El salvador

[monicaregister]

how much would the most low cost high quality professional genealogist charge me in usd to make my family tree to 1524 or earlier if i was born in el salvador? How can i get an approximate pricing for a project of this caliber? Thank you.

[kiterunner]

Welcome to the forum, Monica.

Sorry but I don't know the answer to your question. This forum is mainly for helping people trace their family trees themselves, rather than recommending professional genealogists. In general, the lower the cost, the lower the quality, I can say that! Also another general point, how to trace your family tree does not just depend on where you were born, but where your ancestors came from.

[monicaregister]

But between me and a professional genealogist, who would do a much more accurate, reliable, concise, politically correct, ect... job assuming i wanted to know who were my relatives like 5 or 6 centuries ago? Ive never made a family tree for someone else let alone much less my own! It seems like a daunting task! What should i do in my case specifically??

[ElizabethHerts]

But between me and a professional genealogist, who would do a much more accurate, reliable, concise, politically correct, ect... job assuming i wanted to know who were my relatives like 5 or 6 centuries ago? Ive never made a family tree for someone else let alone much less my own! It seems like a daunting task! What should i do in my case specifically??

If you are researching ancestors from El Salvador you would need a genealogist with access to that country's records, so probably someone based in the country.

A couple of points, if you have no family tree at all right now, I'd concentrate on finding your most recent ancestors with accuracy and research their lives. It's ambitious to aim at 1524 when you haven't even started! It would also depend on what records exist for that time period in the countries where your ancestors lived and also on their status. There will be more available records for high-status people.

I'm not quite sure why you want a "politically correct" tree. People were what they were and you can't change history. Most of us have ancestors who have done things we might disapprove of but we have to accept this. Values were different in the past and we can't attribute our own values to our ancestors.

I'm not sure of your motive for wanting to draw up a family tree. It might be a lot more fun to do as much research as possible yourself, but I doubt anyone on this small forum has any experience of El Salvador research. Hiring a professional could be very expensive. I appreciate you have no experience but there are lots of forums that could offer you help and expertise. Most of us are experienced in British research and also can help with ancestors from Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada etc.

You might find it useful to read this:
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/El_Salvador_Genealogy

I hope these pointers help. You can always ask specific questions on here about your ancestors and we will do what we can to help.

[Merry]

Even if you believe hiring a professional is the only way forward for you, I would suggest you read plenty of information regarding the accessibility of records in El Salvador and any other country you think your ancestors may have come from, to get a handle on whether this research going back so far is even possible and/or what you might reasonably expect someone to achieve. You could begin by reading the articles here:

https://www.thefhguide.com/project-9-central-amer.html

Such a project could take a very long time. I would not trust anyone willing to place a figure on such a project at the start, as there are so may unknowns.

Many people prefer to study their ancestry themselves, as this is much more fulfilling than hiring someone else to do it for them and for most the cost of using a professional would put the project out of reach. Many on this site are at least as competent as many professionals, but I doubt there is anyone here who has experence in tracing ancestors in Central America, if that is where you ancestry lies.

[Olde Crone]

A professional genealogist will charge, like any other professional, by the hour. He/she cannot know how many hours things will take. An added cost will be documentation along the way to prove findings. No one can give you a fixed cost but it will definitely be into the thousands, so it makes sense to do as much of the work yourself and to only employ a genealogist to do specific named tasks that you cannot do yourself. Good luck, it's great fun!

OC

[Phoenix]

One of the problems a lot of us have is knowing what records do not survive.

Fire, flood, war, regime change or sheer carelessness can lead to the destruction of records. Very few of us can trace all our lines back beyond a few generations.

I have several friends who are professional genealogists. Things to bear in mind:


You need to have a precise goal
you need to express that very clearly
you need to provide the information you have, with sources where you have them, and indicate clearly anything that is a family story
A professional genealogist will charge for work done, whether or not it leads to results: neither of you will be happy if they find something you knew already but omitted to tell them about.

[Nell]

Monica

I've been doing my family tree for nearly 30 years and haven't got back before the 1700s with most of my lines. Wanting to go back to the 1500s is highly ambitious.

In my experience, I've found it more interesting to find out about ancestors more closely related to me, as there's more documentation and in some cases I am lucky enough to have photographs.

