When we started our genealogical services business, it was decided that we’d do a certain amount of volunteer work, and we do – much more than we first imagined, in fact. We do work for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK), the Tarrant County Medical Examiners office, and other random projects on a case-by-case basis on the genealogical side and Operation Photo Rescue on the restoration side, as well as some case-by-case work there, also. When Ancestry and the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) asked for some APG members to sign up with Ancestry’s new service, Expert Connect I thought “Why not?”. We weren’t getting a ton of work at that point and this looked like it might be a good way to get a bit of work, on the side as it were. Well, between the time I signed up for the service and the time it actually went live, a lot of things happened that resulted in me getting so much restoration work that I’ve had to put a good deal of the genealogical work aside. My mother, also a genealogist, took up the slack and took over, completely, the Native American research. So it was decided, by committee of two, that the only Expert Connect work we’d do is the small requests, under $300 and fairly uninvolved, but involved enough that the persons wouldn’t be able to request quite so much through RAOGK. The reasons for this, other than time constraints, was that we still wanted to help those who needed it but couldn’t necessarily afford a lot, and that these cases are hardly ever picked up by other researchers on EC, who generally only seem to go for the “bigger bucks” cases -at least the ones being asked to bid on the same one’s we are. Over time, working with Expert Connect and hearing other researchers views on it, I’ve been wary of what can potentially happen with the service. For instance, there’s not a lot in place to prevent a client having research done, getting the report, then saying they don’t like the work and just not paying the researcher. But that hasn’t happened, thus far at any rate. Every single client we’ve worked with has been exceptionally happy with the results and we’ve only gotten the highest possible rating, a five. We’ve even gotten a tip, by golly! However, we have had an incident with the latest research project that causes me to question the whole process, just a bit.

We all know, as professional genealogists, that not every client will be happy with the results. Not every project will even have many results to be happy with! The chances of that happening increase exponentially with Native American research. If I had a penny for every “I’ve heard we have Cherokee blood” story that hasn’t a whiff of proof, I’d be a very rich woman! That’s not to say all of these stories are myth, it’s just that the chances of there being any proof one way or the other, is very slight. So we tell clients up front that if we find anything at all, and we try… oh, how we try!… they’ll be among the very fortunate few. So it was with this latest Expert Connect case. This was one of those we should have never taken, I suppose. That little inner voice was calling, saying “Whoa! This lady wants a whole lot for not a lot of money!” First of all, the tribe the client stated was Mohawk. Not only very hard to find records on that one, but it’s mainly centered in the Eastern Seaboard area. We have better luck with the Nations included in the Dawes rolls which are housed in the National Archives, Southwest Region. Also, the client wasn’t even sure where the NA connection might be. She had way too much information that she wanted, in way too many directions, including information on her great grandfathers first wife and child – not even in her direct line! As if that wasn’t enough, this lady had already done research on the internet and had a few family trees that she didn’t want altered – not sourced, mind. In all that internet research (did I mention lack of sources?) she had a lot on a lot of the names, but wasn’t sure they were actually her ancestors – which is a big problem with unsourced internet research results, by cracky! At any rate, my mom decided she’d have a go at it, but told the woman up front about the potential problems, including the fact that if those unsourced internet trees she dug up were, heaven forbid, wrong, she may never find the real facts that might actually lead her to answers! The fee was $300, which amounts to 10 hours of work, more or less. It ended up being more. About twice that, in fact, but mom was bound and determined to give this woman something, and spent her spare time looking. Well, she did find a few facts,by  going to the Main Fort Worth library and the National Archives and researching some New York resources we have access to. Finally, though, she had to give up as the guidelines she was given were just not bearing much in the way of fruit. She sent her report to the client who came back and stated that she was disappointed in the overall results. We understood! Mom was disappointed too! The client also stated she would have liked us to have found photos or documents in our search. That perhaps might have been possible, had we actually taken a research trip to New York (did I mention the budget was $300?). At any rate, we were paid, as we did fulfill the spirit of the contract – after all, you are paying for our time and ability in finding, analyzing, and interpreting data in the quickest and most effective way possible to solve your genealogy problem, not necessarily to provide all the answers which you’re seeking, especially if there is nothing to be found in the time allotted for the project!

Here’s where I start having the problem. The client filled out the comments on the case on Ancestry, right? In her comments she stated, and I quote: “My expert was professional and delivered what was outlined on my project details.” Good enough, right? She went on to state that she “would have like more concrete evidence” and still has “a lot of work before I have the answers I’m seeking”, which is true, she does. However, keep in mind, the project budget was $300 dollars! Not a lot of time for one or two major points in a research project, much less the amount she was looking for! Anyway, here’s the kicker: she gave us a rating of three out of five, even after stating that we had, in fact, “delivered what was outlined on my project details”! In essence, she gave us a poor rating not because we didn’t deliver what we should have for the time and money involved, but because she was unhappy that she didn’t get more than she asked for! So, because we didn’t find all she wanted and more, our overall rating has fallen to a four. Not horrible, I suppose, but the fact that it’s not our fault she wanted more than she asked or paid for that sticks in my craw. So, I suppose this is one of many flaws of the Ancestry Expert Connect service. I think we’ll still keep at it, at least for a while, and try to help a few people out, but at the same time I also think we’ll listen to that little inner voice, next time, when it screams “Oh, hell no!”

Tags: Genealogy, Rants