Genealogy Research Options after Ancestry ExpertConnect

Ancestry.com showed its power 24 January by announcing the closure of its popular online marketplace for genealogy research, ExpertConnect. No explanation was offered; the shutdown will be complete on 18 March.

In the six weeks since, everybody has been scrambling, especially those seeking professional genealogy help. I hope to write elsewhere about the professional angle, but here's the landscape for genealogists who are looking for research help or who think they might be in the future, with the readily accessible Ancestry ExpertConnect marketplace gone.

By far the biggest list of professional researchers and their qualifications is at the Association of Professional Genealogists. Currently, however, the site offers no place for people seeking help to post their needs and invite bidders. The same can be said on the local and regional level, where many state organizations maintain lists of researchers (such as Ohio and Indiana), as do many repositories (such as the Newberry Library and the National Archives).

But the marketplace idea is not dead, and Ancestry ExpertConnect showed that it can work if a sufficient number of buyers and sellers can be brought together. A number of smaller sites, some in existence prior to Ancestry ExpertConnect and some new, do list professionals and offer seekers the ability to post their wants and needs and receive bids on them:

Genealogy Freelancers

Genlighten (lookups only at this point)

GenealogyPro

Geneaxchange

Hire-A-Genealogist

Directory of Genealogists

I won't go all Consumer Reports on you and try to describe or rank the above; the web sites will tell you a lot. Obviously each of them (and some even newer counterparts in the UK) faces the same challenge in making a market as APG does -- trying to generate even a significant fraction of the traffic that naturally passed ExpertConnect's doors at Ancestry.

(Full disclosure: I am a professional, and an APG member and board member; I was on ExpertConnect for more than a year, and I am signed up on most of the above sites as well.)

Musings on Methodology Monday

One of the ancillary pleasures of working on Ancestry ExpertConnect is the camaraderie and information in the GoogleGroup discussion of the experts. (It's what they call us, we can't help it, OK?) And one thing I've picked up there is that there are two kinds of genealogists: the answer-seekers and the process-oriented. Some won't bid on a project unless they're sure they can "help," that is, find an actual ancestor. Others will bid if they see they can do something, that is, go through records that need to be gone through (or dealt with in more creative ways) even if they don't yield the prize.

Of course we'd all rather find new ancestors, but the emphasis is different. I don't judge one way or the other. In the long run, as Craig Scott says, we're judged by what we find. But there's a lot of process along the way. So maybe we need both kinds.