A genealogy business is not just research with an invoice attached. You need a clear service, a defensible workflow, client agreements, privacy practices, pricing, case management, and a reliable way to turn research into deliverables.
Define the problems you are prepared to solve: documentary research, unknown parentage, DNA-assisted research, heir or living-relative research, lineage work, regional specialties, or another focused service.
Write down the research question, time or project limit, expected deliverable, communication plan, third-party costs, and what happens if the evidence does not support a conclusion.
Track time and case complexity, avoid promising outcomes, and build pricing around professional judgment and documented work rather than around how quickly a database hint appears.
Keep evidence, source details, research actions, negative searches, hypotheses, DNA match metadata, communications, and reports connected to the case so the final conclusion can be reproduced and reviewed.
Use these pages to move from learning genealogy to running real research cases.