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 — OR it can become a boring slog through records that never quite answer your questions.

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

Do you need work done in Midwestern repositories? I’m already here. Put my 12 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 Chicago and surrounding states, and to county courthouses and archives in northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and northeastern Illinois. I’ve had good success using the property and probate records in those courthouses to piece back together families that can’t be solved just using censuses or on-line “hints.” What’s on line is a drop in the bucket. I can help find the rest of the story.

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

Let’s talk about it. Free consultation: use the “contact” button or email directly and tell me what you have and what you may need. If I can’t help, I may 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 goals — and on how cooperative the ancestors were in leaving traces of their lives in the records! There are no guarantees in this business except that you will get my best effort and a fully documented report of exactly what was tried and what was found, and what the reasoning was.

What’s the best way to start? With a solid foundation. Start with a person you can confidently identify as your relative in a particular place and time, such as a census or marriage record. Then build from there. Often the most efficient procedure is for me to review what you have already gathered, especially any original sources, and devise a logical research plan. It’s tempting just to jump into the records and see what we find, but as in other situations, the wiser approach is to first determine which end of the pool we’re jumping into.

Where do you work? Few genealogical problems are solved by one stop in one place. My favorite genealogy repositories are Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the state libraries of Michigan (in Lansind) and Indiana (in Indianapolis). Close behind are the Great Lakes Regional Branch of the National Archives (Chicago), the Illinois Regional Archives Depository system, and Western Michigan University’s Regional Archives (Kalamazoo). There are plenty more, such as YOUR county courthouse! When we need records not available nearby or on line, I have trusted colleagues in Salt Lake City and Washington, DC, who can help out.

My favorite starting points are the three states and four dozen counties within a two-hour drive. In Illinois: Cook, Lake, DeKalb, Kane, DuPage, Kendall, Will, La Salle, Grundy, Kankakee, and Iroquois counties. In Michigan: Muskegon, Ottawa, Kent, Allegan, Barry, Eaton, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, Branch, and Hillsdale counties. In Indiana: Lake, Porter, La Porte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaGrange, Steuben, Newton, Jasper, Starke, Pulaski, Marshall, Fulton, Kosciusko, Noble, Whitley, De Kalb, Allen, Benton, White, Tippecanoe, Carroll, Cass, Howard, Miami, Wabash, and Huntington counties.

How much will it cost? You’re in charge of the budget. First we agree on specific objectives and an amount of time to work on them. My current rates are $40 per hour of actual research (includes planning and reporting). 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.