Welcome to Midwest Roots!

Samford University Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research, Course 6, "Professional Genealogy," -- instructor Elissa Powell, CG; student Harold Henderson. Click on the picture to learn more about this great educational opportunity.

Family history research can be a joy. It can also be a boring slog through records that never quite answer your questions.

I can help turn the worst into the best. I love research and I love writing. If you don’t (or have run out of time), hire me to do them for you, professional grade.

Have you done the research and dread the writing? Put my 30 years of professional writing experience to work as writer or sympathetic editor.

Do you need work done in Midwestern repositories? I’m already here. Put my 10 years of research experience to work.

Are you stuck? Let me turn those brick walls into masonry opportunities. I have access to top repositories in the four states around Chicago, and an interest in untangling puzzles and uncovering history. What’s online is a drop in the bucket. I can help find “the rest of the story.”

Let’s talk about it. Free consultation: use the “contact” button and tell me what you have and what you may need. If I can’t help, I probably know someone who can. If I can help, I’ll explain and together we’ll decide what the next step(s) should be.

How long will it take? That depends on your exact goals — and on how cooperative the ancestors were in leaving traces of their lives in surviving records! There are no guarantees in this business except that you will get my best effort and a record of exactly what has been tried and what has been found.

How much will it cost? You’re in charge of the budget and when to call a halt. First we agree on some specific objectives and an amount of time. My current rates are $40 per hour of actual research (includes planning and reporting), half paid up front and half on delivery of the report. Substantial expenses are extra; we work that out on a case-by-case basis. I don’t charge for travel time, and I don’t charge for mileage up to two hours from my home base in La Porte (I’m in Fort Wayne and Chicago on a regular basis).