[JohnS]

With being so specific about tracing back to 1524 or earlier I wonder if maybe there was somebody of fame or notoriety at that time and you are just curious if you are a descendant?
Maybe you have an inkling that you could be or, perhaps, other members of your family have passed down the belief (rumour) that you may be?

It would be like someone telling me that I could be related to King Henry VIII and me setting out with a specific goal to trace back to 1547 (his death).

[Merry]

With being so specific about tracing back to 1524 or earlier I wonder if maybe there was somebody of fame or notoriety at that time and you are just curious if you are a descendant?

The Spanish conquest and colonization of El Salvador began in 1524. So possibly more like, "My ancestors arrived on The Mayflower" :)

[monicaregister]

But between professional genealogists and amateurs, who overall will do a much better job in making family trees that are far more accurate, reliable, concise, ect.....???

[Phoenix]

You really cannot say.

A professional will usually have studied the subject, have qualifications, have access to records and experience to know which records to look at.

An amateur may well find an answer missed by a professional because they are prepared to spend way more time on an individual problem than is commercially viable.

[ElizabethHerts]

But between professional genealogists and amateurs, who overall will do a much better job in making family trees that are far more accurate, reliable, concise, ect.....???

It's such a complex question that it is impossible to give a definitive answer. One professional might do a brilliant job, another might not. Some amateurs might find records that a professional does not. It is very hypothetical. You are asking us a question that can't be answered with any certainty!

[Merry]

I don't think you can compare what a professional can do with what an amateur can do. Most trees have difficult stumbling blocks along the way. No professional is going to spend months or years trying to work out a problem unless they are being paid by a millionaire!

[ElizabethHerts]

A professional will probably work on a tree for a specific period of time then stop, whereas many dedicated amateurs will persevere for years. Many of us have knocked down brick walls we thought would never fall as new records have been digitised.

[Merry]

If you hire a professional you must get recommendations from people you trust. I have been in touch with several people over the years who have been fooled by the research of 'professionals' who have not done their job properly, most likely because they were being pressured for an answer within a time frame or concerned that they might not be paid if they didn't find an answer to a problem. To resolve the dilemma they just made an educated guess which turned out to be wrong, when the right answer was there if they had only approached the issue in the right way.

A professional genealogist may not be an expert in every field of research (I would probably be concerned if they said they were). If you don't want to do the research yourself you may find you have to hire several people for different elements of your tree.

I don't know anything about research in El Salvador, or if your ancestors were from that country, but one of the biggest issues in many countries is that there is no central database for records and/or there are few or no online records or indexes. This means you may have to guess when and where an event happened in order to have any chance of finding it. This may not be too much of a problem when you are looking for your parents and grandparents records, if you know about their lives already, but becomes very problematic as you get further back. Of coulse it will be just as problematic for a professional as it would be for you!

It may all sound very daunting right now. That is why you should stop thinking about getting back to 1524 and concentrate on recording what you already know about your parents and grandparents, as either you or a professional is going to need this information to make a start. You should speak to as many relatives as possible, in particular older relatives and also cousins, aunts and uncles to find out what they know about their immediate ancestry to get the fullest picture you can and also see if there are discrepencies in the information you are given. Then you need to record all this information and decide what you need to know next to check the accuracy of what you have been told and/or progress back another generation.

Good luck!

[monicaregister]

Would mygenealogist.com be good or mediocre at best? They told me that in some peoples cases theyve been able to go back to the 4th century a.d.! They charge practically 10k usd!

[kiterunner]

If your ancestors are from El Salvador, you should note that mygenealogist.com does not list El Salvador as one of the countries in which they have experts. I would be sceptical of anyone who claims to have got back that far, unless, I suppose, they have traced a line back to a royal family.

The standard hourly rate charged by that site is 85 USD per hour, but the hourly rate is lower if you book one of their packages. I guess you are talking about the "Legacy Project - 160 Hours". Again, they do not mention El Salvador as being one of the countries which they could cover in that package.

You would need to contact them with details of what you already know about your ancestors to see whether they think they would be able to trace your family tree. I don't have any personal knowledge of their company so I can't say whether they are good or not, but as they are based in Salt Lake City they will easily be able to access microfilmed records from many different countries.

[Mary from Italy]

They told me that in some peoples cases theyve been able to go back to the 4th century a.d.!

In the vast majority of cases this is highly unlikely. And I certainly wouldn't consider paying that kind of money even for a well-researched tree.

