In Need of a Hard to Get Record? This Smart New Site Will Help You Find It

Thank you to Wesley Eames of AncestorCloud for this great information.

What’s your favorite part of genealogical research? Is it simply working on a branch of your family tree, or is it making progress, finding relatives, and interesting stories?

Now what’s your least favorite part of genealogy work? If you’re anything like me it’s exciting to make progress, find connections, stories, and build up your tree. However, without fail, you run into a brick wall, one that you just can’t seem to break through no matter how much time and work you put in. While most of the time the work is fun, it can be a challenge to continue working when you aren’t seeing results. Eventually you reach a point where you decide to put the problem on the back burner and continue work on another part of your tree.

So what’s the best thing to do when you hit a brick wall? How do you get all of your questions resolved without paying an arm and a leg, or spending years to do so? It’s expensive to resort to professionals every time you need a little extra help. And in the case of on site research it’s not practical to travel everywhere necessary to check records yourself.

What if you could work with other researchers like yourself?  People with the same love of the work that you do, but who live all over the world, close to the records you need, with experience breaking through same brick walls that you’re dealing with.

Seeing the need for this type of help, a community has been created where genealogy enthusiasts all around the world actively help each other get through the brick walls in their research.  The community is called AncestorCloud, and it works to connect researchers with needs to the others around the country or globe who can help them.  It’s still fairly new but is already doing wonders to help researchers move their genealogy work forward and break through brick walls faster and cheaper than ever.

Help In Italy

Recently there was a woman, Jennifer in the United States, that needed a record from the heart of Italy. After countless months searching online, she figured she couldn’t smash through the brick wall without taking a trip to Italy and spending a good amount of money from her savings to do so.

Luckily before she considered planning a trip she came across AncestorCloud and posted the task she needed (a record lookup) along with a small reward. Within a couple of weeks of posting her request one of AncestorCloud’s local helpers in Italy went church to church for her and sent her an electronic copy of the record that she needed. Her task was completed quickly, for significantly less than the alternatives, and now she is able to continue working on her family line. Her fellow researcher in Italy was able to feel the joy of helping someone break down a large brick wall and at the same time make a little money that he could use to get work through some of his own family history challenges.

Break Through Your Brick Walls

The community is simple, you make a simple profile and then you can post a request for help from the community to overcome your brick wall or you can help someone overcome their brick wall.  Here’s how it works:

Step 1) Go to ancestorcloud.com scroll down and click “Join the Community”

If you want to learn a little more about AncestorCloud before joining there’s plenty of information there including benefits of the community, some common questions, and a short video.  The site is simple and easy to use so you won’t have to worry about struggling to find what you need.  However if you do have any questions you can speak with them directly at hello@ancestorcloud.com.

Step 2) Fill out a simple profile so you can communicate with others in the community.

Let the community know who you are and what your areas of specialty are so others can reach out to you if they have a question. The more information you can provide the more likely you are to be helped and become recognized in the community.

Step 3) Click on “Requests” at the top of the page.

Step 4) Help others with their brick walls or click on “create request” to get help with yours.

Give Help

This is where you have the chance to help your fellow researchers around the world overcome their brick walls.

Not only will you be able to help someone in need but you’ll also be able to earn some extra money, which you can use to post your own requests.

Receive Help

This is where you have the chance to break through your own brick walls.  While we wish that we could provide all answers for free in most cases there is cost incurred by the researcher to get records or travel; so the larger the reward you’re willing to provide the more likely it is that your job will be completed.

Genealogy Is Better When We Do It Together

In the time and world we live in we have the luxury of a global audience that can help us with every research need we encounter.  We don’t need to go it alone with our limited resources. Our fellow researchers around the globe are happy to help us and we are happy to help them and AncestorCloud is making that possible.