Service 04 · $1200 · six to ten weeks
A family line, back to the first book that names it.
Most families who write to us hold one or two documents and the name of a village. This is the work of turning that into a line of people — each with a date, a place, a house number and the page that proves it — going back as far as the parish books allow, which in Galicia is usually the 1780s.
What you receive
One family line — your surname, or the line you name — followed from the people you know back through every surviving register of their parish, and handed over in a form your family can keep.
- Three working days in the reading room — in one archive or split between two — on the registers of your family's parish
- Every entry naming the line read, transcribed and translated: births, marriages and deaths, with the godparents, witnesses and house numbers that bring brothers, sisters and in-laws into the tree
- The family tree as a printable chart (PDF) and as a GEDCOM file that opens in MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch or Gramps
- A book of the sources: for each person, the photographed entry, its transcription and translation, and where the original sits — archive, fond, file, page
- A written account of what was read and what it showed, including the books where the line is not, and a list of what remains to be searched and what it would take
- A printed, hardbound copy of the book of sources with the tree, posted to you — the one that goes on the shelf
- As a gift, our book “Christmas in the Old Country” — how 130 villages of Galicia, Podolia, Volhynia and Bukovina kept Christmas, in English, Ukrainian or Polish
How it is done
- It starts with the records check
- Before three days are booked, the $190 records check establishes which registers survive for your parish and years. If the books are gone, you hear that for $190, not for $1200.
- Then the scope is fixed in writing
- Once we know what survives, you receive in writing what the three days will cover — which books, which years, which line — with the invoice. The files are ordered once it is paid; archives bring them to the reading room one to three weeks later.
- Then the line is read backwards, generation by generation
- Each marriage entry names the parents of the bride and groom, and each of them points to an older book. The line is followed that way, entry by entry, rather than by guessing at a surname: in a village where half the households shared one name, the house number and the godparents are what tell one family from the next.
- Then it is put together
- The entries are assembled into the tree, every name and date checked a second time against the page it came from, and the book of sources is laid out. Six to ten weeks from payment is usual; it depends mostly on how quickly the archives bring the files.
Price: $1200 for one family line
- $1200 for three days in the archives, the tree in both formats and the book of sources
- Each further day in the archive — to follow a second line, or a line that moved to another parish — is $350, agreed in writing before it is booked
- The $190 records check comes first and is priced separately; it is what decides whether three days are worth booking
- Archive fees are included: copying and per-page charges for the three days are part of the $1200, so the price agreed is the price you pay
Paid in advance, in full — the files are ordered once the payment arrives, and the invoice comes by email with the payment details and the scope of work on it. What you are buying is three working days of reading and the work of assembling them, not a promised number of generations: where a line breaks — a burned book, a missing decade — the account says exactly where and why, and what might bridge it.
See what a report looks like
A real report from two days in the archive, exactly as the client received it. Only the family's names, the client, house addresses and archive references are hidden.
This is the right step if
- The village and parish are known, and the records check has shown that the books survive
- You want the line itself, not one certificate: who came before whom, with the page behind every name
- You are building a tree in MyHeritage or Ancestry and want its Ukrainian part from the originals, not from other people's trees
- You want something that can be printed, given and inherited
It is the wrong step if
- You do not yet know the village — start with the free village finder or a free request
- You do not know whether the books survive — start with the $190 records check
- You need one document: a single birth or marriage entry is a $350 day in the archive
- You want every branch of the family back to 1700 for a fixed price: nobody honest can promise that before the books are seen
Questions about family tree research
What exactly does the $1200 include?
Three working days in the archives, every archive fee for those days, the tree as a chart and a GEDCOM file, the book of sources as a PDF and as a printed hardbound copy posted to you, and our Christmas book as a gift. Not included: the $190 records check that comes first, and any further day you choose to add.
How many generations will the tree have?
Where the parish books survive, four to six generations on one line is the usual result of three days. It depends on the books, not on effort, and you hear what is realistic after the records check, before you pay for the tree.
Can I import the tree into MyHeritage or Ancestry?
Yes. The GEDCOM file opens in MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch, Gramps and most other genealogy programs, with the source noted against each person, so the Ukrainian part of your tree carries its own evidence.
How is this different from a day in the archive?
A day in the archive answers a question you already have — this entry, these files. The family line is the question itself: three days spent following one line wherever its entries lead, and the work of turning the readings into a tree and a book. If you need one document, a day is the better buy.
What if the line breaks before the three days are used?
Then the remaining time goes to the lines the entries have already opened — the mother's family, the brothers who stayed — and the account names the break and what could bridge it, such as a census, a land register or the books of a neighbouring parish.
What about living relatives?
The tree comes down to the people you name. Living people appear in it only as you give them to us, and nothing about them is published or passed on.
Before you commission anything, check what you may already own: The 7 documents that reveal your Ukrainian village
The rest of the ladder
You can start anywhere on it, and stop after any step.
- Before anyone opens a book: do the books still exist?
- A whole day in your village, spent on your family.
- The parish books are still there. Most of them, anyway.
- An ocean away, a grave grows over in a decade.
- You land in Poland. A few days later you are standing at the gate.
- You cannot make the journey. That does not mean you cannot return.
A line of names is only as good as the pages behind it.
Send us the family name, the village, and whatever documents you hold. We reply in writing within two business days with what survives and what tracing the line would take.