After you book
What happens next
Thank you — here is the whole journey, so nothing arrives as a surprise.
- Your receipt arrives straight away.
Stripe emails it the moment payment goes through. If it hasn't landed inside ten minutes, check spam, then write to hello@toldandtraced.co.uk.
- We send you two things within one working day.
The Family Sheet — one short form asking who the story is about, the names, dates, places and streets as far as you know them, and the thing your family has always said that nobody has ever checked. And your Order Confirmation — what you've bought, in writing, including your 14-day right to cancel and a tick-box that lets us start straight away if you'd like us to.
- If you have a tree, send it as a GEDCOM.
On Ancestry: open your tree → Tree Settings → Export tree → download the file, and attach it to your reply. Every major tree site has an equivalent export. No tree? No problem — the Family Sheet alone is enough; we'll work from what the family knows.
- The work begins, and you know the target date.
A First Trace is with you inside 72 hours, and needs no Family Sheet at all — the answers you gave at checkout are enough to start. Four Generations Back takes about two weeks from the day we have your sheet. A Story runs to about six weeks; a Book to about eight, with the recording of each conversation delivered to the family within seven days of the call, whatever else is still in progress.
- You see it before it's finished.
Stories and Books go to you as a proof for one round of corrections of fact — and where the book is about a living person, that person approves their own story before it is printed. Then it's printed, posted, and yours.
Change your mind at any point in the first 14 days and you can cancel without giving a reason — the details, and the small effect of asking us to start early, are in the Terms and Conditions, in plain English.