[monicaregister]

Then which genealogists might have access to el salvador records to the 16th century or earlier????

[kiterunner]

You could try contacting some from Cyndi's List Central and South America section:

https://www.cyndislist.com/central-and-south-america/professionals/

It doesn't specifically say El Salvador for any of them, but some say generally Latin America.

[Merry]

There are some links on this Family Search page that may help you understand what records are available, so you know if a professional has the right level of expectation about what might be possible.

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/El_Salvador_Genealogy

[Olde Crone]

I would be inclined to do this in parts rather than commissioning someone to do 500 years worth of research. You may find a few generations back, that your ancestors were not from El Salvador at all, for instance.

And remember, just because someone calls themself a professional genealogist doesn't mean they are, I have seen some terrible research done by a "professional" who had no qualifications at all. In the UK, there are recognised professional qualifications, but I don't have a clue about any other country.I

OC

[monicaregister]

But if i were to hit a brick wall/s, should i hire a pro or not? What should i do in this case??

[Phoenix]

But if i were to hit a brick wall/s, should i hire a pro or not? What should i do in this case??


This depends on the nature of the brick wall and the quality of the professional.


My local transport system is plastered with pictures of boys who went missing decades ago. The best efforts of family and police have failed to find them. Unless the individual comes forward or the proverbial shallow grave is found, such brickwalls will never be knocked down.



Less dramatic modern brickwalls are often resolved by asking family/friends/co-workers/neigbours for information.


You would need to consider in each case (and brick walls multiply with each generation you go back) in detail. Reasons could be:


Event not in expected place
Individuals not recorded in expected names or misrecorded/mistranscribed

Event did not take place
Event not recorded
Records do not survive


Professionals can sort out some of these issues but you are much better placed to resolve others.

[Olde Crone]

When you hit a brick wall, ask advice on a forum such as this one. There are several members on here who are as good as many professionals and better than some professionals. At least they can point you in the right direction. Sometimes it does pay to use a researcher for a specific piece of information that would be too expensive for you to access in person.

OC

[monicaregister]

Did native americans keep written records or only european settlers?? European colonization began in the early 16th century, what about before that?

[Merry]

Having googled, there's plently of information on Native American records in the US, but very little for El Salvador, so the answer may be no.

Firstly you need to concentrate on establishing the first two of three generations of your tree. If you get something wrong in this part you could find yourself studying the wrong lines altogether!

[Phoenix]

I know nothing of the climate of El Salvador. Unless carved in stone, records will be subject to fire, flood, mould, rodents and insect damage. If a governing system is overturned, there will always be a hiatus, even if previous records are valued.

In England, our civil war led to a hiatus, if not the loss of earlier records. A change of religion a century earlier means that except for a vanishing few examples, nothing survives of any birth marriage or death records kept prior to 1538.

Reasons to make and preserve records are usually to demonstrate ownership of land, or to collect taxes. Would European settlers be interested in Native Americans and preserving their records?

In this country, those of us with English ancestors know that we must have had ancestors living in England in 1500, potentially thousands of them, but we are remarkably lucky if we can name a single one.

[Merry]

In general it is probably easier to construct a family tree for ancestors from the UK than for many other countries. That said, my own tree, which I consider to be fairly typical for ancestors born in England, looks like this:

I have all my ancestors going back to all my 32 3xg-grandparents - most were born in the late 18thC through to the first few years of the 19thC.

Moving back three more generations to 6xg-grandparents, where you might expect 256 ancestors (though likely a few less because of cousin marriages), I only have 41 people recorded.

Going back another three generations to my 9xg-grandparents I only have four people recorded. Two of those were probably born around 1600, but I have not been able to find anything about them before they married.

There are other people on this site who have got back further, but in general it would only be on one or two lines and of course if you are lucky enough to be able to go back a long way on a line or two, you won't know which lines that might be on until you have done all the research you can on all the lines from yourself going back! Some people just search their father's paternal line. If I had done that I would have got back to my 5xg-grandfather who was probably born in the 1750s.

Of course we can't research our ancestors in isolation - any attempt to do that is extremely likely to lead to mistakes or restrict the number of ancestors you can find - I have a little over 200 ancestors on my tree but in order to find them it has been necessary to research extended family groups and in some cases whole villages of people, so my full tree has a total of just under 10,000 individuals.