One photo. Four spellings.
Most families arrive with a single picture, a few dates pencilled on the back and a surname the clerks spelled however they liked. We follow every version until the papers agree.
- Dunn1891 census, Whitby
- DunBaptism, St Mary’s
- DunneShip list, Liverpool
- DonneMarriage, Cork
Every hand is readable
Clerks wrote fast, abbreviated everything and spelled by ear. We read registers, rolls and wills line by line, and type out every entry we use, so nobody in your family has to squint at a scan.
Names, however they were spelled
Every version a clerk wrote down, kept side by side until two records agree.
Baptisms, marriages, burials
Dates, parishes and the minister who signed, from the earliest surviving registers.
Where they actually lived
Street by street through the census, then onto the old town plans.
What they did for a living
The cooper, the net maker, the servant girl who became a mill hand.
Witnesses and godparents
The neighbours in the margin who so often turn out to be cousins.
How a case runs
Four steps and about eight weeks for most families. You hear from us at every one of them, and nothing goes on the chart until it is proven.
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Step 1
A long first call
We write down everything the family remembers, every name, place and rumour, and agree which lines to follow first.
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Step 2
Into the archives
Parish chests, county record offices, the National Archives at Kew and the paid indexes, so you never need a subscription.
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Step 3
Proving every link
An ancestor goes on the chart only when two independent records agree on who they were and where they came from.
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Step 4
Handing over the folder
We post the bound folder, or you collect it from the reading room and we walk you through it over a pot of tea.
Inside every folder
A cloth-bound folder in four divided parts, posted to you or handed over in York. Everything in it also comes as a digital copy for the cousins.
A chart you can unfold
Every proven ancestor on one large sheet, with dates, places and the record behind each line, plus an index of every name in the folder.
- Fold-out chart
- Index of names
A copy of every record
Certificates, register entries, census pages and wills, each with a typed transcription underneath and a note on where the original is kept.
- Copies and transcriptions
- Source notes
Where they lived
Period town plans and survey sheets with every address marked in pencil, from the first baptism to the last census.
- Marked plans
- Then and now
The family, written up
Twenty to forty pages that tell what the records say in plain English: who moved, why, and what the world around them was doing.
- Written story
- Further reading
The Marr folder
Ruth Marr came to us with her grandmother’s photograph and two surnames. Nine weeks later her folder held eleven ancestors across four generations, from Hull to Cork to Calabar, and three honest question marks.
- Ruth Marr
- Thomas Marr
- Grace Okafor
- George Marr
- Edith Dunn
- Samuel Okafor
- Comfort Eze
- William Marr
- Ada Pickering
- John Dunne
- Mary Ann Webster
- Daniel Okafor
- still looking
- mission records?
- ask Aunt Ngozi
Who does the reading
Four researchers with sixty years in record offices between them, from Truro to Inverness, and one rule: we only write down what we can prove.
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Hannah Clough
Yorkshire parishes
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Joseph Adeyemi
West Africa and the Caribbean
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Niamh Kearney
Irish and Scottish lines
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Arthur Penhale
Army, navy and trade
Letters back
Most families write to us after the folder arrives. A few of them said we could share their words.
We had been stuck on great-grandad for twenty years. They found him in a Hull workhouse register within a fortnight, and then found his brother.
Sandra P.Beverley
The folder lives on the piano now. My father reads the Cork pages every time he visits, and he is not a reader.
Declan M.Croydon
They told us honestly when a line had gone cold and what it would cost to keep going. We stopped there, and that felt right.
Priya and Tom H.Harrogate
I cried at the ship list. My grandmother was nine years old and travelling on her own.
Abena O.Leeds
Worth it for the maps alone: every house our lot ever rented, marked in pencil, three of them still standing.
Graham W.Whitby
Bring the shoebox
Photographs, letters, a christening mug with a name on it: bring whatever the family kept to our reading room on Example Lane. We scan it while you wait, and it goes into the folder.
The reading room
1 Example Lane, York YO1 0AA
Tuesday to Saturday, 10 till 4
Visits by appointment
Questions
The ones we hear on almost every first call.
How far back can you go?
Usually into the 1700s in England and Wales, where parish registers survive. Ireland and Scotland are patchier before about 1820. After the first fortnight we tell you what is realistic for your family.
What do I need to start?
A name and roughly when and where someone lived is enough. Photographs, certificates and family stories save time, so bring what you have.
Do you use DNA tests?
We don’t sell kits, but if you have results from one of the big testing companies we read your matches alongside the paper trail.
What if you find something hard?
Workhouses, prison registers, children born outside marriage: every family has something. We tell you before it goes in the folder, and you decide how it is written.
Can you search outside Britain and Ireland?
Yes, through record agents we have worked with for years in Nigeria, Jamaica, Poland, Italy and India. If a country’s records are thin, we say so before you pay.
How does paying work?
A third when we open the case and the rest when the folder is ready. No subscriptions, no extras we didn’t agree first.
Fees
Fixed prices, agreed before we start. If a line runs out early, we stop and refund the difference.
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One line back
£480About three weeks
One surname followed back from you as far as the records allow, usually five or six generations.
- Chart and copies
- Digital folder
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Four generations
£1,250About eight weeks
Every line back to your great-great-grandparents, with the bound folder, the marked maps and the written story.
- Bound folder
- Maps and story
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The whole tree
from £2,900Four to six months
Every line as far as it goes, overseas record agents included, and a day out to the places that matter if you would like to come.
- Overseas research
- A guided day
Reply within two working days
Open a case
Tell us who you are looking for. We reply with what is realistic for your family and what it would cost.
- Phone
- 01904 000 000
- Visit
- 1 Example Lane, York YO1 0AA