£20 · Told & Traced
The First Trace
The first real page of your family — found, read, and handed back.
Nearly everyone who goes looking stops at a search result and never finds out whether it was even the right family. Give me one ancestor — a name, roughly when, roughly where — and I'll do the part that actually settles it: narrowing nine possible matches down to the one that's yours, reading the original enumerator's hand, checking it against the ages, the trades and the neighbours until it holds.
Then I'll tell you what the page is quietly saying. Who in that house could read and who couldn't. Who was already working at twelve. Which of them signed their own name and which made a mark. A census return is not a list of names — it is one night in a family's life, written down by a stranger, and most of what it carries is in the margins.
What arrives
- One finished A4 page, designed to be kept — not a screenshot or a spreadsheet.
- Your ancestor's entire household on the night it was recorded: every person under that roof, their ages, occupations, religion, literacy, birthplaces.
- The one observation most people miss, written out.
- The full source line, so you or anyone after you can go and look at the same page.
- Three named records that would be the obvious next step, and why each one matters.
- Every claim graded. With you inside 72 hours.
What I need from you. One ancestor's name, roughly when they were born, and roughly where. That is the whole intake.
If nothing is found, you get the same page — where I looked, what I ruled out, graded honestly — and your £20 stands as credit. Never a refund and a vanishing.
Order The First Trace — £20 See a specimen first
Your £20 comes straight off Four Generations Back for thirty days.
Payment is by card through Stripe. The price above is the whole price — no subscriptions, nothing extra. Questions first? Write to me — I'd rather you asked.
What it actually looks like
How the grading works
Every claim carries one of four marks — PROVED, LIKELY, FAMILY SAYS, OPEN — so you are never told a guess is a fact. It is also what makes a fixed price honest: I don't have to dig until certain about everything, because I can hand you the work and tell you exactly how certain I am about each part of it.