House History
Family History
Local History Studies
Parish or Village History
Historic Landscape Studies
Manorial Records
Medieval Property Records

My charges are £30/hour plus expenses. I do not charge for travelling time, only the time actually working on your activity. If your request involves visiting a Record Office that I do not frequently visit, then there is a minimum charge of £100 plus expenses or up to 4 hours of research time in that archive.

Expenses include: reasonable out of pocket travel costs, document copying costs including digital photography permissions. I will reduce expense costs accordingly if the trip to the Archive is for multiple customers so you only pay your fair share.

I recommend that you use the contact me form with an outline of what you would like me to do. I will contact you for any further information that I need to be able to start. There is no need to pay up front as I will spend up to an hour (at no cost to you) identifying a suitable research route and where the first sets of records are located. This enables me to respond to you with an estimated timeframe and cost.

For research activities that will extend beyond 8 hours, I will provide an estimate and we will agree a budget. I will keep you routinely informed of progress and provide summaries of the information obtained so far. You can ask me to stop at any point, or adjust the focus of the research as more information comes to light.

These activities vary significantly dependent upon the complexity of the work. My charge is still £30/hour plus expenses. I will provide a detailed proposal, and we will agree atimeline and budget with staged payments as the work is progressing.

Please use the contact me form to provide me with an outline of what you would like me to do. I will contact you for any further information that I need to be able to start. There is no need to pay up front as I will spend up to an hour (at no cost to you) identifying a suitable research route and where the first sets of records are located. This enables me to respond to you with an estimated timeframe and cost.

I prefer payment by bank transfer (from a UK bank) but  also accept Credit Card payment via PayPal (subject to an uplift of +5% to cover their fees), Overseas payments must be made via PayPal (subject to the increased rate to cover their fee).

Payment has to be received in advance of the work taking place. However, for larger work we can agree a deposit (usually 50%) on agreement that the balance is paid within 14 days of your receipt of the research report.

As not all historic records have survived or been archived, you are paying for my time and expertise rather than specific results. Clearly, the outcome of research cannot be predicted as we do not know what the records will show. Occassionally it may not be possible to find relevant information, as soon as I am aware that progress is stalling, I will stop to prevent you incurring additional charges. I will provide you with the results of the research so far and advise you of what is preventing progress. 

I will

• Endevour to obtain the information you have requested at the minimum cost to yourself.
• Actively avoid duplication of effort and research.
• Handle any personal information either provided or discovered with the strictest confidence and not publish or disclose any commissioned research without your specific written consent.
• Provide my best advice to you at all times, even if this is to seek alternatives if I am not best placed to accept your commission.
• Provide you with a detailed report of what has been discovered, details of the records that have been searched and copies of relevant original documents.