Be a Family Genealogy and Tree Research Specialist  by Avril Harper 

So many families today have a deep interest in their family roots. Because we live in a country that has such a variety of different cultural and social backgrounds that have come from several other continents, we are curious about our past generations. So you may find this choice of business idea right up your alley of interest, especially if you love investigating and have the keen interest in putting puzzles together.

Researching your own family ancestry is difficult and usually very time consuming, and most people lack time to do all of the research involved in discovering who their ancestors were. This is where you get involved by performing the research for them! And for that a great many people will pay you very well indeed.

How much would people be willing to pay for all of the needed research? You should be able to charge £500-£1000 per month of investigating and tracing their family's past. This should include an extensive family tree they can proudly refer to after the research is completed. Remember that the more information you can find, the better for your clients, and the more money they will pay you as a result.  But clients will not be very happy paying you a large sum of money for something that looks like you spent a couple of hours working on.

You can research using the Internet, public libraries, as well as local history books and parish registers. This can turn into a full-time job for you. You may want to invest in subscriptions to several ancestry search sites, so you have access to as many records as possible online. Public libraries are an excellent source of information too. So make sure you use them extensively for needed research. It will take a great deal of patience on your part to compile the needed information. You will need to record everything that you find in a highly organised manner.

You need to start your investigation with a person's mother's and father's given names and the places and dates of each of their births and deaths. Your customer may also want information on both sides of the family, so make sure you find out exactly what it is they want when they clients first contact you. Do they only want the information on the father's side of the family line or mother's side only, for example, or from both sides and from as far back as possible?

Advertise your service with various different family history information sites and forums, and consider having a web site of your own. Try to incorporate a brief description of the type of work you will be performing in the name of your business and the name of your website.

Once you have done several family trees, you should start receiving referrals from happy customers which you can use in your web site to encourage other people to use your service. Encourage past clients to provide testimonials by offering some sort of incentive, such as a replica of their family crest, or pictures of former family members.