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Trace Your Family History, Without The Legwork

BOSTON (WBZ) ― We are a nation of diverse backgrounds and every family has a unique story. However, tracing your genealogy can be complicated and time consuming. Experts say less than one percent of the documents needed to research your family's history are available online. But now there's a service that will do the legwork for you.

Family Storylines traced the roots of WBZ-TV's Paula Ebben, to show how they can reconstruct the past. She knew a lot about her grandparents, but like most people, further back her family history gets a little fuzzy. Family Storylines has a staff of licensed genealogists who went to work on Paula's family history. "There are tricks of the trade, if you will," explained company spokesperson Jan Tyler. "There are so many different resources that people don't automatically think about," she added.

The company tracked down details about Paula's family that she had no way of knowing. They found the exact street address where her great-grandparents lived on Hardy Street in Salem, right a across the street from the House of the Seven Gables.

Paula knew her grandfather worked as a police officer in Charlestown after World War I. What she didn't know was he volunteered to serve again in World War II at the age of 50. Family Storylines dug up his registration card and as it turns out, they found one for her other grandfather as well. "Every family history is a surprise and it's quite an emotional experience," said Tyler.

The genealogists found pages of obscure documents; census records, passenger lists, even photos of the very ships on which Paula's ancestors sailed to America from Ireland. "We are one of the few companies with international reach," Tyler explained. "We're in more than 30 countries."

You can get the finished product bound in either paperback or hardcover. The research takes a little more than a month and will go back four to six generations. The prices range from about $500 to $1,500. The company also offers a less expensive service for the do-it-yourselfer. For $75, you can email a question about your family and they will research it for you.

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