If you cannot travel · $290 the day
You cannot make the journey. That does not mean you cannot return.
Most people who dream of seeing their ancestral village will never board that plane — age, health, war, life. So we go in your place: a full working day in your village, spent on your family, and brought back to you.
What you receive
- Every headstone with your family's names, photographed front-on and at an angle, with the inscriptions read and translated
- The GPS position of each grave, and both cemeteries where the village has two
- Your family's house, or the place where it stood — from the road, from the yard and from behind
- The street, walked end to end in one continuous recording with commentary spoken aloud
- The church, the village council, and the neighbours asked what they remember of your family
- A written report of everything and everyone we found, and every original file without watermarks
- If you wish: an edited film of the day, with narration
What this is like to watch
Imagine a steady, unhurried walk. A dirt road. A gate. A row of stones, one of them with your surname, turned to the light so that the letters can be read. An old woman who narrows her eyes at the family name, then nods and starts to talk. We show real families' days only with their permission — until one is published here, that is what it is like.
No music pushing your feelings around. No presenter. Just your village, on the day we were there, with the people who still remember.
Price: $290 the day — and what moves it
- One working day in one village; a second village is a second day
- Whether you want the whole cemetery recorded rather than your family's stones — $490
- Whether you want an edited, narrated film of the day — quoted in writing before the day
- The best time for an overgrown cemetery is after the first frosts, late October and November; the house and the street can be done in any month
Paid in advance, in full — the day goes into the calendar once the payment arrives, and the invoice comes by email with the payment details on it. If we find nothing of your family in the village, half comes back to you, and the photographs and the report stay yours.
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.
- Every price we have, on one page.
Someone in your family has waited a lifetime to see this village.
Write us the family name and the village as you know it — however it is spelled. We will tell you honestly whether the day can be done, and when is the best time for it.