How It Works

From checkout to report

You choose a project, tell us what you know and pay once. We plan the search, work in the records and deliver a written report with every document found. Here is exactly what happens, and when.

You do not need to solve the Polish side before hiring us. Bring the clues you have and a question you want investigated. We turn them into a defined research plan, then show you what the records support and what remains unknown.

Start with one question that matters to you

For two family lines, several goals or a broader family history, compare STANDARD50 and PREMIUM100. The project finder can help you choose without submitting an email address.

Step 1 - You choose a project

Every project on the projects & prices page is a fixed number of research hours at a fixed price, with a stated number of research goals. A research goal is one question, such as which village did my great-grandfather come from. If you are unsure, FOCUS10 with the goal Ancestral Village Identification is the usual starting point.

Every service on the prices page links to its own page, with what it covers, what you receive and the estimated completion time.

Step 2 - You tell us about your family and pay

The order form on that page asks for:

• Names of the ancestors you are researching, with every spelling you have seen
• Approximate dates and places of birth, marriage, emigration and death
• Any Polish place name you have come across, even if it looks misspelled
• Photos or scans of documents you already hold: naturalization papers, manifests, church certificates, letters
• The one thing you would most like to know

If you have very little, that is normal. A single naturalization record or a name on a census is often enough to begin. The form then takes you to the secure Stripe checkout: card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. We never see or store your card details.

Before you order: what to gather

Spend a few minutes collecting what you already know. You do not need to buy more certificates or build a complete family tree before placing an order. If a detail is uncertain, label it as uncertain.

• One starting person: the name, spelling variants, approximate dates and the American town or state where the person lived.
• One priority: the question you most want answered. For example, “identify Anna’s Polish parish” is more useful than “find everything about my family.”
• What you already have: clear copies of family papers, record images, source links or your existing tree. Tell us which connections are documented and which are family stories.
• What has already been searched: names of databases, archives or parishes, years checked and any negative results. This helps us plan the work without repeating known searches.

Unknown village? Say so. Approximate birth year? Mark it as approximate. The research plan is the point at which we assess what the starting information and project hours can realistically support.

What you will know before research starts

FOCUS10, ESSENTIAL25, STANDARD50 and PREMIUM100 include the Plan-First Guarantee: we email the plan within two business days of receiving payment and the completed order form. You then have three business days from receiving the plan to cancel for a 100% refund. Research starts after that window, or earlier at your written request. Read the full guarantee.

The guarantee covers the decision to proceed with the research plan. It does not guarantee a particular record or family connection. Translation, retrieval and other services follow the cancellation terms for those services.

Step 3 - We confirm the plan

Within two business days of receiving your payment and completed order form, you get an email setting out what we will search, in which archives and in what order, and when to expect the report. If your goal is not realistic within the project you chose, we say so at this point and propose what is - before any research time is spent.

Plan-First Guarantee. On every research project you read the plan before any research begins. If it does not convince you, tell us within three business days of receiving it and we refund 100% of what you paid. Research begins after those three business days, or sooner if you ask us in writing to start. See the refund policy.

Step 4 - Research

Depending on your case this means American immigration and naturalization records, digitized Polish registers, written requests to Polish state, diocesan and civil registry archives, and the physical volumes that were never filmed. Every source is logged, including those that produced nothing. On STANDARD50 and PREMIUM100 projects you receive a short progress note at the halfway point.

Step 5 - Your report

How long it takes

Digitized collections can be searched in days. Written requests to Polish archives join each archive’s own queue, which we do not control: most answer within four to six weeks, some take longer. When a reply is delayed we tell you, and we use the waiting time on the parts of the search that do not depend on it.

If we find nothing

It happens, and you deserve to know before you order. Some registers were destroyed in the wars. A negative result is documented as carefully as a positive one: every archive, every volume, every year searched, and why the search could not succeed.

The refund policy and the FAQ explain exactly how this is handled.

A report you can use, even when the next step is yours

The result should help you do something with your family history: understand a difficult document, explain a connection to your relatives, extend a sourced family tree or decide whether further research is worthwhile. Your report separates established findings from possible leads, so you can share the story without presenting a guess as a fact.

Before ordering, look through the fictional report example to see how the evidence, translations and family connections are presented. The number of records and generations in your own report depends on the project scope and the sources that survive.