In one of the last conversations I ever had with him before he passed away, my grandfather told me how the genealogy information I had uncovered on our family changed his life. Aside from the personal meaning it held for him, he also stressed how much it meant that I was helping to bring a greater awareness and appreciation of our family’s Jewish heritage to several members of the younger generation. I can still see the pride in his eyes as we discussed what I had learned about our family’s history going back to the late 1600s.

As I, my family, and my clients have learned, genealogy can be life changing. Genealogy research can uncover family pasts, helping us to understand ourselves better and share where we came from with future generations. At the same time, it can also help us discover and connect with family members we never knew we had.

It is certainly possible to perform your own genealogy research to get information about your family without hiring anyone. However, despite the availability of historic material and genealogy websites, there are many compelling reasons why it may be preferable to hire a professional genealogist. Many of the reasons for hiring a professional to research Ashkenazi Jewish family history are similar to those for hiring a genealogist for any family. First and foremost, hiring a professional genealogist can save you hundreds of hours or more. More significantly, professional genealogists’ training and professional standards enable them to provide more reliable results than hobbyists could get by doing it themselves.

Saving Time

First, the process of research is time consuming. Building a history of your family from the ground up is a time-consuming process which may take months, years, or even decades of hard work. While some people may enjoy developing new hobbies, not everyone is cut out to be a family history researcher. Hiring a professional genealogist will likely save you countless hours of efforts.

Beyond research time, genealogy is a highly specialized field—and Jewish genealogy is a particularly focused sub-specialization. There is a great deal of information required before even getting started. As just one example, the first step in performing genealogy research is knowing where to find information. There are a huge number of databases, archives, and other genealogical resources. While my guide and others out there are certainly helpful, it is far too easy to get confused and overwhelmed. Familiarizing oneself with these resources can take a huge amount of time. Professional genealogists already have the training and experience to navigate this complex landscape.

Reliability

In genealogy research as in any highly specialized field, it is easy to make mistakes without training. For example, some genealogy hobbyists may simply copy down what they see in family trees uploaded by others onto genealogy websites such as Geni.com, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, or others. Unfortunately, it is possible that the person who uploaded the trees onto those websites did the same thing—copy a tree they found somewhere else. The original creator of the tree might not have been a great researcher, and could have written inaccurate information or come to incorrect conclusions. While such sites are undoubtedly very useful, uncritically relying on user-uploaded trees can result in other people’s errors getting repeated.

Language Skills

One of the cornerstone principles of professional genealogy is to rely on primary sources. To get the most accurate information, one should always use original sources rather than relying on transcriptions, translations, and other secondary sources which were produced later and could introduce errors. However, since most Jewish families with European Jewish ancestry arrived in the United States in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, genealogical records will not be in English but rather in languages such as German, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Hebrew, or Yiddish. Being able to be able to read and properly interpret these documents requires significant language skills.

While genealogical databases are a fantastic starting point for research, they may also introduce potential transcription and translation inaccuracies. Additionally, original records often contain additional information beyond that indicated on transcriptions—sometimes dramatically more so. Yet because Jewish families tended to migrate and borders in Europe changed so frequently, researching Ashkenazi genealogy frequently requires the ability to research in at least four or five foreign languages.

Moreover, many of these documents are written in handwriting systems which are entirely different than modern ones. Unlike English, whose speakers can easily read historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence, handwriting styles for German, Russian, and Hebrew were very different than they are now. Being able to read historical documents of genealogical value requires specialized training in (link rel=”nofollow”) various historic scripts.

Source Evaluation Skills

In genealogy as in all other fields, the oft-stated truism holds: just because it’s written down doesn’t mean it’s true. Even for primary sources, one must always evaluate the source quality, reliability, and historical context. For secondary sources, it is even more important to evaluate how careful the creators were in carrying out their research. Did they use primary sources? If so, how did they use them? Did they utilize enough of them, or did they rely on only one or two? Did they use high-quality or low-quality sources?

In order to properly evaluate a source, a professional genealogist needs to have a clear understanding of what it is. Genealogical source evaluation includes asking questions such as who created the source, what its purpose was, and who provided the information. Evaluating primary sources for Ashkenazi Jewish families from places like Poland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, or Lithuania can be even more difficult and requires far more specialized knowledge. Proper source evaluation is one of the cornerstones of professional genealogical standards.

Professional genealogists have the training to critically evaluate the sources they use. By relying on professional standards, professional genealogists are likely to provide far more accurate, reliable information and conclusions than hobbyists without prior training. This is as true for Ashkenazi Jewish genealogy as it is for genealogy in general.

Digging Deeper

Amateurs seeking information about their family history often know where to begin. A variety of genealogical websites exist that offer a wide array of information. Yet too often, this is where hobbyists begin and end their search. In contrast, professional genealogists know how to move beyond the low-hanging fruit, tapping into information in libraries, archives, and other repositories, beyond the reach of casual researchers.

 

In Brief

Hiring a professional genealogist is a wise investment for many people. Engaging in genealogy research can help you learn much more about your family past than you ever thought possible. In addition to the past, genealogy research can also help locate living relatives you never knew you had, often in surprising places. Preserving your family’s heritage can help preserve your legacy for future generations.

While it is possible to research your family yourself, hiring a professional researcher is a wise decision. First, doing so can save hundreds of hours—both in research time and in preparation. Even more, hiring a professional ensures that the results follow professional standards, and thus are accurate, reliable, and complete. Throughout my website, I hope you will come to appreciate the immense value that genealogy can add to your life.

By hiring a genealogist, you just might end up having a similar conversation with a loved one as I had with my beloved grandfather.