Mr. Genealogy Terms and Conditions

1. GENERAL TERMS

1.1 By commissioning research from me, you agree to these terms and conditions.

1.2 Research will not begin until payment has been received in full (or if agreed in advance, the required deposit) and funds cleared.

1.3 In cases where a deposit is accepted, the completed research will not be sent to the client until the balance of payment has been received and cleared. This must be received within 30 days of request. If the client wishes to extend the budget, then an additional deposit or payment for the work conducted so far and a new deposit for the continued work will be required. If in my opinion, the research is largely finished but, I am waiting for information from the client, for example photos, to reach full completion then I reserve the right to request the balance, which must be paid within 30 days.

1.4 Research will be undertaken at the agreed hourly rate or as part of a package (which includes a certain time allowance). Activities that count towards this time charged or time allowance include: i) Research either at libraries, archives or at my premises ii) Time spent writing the research report or preparing family charts iii) Analysing information provided to me by the client or considering next research steps iv) Responding to correspondence with the client v) Time spent obtaining certificates/copies of documents/certificates vi) Travel time. vii) Printing and preparing books and reports. Fees for obtaining copies of documents are charged at cost. Travel is charged at standard class rail fare.

1.5 Unless part of a fixed price package, before starting research an hourly rate and a budget will be agreed. This budget will not be exceeded without the permission of the client.

1.6 Late payments will subject to the same rate of interest as Statutory Interest (the Bank of England's Base Rate plus 8%), and incurred for every day late and may be passed to a debt collection agency.

1.7 The electronic files needed to generate research reports (including books where applicable) will be retained for at least 6 months from completion of research. It may not be possible to obtain further copies after this period.

2. GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

2.1 Genealogy often involves examining original, transcripts or images of historic documents. These may be unclear, misleading, incorrect or even contradict other sources. I accept no liability for any loss, damage or inconvenience that may arise from any information extracted from sources, any errors in transcripts from these sources or conclusions derived from them.

2.2 No guarantee is made that any research assignment will lead to positive results. The documents that contain the required information may not have survived or may never have existed. Ancestors sometimes went to great lengths to conceal their identity, such as falsely giving information which means that it is not possible to establish the truth.

2.3 Fees are payable for my research time and associated costs (for example travel or cost of obtaining copies of documents). These fees are payable as agreed with the client regardless of if the desired information is found or not. In the event of a negative search, my research report will detail sources that have been consulted.

3. FIXED PRICE PACKAGES

3.1 For the convenience of clients I offer fixed price research packages. These packages are based on a specified amount of research time as well as the cost of obtaining certain documents (generally birth and marriage certificates or images from civil registration registers) and producing reports/charts/books as appropriate.

3.2 The research package information supplied gives an indication on what is generally possible with the budget given, however results will vary depending on various factors including geographic location of your ancestors, how common the names are and the survival of relevant records.

3.3 Research goals of fixed priced packages are targeted to discover the specified number of generations/ancestors as applicable to the package. I reserve the right to decide the exact mix of research time/documents obtained with this goal in mind. For example, it may be beneficial to spend additional research time in preference to obtaining a document.

3.4 The goal of fixed price packages is to obtain an overview of your ancestors, it is therefore unlikely that every detail of a particular ancestor's life or every document in which they appear will be used.

3.5 By submitting photographs to me, you ('the client') declare that you have the right to do so, and that you have obtained any third party consents where required (e.g., under data protection or intellectual property laws). These photographs will be reproduced in your books and any other book ordered placed with your consent.

3.6 On rare occasions it may not be possible to complete the research goals for a fixed price package. For example, your ancestors may have moved from a country outside of the British Isles or the required documents may not have survived or ever existed. If this becomes apparent in the first hour of research and before any costs have been accrued in obtaining documents I will generally offer a full refund. If this occurs after significant research has taken place I will contact you and make a decision on whether to offer a part refund or concentrate research on another area of the family.

3.7 Research time in the packages is dedicated to investigating the starting person’s ancestors, i.e. the people from who they are descended (grandparents, great grandparents etc.) Research time is not used to look at other relatives, i.e. aunts/uncles/cousins. The children of ancestors are included in the book and charts where their names can reasonably easily be obtained, but they themselves are not traced forward to the ends of their lives and no attempt is made to discover who they married or the names of their own children, unless this is useful to the main goals. This kind of extra work can be added if required, but additional fees would apply.

3.8 When the relevant information is supplied by the client, a reasonable number of other relatives of the starting person can be included in the final project (but not researched). This information is not checked, and will only be used where the client themselves could reasonably be the original source of this information, i.e. they could personally testify it to be factual. For example, the client could reasonably give information on their own parents, children or siblings, but are unlikely to be able to testify to some information about a great, great, great grandparent, who died 100 years before they were born, who they never met. Unverifiable information will not be included.

4. DOCUMENTS OR PHOTOGRAPHS IN MY CARE

4.1 I suggest that digital copies of photographs/documents are sent me. However, I can scan photographs or documents for you but accept no liability for damage or loss of these items whilst in transit to me, during storage and scanning by me or when returning them to you.

5. DATA PROTECTIONS

5.1 I hold personal information provided by you for the following purposes:- i) To process payment for your product, communication with you about your research and to despatch the finished product to you. ii) For the purposes of family history research.

5.2 Information will be held on a computer secured with a password and in paper form.

5.3 This information will be held for as long as necessary to complete your research. It will be deleted on request by you or after a period of 5 years whichever is less.

5.4 Data provided by you or generated during my research will not be passed on to any third party with the sole exception of the printers who will be passed the prepared electronic book files (i.e. the content of your book). They in turn, may pass the content on to a contractor for the sole purpose of printing the book.

6. GIFT CERTIFICATES

6.1 Gift certificates can only be redeemed against the fixed priced research packages from Tony Griggs (see section 3).

6.2 Gift certificates must be redeemed within 1 year of purchase. Completed paperwork and the gift certificate must be received by me on or before the expiry date shown on the gift certificate which will be 1 year from purchase date. There will be no refund if the certificate expires.

6.3 Gift certificates are non-refundable. In the rare case that I am unable to trace the recipient's family (see sections 3.6 and 8), I may refund monies paid to the original purchaser of the gift certificate.

6.4 The recipient may extend the research by paying the additional fees if they so wish.

7. CANCELLATION AT REQUEST OF CLIENT

7.1 If the client decided to cancel after research has started, there will be no refund of the deposit paid. A calculation will be made for the time spent on research so far at the rate of £50 per hour (or the agreed hourly rate whichever is the greater) which will be payable by the client. In addition, the client will be charged for any documents obtained in the course of the research. No research report will be completed

8. CANCELLATION BY ME

8.1 I reserve the right to cancel research for a client at any time, and refund any monies paid less fees accrued to date.

9. ERRORS AND OMISSIONS

9.1 I take a great deal of pride in my research, however, if there is an error or omission that is my fault, I will do my best to rectify it and where applicable will offer, free of charge, a single replacement hardback book if this is part of the product purchased. I ask that you check your first book carefully before ordering multiple books, as this replacement is offered for a single book reprint only.

Last Updated 1 December 2020