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  #11  
Old 03-06-21, 22:22
monicaregister monicaregister is offline
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But between professional genealogists and amateurs, who overall will do a much better job in making family trees that are far more accurate, reliable, concise, ect.....???
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  #12  
Old 03-06-21, 22:43
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You really cannot say.

A professional will usually have studied the subject, have qualifications, have access to records and experience to know which records to look at.

An amateur may well find an answer missed by a professional because they are prepared to spend way more time on an individual problem than is commercially viable.
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  #13  
Old 03-06-21, 22:49
ElizabethHerts ElizabethHerts is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by monicaregister View Post
But between professional genealogists and amateurs, who overall will do a much better job in making family trees that are far more accurate, reliable, concise, ect.....???
It's such a complex question that it is impossible to give a definitive answer. One professional might do a brilliant job, another might not. Some amateurs might find records that a professional does not. It is very hypothetical. You are asking us a question that can't be answered with any certainty!
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  #14  
Old 03-06-21, 22:51
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I don't think you can compare what a professional can do with what an amateur can do. Most trees have difficult stumbling blocks along the way. No professional is going to spend months or years trying to work out a problem unless they are being paid by a millionaire!
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  #15  
Old 03-06-21, 23:07
ElizabethHerts ElizabethHerts is online now
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A professional will probably work on a tree for a specific period of time then stop, whereas many dedicated amateurs will persevere for years. Many of us have knocked down brick walls we thought would never fall as new records have been digitised.
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  #16  
Old 04-06-21, 08:34
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If you hire a professional you must get recommendations from people you trust. I have been in touch with several people over the years who have been fooled by the research of 'professionals' who have not done their job properly, most likely because they were being pressured for an answer within a time frame or concerned that they might not be paid if they didn't find an answer to a problem. To resolve the dilemma they just made an educated guess which turned out to be wrong, when the right answer was there if they had only approached the issue in the right way.

A professional genealogist may not be an expert in every field of research (I would probably be concerned if they said they were). If you don't want to do the research yourself you may find you have to hire several people for different elements of your tree.

I don't know anything about research in El Salvador, or if your ancestors were from that country, but one of the biggest issues in many countries is that there is no central database for records and/or there are few or no online records or indexes. This means you may have to guess when and where an event happened in order to have any chance of finding it. This may not be too much of a problem when you are looking for your parents and grandparents records, if you know about their lives already, but becomes very problematic as you get further back. Of coulse it will be just as problematic for a professional as it would be for you!

It may all sound very daunting right now. That is why you should stop thinking about getting back to 1524 and concentrate on recording what you already know about your parents and grandparents, as either you or a professional is going to need this information to make a start. You should speak to as many relatives as possible, in particular older relatives and also cousins, aunts and uncles to find out what they know about their immediate ancestry to get the fullest picture you can and also see if there are discrepencies in the information you are given. Then you need to record all this information and decide what you need to know next to check the accuracy of what you have been told and/or progress back another generation.

Good luck!
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  #17  
Old 05-06-21, 17:15
monicaregister monicaregister is offline
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Would mygenealogist.com be good or mediocre at best? They told me that in some peoples cases theyve been able to go back to the 4th century a.d.! They charge practically 10k usd!
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  #18  
Old 05-06-21, 18:15
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If your ancestors are from El Salvador, you should note that mygenealogist.com does not list El Salvador as one of the countries in which they have experts. I would be sceptical of anyone who claims to have got back that far, unless, I suppose, they have traced a line back to a royal family.

The standard hourly rate charged by that site is 85 USD per hour, but the hourly rate is lower if you book one of their packages. I guess you are talking about the "Legacy Project - 160 Hours". Again, they do not mention El Salvador as being one of the countries which they could cover in that package.

You would need to contact them with details of what you already know about your ancestors to see whether they think they would be able to trace your family tree. I don't have any personal knowledge of their company so I can't say whether they are good or not, but as they are based in Salt Lake City they will easily be able to access microfilmed records from many different countries.
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  #19  
Old 05-06-21, 22:48
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Quote:
Originally Posted by monicaregister View Post
They told me that in some peoples cases theyve been able to go back to the 4th century a.d.!
In the vast majority of cases this is highly unlikely. And I certainly wouldn't consider paying that kind of money even for a well-researched tree.

Last edited by Mary from Italy; 05-06-21 at 22:51.
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  #20  
Old 06-06-21, 18:48
monicaregister monicaregister is offline
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Then which genealogists might have access to el salvador records to the 16th century or earlier????
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