Dr. Jane Lyons Sent: 17 May 2005 02:30 > a good researcher is not the person who will search what > you ask for - that is an average to middling researcher > - it's someone on a lead/leash being told to search. Totally agree > A GOOD researcher will use their own initiaitive - their > own instinct - based on years of experience. As someone who carries out research in a non-genealogical field, it is great to hear that genealogical research is no different. I am paid to use my skill and experience to "furtle around" to find one or more answers - positive or negative. If told where to search (by someone's whose expertise I respect), I use that as guidance - not as a rule. I am looking at paying a researcher to look for traces of my family in, or around, a village in Yorkshire in the 17th century, and before. Whilst I will tell that person what I have to date, I'm relying on them knowing where to look. I'm also relying on them to correctly annotate the results with such as probable accuracy. > I say - You CANNOT trace any Irish Clann back to Adam > and Eve I'm sceptical of results in England purporting to trace families back to William the Conqueror. Some can - but they are a small minority. As I start my investigation in Ireland, I will gradually learn just what can be expected their. I would suspect that documentary proof going back a thousand years is difficult enough to find - let alone the tens of thousands necessary to track back to "Eve" in Africa. > As for full time - I'm glad you were/are able to do that > yourself - If you stop and think about it - would you > really be willing to pay a stranger 40 Euro+ per hour to > work for you on a full time basis I wish ... Chris