the town first. American naturalization papers, passenger lists and gravestones often name it, and family letters and photographs can too. Once the town is known, its registers can be searched under every spelling of the family's name, and its archive can be asked in writing for what is not online.
How many archives does a family history need?
It depends on where the family lived. A family whose records are all in one American state may need a handful of archives and courthouses. The example, which follows a family across Poland, Germany, Britain and the United States, needed letters to about 29 archives and institutions in six countries.
How long do archives take to reply?
From a few days to many months, and some never reply. A family history that waits for every answer may never be finished, so a careful book is written from what has arrived, says what is still outstanding, and adds later replies to an updated edition.
Begin with your own family
Every Zichronos book is made in these eight steps, whether the records are in a state archive in Poland or a county courthouse in Ohio, and archive, copy and translation fees are included. The research ends in a finished hardcover that sets the family in its towns and its times, with every record translated and every fact tied to its source. How we work sets out the steps, the examples page shows what a finished book holds, and what a family history book costs compares the options. To begin, tell us about your family and what you would like the book to hold.