Private heritage journeys researched and designed by one person — a genealogist with twenty years in the records and a travel advisor who books the whole trip. From the parish register to the front door.
Request Your Heritage ConsultationThree hosted departures a year. That's the whole calendar.
These trips are built for adults who want the record and the road, not a sightseeing loop.
If you're still at the "somewhere in Ireland, we think" stage — good. That's the part I actually enjoy.
Four regions, planned privately for your family. Every trip is built from scratch — these are starting points, not packages.
Parish grounds, townlands, and the emigration ports. Civil registration, Griffith's Valuation, and the parish registers that survived.
Typically includes: private driver-guide, townland and parish visits, records office coordination, manor or country house stays.
Clan lands, Lowland parishes, and the Highland clearance districts. Statutory records and kirk session registers.
Typically includes: private driver, clan territory touring, castle and estate stays, wool or whisky heritage stops.
Village churches, county record offices, and the industrial towns families left. Parish registers, census, and probate.
Typically includes: private driver-guide, county archive appointments, market town and cathedral stops, boutique countryside hotels.
Village churches, parish archives, and the Black Sea German settlements so many North Dakota families came through. Church books, emigration lists, and regional archives.
Typically includes: private transfers, local historian escort, ancestral village visits, Danube or Rhine segments.
We talk through what you have — names, dates, photos, DNA results, family stories, dead ends. No cost, no obligation.
I go into the records: census, immigration and naturalization, church and parish registers, land and probate, foreign-language sources where they exist. You get a written findings summary with the documents behind it.
The route gets built around what the research found — the actual farm, parish, or port — then layered with private guiding, boutique hotels, and pacing that works for your group.
You review the plan, we adjust, and I handle every booking, deposit, and confirmation.
You go, holding a family history you didn't have a year ago. I'm reachable the whole time you're gone.
Research is priced below, plainly. Travel is planned and quoted after the research, once we know where we're going. Some families come to me for both. Some already have the research and only need the travel. Either is fine.
Most people won't tell you this before a phone call. I'd rather you know now.
$895
One surname line, traced back to the ancestor who emigrated and one generation before them in the old country.
You receive: written findings report, source citations, document images, and a pedigree chart.
Best if: you want to know whether there's a trail before committing to more.
Most families start here
$1,650
One line traced to the actual place — parish, townland, village, or district — with the surviving local records identified and the ground confirmed as visitable.
You receive: everything above, plus a place-of-origin dossier: local records held, archive contacts and appointment requirements, church and cemetery locations, and a plain map of where your family lived.
Best if: you intend to travel. This is the report a trip gets built from.
Quoted individually
Up to four lines — usually both sets of grandparents — each traced to its place of origin.
You receive: a bound and digital dossier with full citations, document images, pedigree and descendant charts, a written family narrative, and place-of-origin detail for every line.
Best if: you're traveling with siblings, cousins, or adult children, or marking a milestone.
Half of your research fee comes off your trip if you travel with me within the year.
Add-on work — additional lines, archive retrieval, translation, or interpreting DNA results you already have — is quoted separately. Travel is planned and priced after the research, once we know where we're going.
Most heritage trips are assembled by someone who never opened the records. A researcher hands over a report, an advisor books flights around it, and the details get lost between them. I do both. Twenty years in the archives, and a travel practice built on knowing what it takes to actually get you there.
I trace the line myself — parish registers, immigration records, land and probate files, foreign-language sources. When something doesn't add up, I know it, because I found it.
Not a regional tour with a family surname attached. If the townland is forty minutes outside Sligo down a farm lane, that's where the driver goes.
Records burn, ships lost manifests, names changed at every border. I'll tell you what's likely findable before you pay for anything, and I won't sell you a trip built on a guess. I work British Isles and continental European lines. If your family came from somewhere outside that, I'll say so rather than learn on your dime.
"I work for you, not the cruise line or resort. My advice doesn't change based on who pays me more."
I host these trips personally — I'm there, on the ground, the day you walk into the churchyard. That's not something I can do eight times a year and do well.
So there are three. When they're taken, the next opening is the following year.
Research clients are offered open departures first.
Misty, founder of Allstop Travel in Bismarck–Mandan, North Dakota, and a genealogist with more than twenty years of research experience.
The genealogy came first. The travel side followed once it became obvious that finding the village and standing in it are two entirely different projects. She also specializes in Alaska and European river cruising, and is a CLIA member with multiple cruise line certifications.
She collects shells and sand from every beach she's stood on — Ireland, Scotland, England, the Gulf, the Caribbean. Places stay with you. That's the whole idea behind this collection.
Tell me what you know. I'll tell you what's possible.