In an article by the Wall Street Journal Startup called “Web Helps to Create Genealogy Businesses”, it tells of how family history researchers are turning their personal skills and experiences into online businesses, helping others find their own family’s roots.

Now Ms. Prescott, 48, a college history major who worked in banking and marketing, is turning her love of a good puzzle, a gripping story and an era gone by into a full-time profession. Last year, she joined the growing ranks of self-employed professional genealogists who make a living tracing and chronicling the lives of ordinary families.

“You can be a professional genealogist if you can get as interested in someone else’s family as you are in your own,” she says. “My big passion in genealogy is not just the names and the dates and the facts. It’s tying it into history and putting flesh on the bones of the data you can gather.”

Before the Internet, genealogy “was primarily a hobby for retired people,” says Kathleen W. Hinckley, owner of Family Detective, of Westminster, Colo., and executive director of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Indeed, “it wasn’t economically feasible to make a living at it before the Internet,” when travel and printing costs added up to big expenses, says Loretta Dennis Szucs, author of genealogy’s modern bible, “The Source.”

Professional genealogists charge an average of about $50 an hour, depending on what part of the country they are in, and whether they offer special expertise such as language skills.

As more and more genealogy amateurs take to the web, the importance of certification and accreditation grows. If you are considering hiring the services of an online genealogist or researcher, check their credentials and make sure they are a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, which I discussed in Need Serious Genealogy Help? Hire a Professional Genealogist.