Terms and Conditions

GENERAL TERMS

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

Research will not begin until payment has been received in full (or if agreed in advance, the required deposit) and funds cleared.
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.
The Client can either request a fixed price package which starts at £150 and consists of internet research only for one direct line from your source person. It includes time spent on writing the research report and preparing family charts, analysing information provided to me by the client or considering next research steps, and responding to correspondence with the client. One printed copy, bound in a folder will be sent to the client along with a pdf version and is included in the price.

OR if the client would like me to visit archives, libraries or museum collections on their behalf in order to further their research, I can be hired at an hourly rate of £20 an hour. Most archives charge to have their collections photographed and this charge will be added to the bill. Travel is charged at standard class rail fare or 40p per mile if driving, travel to Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre or Bath Records Office will not be charged for.

GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

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.
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.
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.

FIXED PRICE PACKAGE

The Fixed Price research package consists of research obtained from the Internet only. 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. I reserve the right to decide the exact mix of research time with this goal in mind. Results will vary depending on various factors including geographic location of your ancestors, how common the names are and the survival of relevant records.
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 report with your consent.
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.

SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE PACKAGES

I provide support and guidance packages for those who wish to do research on their own but require help to get started and get past brickwalls, if possible.

An initial two hour session which will cover the main Internet research tools e.g. Ancestry, findmypast, GRO, British newspaper archives, will cost £40 plus travel if further than 20miles of Box. The client must pay for any subscriptions for any of the paid internet sites or where possible a free months trial can be obtained by the client. The session must take place in a public place e.g. library, café with free wifi, community networking space using the client’s own computer or where possible e.g. a library, a public computer.
The client must pay for the session in full before the session, otherwise I remain the right to cancel the session. If illness, travel problems or other issues mean that the session cannot take place, I will within reason rearrange the session as soon as possible.
Further sessions can be organised by the client if support is required to further their research at £20 an hour again to be held in a public place or if the research requires it a visit to an archive, museum or library.

Talks and Lectures

I often give talks and lectures about family history research. If your family history or the research techniques required to obtain it is suitably interesting, I may wish to include it in one of my talks. I will not do this until I have asked for your permission and the client remains the right to say no. No personal information about any living people would be shared in the talks.

DNA Information

An increasing amount of people are obtaining DNA tests to further their family history research. I can help you to understand what your DNA results mean and use this analysis to further your research, or help you to do that. The client retains the right to determine how much of the data I see, any information sent to me will be held on my computer which is password protected and will not be shared with any third party unless requested by the client.

Sometimes certificates (birth, death, marriage) have to be obtained for living people, or those recently died, I will not pass the information on to anyone else and paper copies will be kept in a locked drawer. I take no responsibility for the information those certificates may contain and will share the contents with the client even if the information may be difficult to hear. If new living family members are found through my research, I will brief the client as to next steps and potential pitfalls on contacting them but I take no responsibility for the reaction of new family members found through my research.

DOCUMENTS OR PHOTOGRAPHS IN MY CARE

I suggest that digital copies of photographs/documents are to 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.

GDPR STATEMENT

From 25th May 2018 a new EU data protection law came into force. This new law gives individuals control over how their data is used and places certain obligations on businesses that process information of those individuals.

When clients contact me they provide their name, address, email address and contact telephone number. No other personal information is required. This information is used to start communication in relation to carrying out research . This information is not passed on to a third party or used for marketing purposes.
I do not send out Newsletters or retains clients’ banking details.
I will not contact you once the research has been carried out, unless the client initiates additional research in the future.
Once research has been concluded, the report and emails are archived and only an electronic copy of the report and emails are kept on computer which is secured by a password.
Clients can contact me at any time about the information that is held on them.

Gift certificates

Gift certificates can only be redeemed against the fixed priced research packages or the support and guidance packages from Claire Dimond Mills.
Gift certificates must be redeemed within 1 year of purchase. There will be no refund if the certificate expires.
Gift certificates are non-refundable. In the rare case that I am unable to trace the recipient's family, I may refund monies paid to the original purchaser of the gift certificate.
The recipient may extend the research by paying the additional fees if they so wish.

CANCELLATION AT REQUEST OF CLIENT

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 £20 per hour 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

CANCELLATION BY ME

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

ERRORS AND OMISSIONS

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 hard copy report if this is part of the product purchased.

I hold copyright to all the research reports that I have undertaken on behalf of clients. The report therefore must not be put online or copied without notifying me first to discuss.

Terms and Conditions

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