Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Shaffer.
Hi Jen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story starts like many, with a singular experience that seems to foreshadow the spark of a future passion. I was 12 years old when my grandfather, already well into his late 80s, sat me down with an old suitcase full of 1800s photos and had me write on the back of each one to identify them. I had no idea at the time how important that would be to Future Me as many genealogists dream of a scenario like that.
Though I’ve always been interested in history, genealogy never occurred to me as a possible profession. I graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota with two degrees – Russian Language and Russian Area Studies, with no solid plan to use these degrees in a practical way. Through a series of unexpected events, I accidentally found myself working in Finance, Payroll and Human Resources for the next 20 years. I always dreaded the “What do you do for a living?” question as I had absolutely no passion for what I was doing. These were simply jobs that did not define me in any way.
Around 2014, I signed up for a free trial of Ancestry.com. I was instantly hooked and became a fervent genealogy hobbyist. A few years into my hobby, I sought help from a supposed expert at a local genealogical society. Through some of my questions, I discovered that he was just using MY online tree from Ancestry.com as his resource to answer the questions I was asking him. I started to realize that I knew more than I thought I did and had a real aptitude for genealogical research.
When my daughter was born in 2017, I went from full time to part time at my HR/Payroll job. After toying with the idea of starting a career as a professional genealogist and with encouragement from my husband, I teamed up with a like-minded friend and we created The Formidable Genealogist. Our goal was to be accessible and affordable in order to help people discover their family histories.
Being home with a small child, I didn’t have the time to execute any professional vision for the company and really only had time to work on the occasional client project. My daughter started kindergarten this fall, so I was able to start laying a more solid foundation for the business by creating an Etsy page for family tree art, learning about marketing/SEO/Google Analytics, composing genealogy courses for community ed, hosting an informational booth at community events and creating genealogy-related social media content across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Further inspiration arrived in the form of being laid off in October from my HR/Payroll job of 9 years. I decided it’s now or never to make this business a full time endeavor. As soon as I wake up in the morning, my brain is immediately calculating things to do to make this business wildly successful. I have such an optimistic outlook regarding where this business is headed in the next year. It feels fantastic to see my efforts paying off.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The largest struggle was honestly lack of time for the first 5ish years. I knew there were things I could do to grow the business but didn’t have the time and energy to do it while working 20 hours per week in HR/Payroll and being home with a small child the rest of the time. Our initial client base consisted entirely of word-of-mouth referrals. I tried a few advertising and marketing attempts, but they failed to find the right audience.
A few months ago, I spontaneously started a TikTok channel and began recording genealogy tip videos. I quickly found an enthusiastic base, which has grown to over 5300 avid followers. While that’s not viral-level exposure, it’s very encouraging for such a niche topic. TikTok is by far the largest client generator for my business. Thanks to daily TikTok inquiries, we are now booked out 4-6 weeks with upcoming client projects. It is so rewarding to feel the momentum building and reaping the rewards of hard work.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Formidable Genealogist?
We offer many family history services but have 3 primary types of client projects:
Solving Unknown Parentage – Our most requested service is solving unknown parentage for adoptees or others through Genetic Genealogy. We use autosomal DNA results to triangulate the identity of biological parents for an individual. It is so rewarding to solve these mysteries and help others fill in gaps in their identity.
Solving a Research Problem – Our 2nd most requested project is to solve a brick wall in the research of a genealogy hobbyist. There’s been such an uptick in this after the pandemic. So many people became interested in genealogy, but have found a research problem that they just can’t crack.
Building a Full Family Tree – We have a lot of clients who are interested in learning about their family, but do not have the time to learn the skills themselves and do the research, so hire us to build it for them.
I’m very proud of our analytical skills and intuition. I feel like that’s one way that really sets us apart. We’re very methodical and scientifically driven, but have crazy hunches based on an intuition that turn out to be correct. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve been hired to find out more about someone who 100% definitely died on X date and we find them living a few states over for another 30 years having faked their own death.
We strive to keep our services affordable and personalized. Many genealogists have a minimum number of hours for a project, but we’re happy to work with any budget. We want people to be able to access their family history.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Education and practice are the most important things you can do to build your skills. You need to put in the time doing volunteer genealogy research and educating yourself for years before you can start charging for your services. I’m often asked by aspiring genealogists how they can learn on the job in this field. You can’t. You need to put in the time on the front end to truly develop your skills.
Resources constantly evolve, so you need to continue to educate yourself and adapt in order to stay relevant. Just because you do good work doesn’t mean clients will flock to you. You have to put yourself out into the world to be found.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theformidablegenealogist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFormidableGenealogist
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theformidablegenealogist
- Other: https://formidablegenealogst.etsy.com | https://www.tiktok.com/@theformidablegenealogist
