Personal Research Services

If you are having trouble finding your ancestors, perhaps we can help.

• Research Service: Tony Whitehead has 20 years of experience with County Durham history and genealogy, a B.A. (Hons.) in History & American Studies from the University of Keele in Staffordshire, and a post-graduate teaching certificate. He is the author of 'The Londonderrys, Masters of Seaham' (1994), 'Seaham - the Census Revealed' (2 volumes, 1995 and 1996), and 'Mary Ann Cotton - Dead but not Forgotten' (2001), a book about Seaham's most infamous resident and Great Britain's allegedly-most-prolific murderer! He has provided research results for many satisfied clients. Rate: £15 per hour. Substantial progress can usually be made in 2-3 hours, less for quick lookups.
• Lookups in the Durham Record Office: George Turns has many years of experience researching at the Durham Record Office and is willing to do lookups for customers there. Typically, we wait until we have accumulated £20 worth of lookups from several customers, then we make a visit to the record office. If you want George to do some lookups on his next visit, please let us know.
• Ordering birth, death, or marriage certificates: We also provide assistance in ordering civil registrations of births, marriages, and deaths from the government. We search various indexes and navigate through the ordering process for you, and the certificate is sent directly to your home from the General Register Office. For this service, we usually charge the £7 charged by the government for a certificate, plus £3 to £5 to locate the certificate reference (depending on how long it takes us to locate it).