Terms
The terms, in plain language.
Every piece of work is agreed in writing before you pay anything. This page summarises the standard terms, so that nothing in that email or on the invoice comes as a surprise.
How work is agreed
Everything starts with a free written assessment of your request. If we take your case, you receive an email naming exactly what will be done and what it costs, and the invoice by email, with the payment details and the scope of work on it. Paying the invoice accepts that scope. There is never a running meter.
Payment
Each piece of work is paid in full when it is commissioned, and starts once the payment arrives: days in the archive and in the village are booked, and files ordered, in advance. On a journey, each part is paid before it is booked. Archive fees for copying are not included in our prices; if an archive charges anything, you are told the sum before anything is paid.
If nothing is found
A day in your village is a search: if nothing of your family is found there, half the fee is returned, and the photographs and report stay yours. A day in the archive is a working day in the reading room: you receive a full written account of what was checked, whether or not your family is in it. A records check is a written answer, including when the answer is that the books did not survive. Hopeless cases are declined at the free stage instead of billed.
If circumstances change
If the security situation worsens before a journey, your dates move or your money for everything not yet booked returns — your choice. If a day in the village cannot go ahead for reasons of safety or access, it is moved or refunded. Details are on the Safety page.
What we ask of you
Accurate information about identity, health and — critically — any Ukrainian citizenship of any traveller; respect for the safety protocol during travel; and patience with archives, which move at their own century-old pace.