Mike and Kate Lancor checking the inscription on a gravestone
in the Old Kilmeane Cemetery in Mote Park, Co. Roscommon.

Why choose us to be your Genealogy Researchers?

• We both have been researching our own ancestors for decades!
• Our experience has given us the ability to know WHO to look for, WHAT to look for, WHERE to look, and HOW to find what we are looking for.
• We are a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.
• We are a small family business that focuses on providing personal genealogy services for a fee that is more affordable than many larger genealogy search companies.
• We have annual subscriptions to multiple genealogy websites including Ancestry.com, My Heritage, Find My Past, Roots Ireland, Irish Newspaper Archives, Genealogy Bank, American Ancestors, John Grenham’s Irish website, and Newspapers.com.  Therefore, we have access to all of these websites for our clients!
• We always make sure we use vital records (birth, marriage and/or death) each and every time we go back one more generation.
• We communicate directly with our clients by email or phone as needed. 

We also access many free websites (e.g. Family Search, Find A Grave, State Archives, National Archives) depending on the state in the U.S. and/or country where emigrants lived before arriving in the U.S. or elsewhere (e.g. Canada, Australia). Having many more websites online to search creates the challenge of needing to know what information is available and where it is available.  Clients want and enjoy historic newspaper articles about their ancestors. We have two subscription websites that house historic newspaper articles including death notices and obituaries.

Kate looking at Griffith’s valuation books with historian John in the Templemore, Co. Tipperary town office.

Kate writes: The photo above was taken the first time I traveled to the small village of Templemore in Co. Tipperary to try and determine exactly where my great-grandmother Mary Waters Fitzpatrick’s family lived on Pigfoot Lane.  John, in the photo next to me, actually left the Town office to walk us over to the alley way that was Pigfoot Lane in the 1830s. I was faced with the ruins of the tenement hovels where Mary was born. It was the first time I was able to “walk in the footsteps” of one of my Irish immigrant ancestors. This moment forever changed my life!  Seeing the impoverished beginnings of my great-grandmother’s life instantly made me respect and love my Irish ancestors.

Kate standing in front of the ruins of one room stone hovels that lined Pig Foot Lane
in Templemore, Co. Tipperary where her great-grandmother Mary Waters lived when she was baptized in 1831.

For information on all our services:
How We Can Help

Working With Us

Our goal is to work closely with our clients. Our clients are the ones who know their family history and lore. It is very important for them to provide us with as much pertinent information as possible about the ancestors they want us to research. In turn, we search for additional records that allow us to follow one direct ancestral line back in time. The more information a client can provide us, the less time we need to spend uncovering information the client already knows or has discovered.

Reviews submitted by our clients can be found throughout this website. We are committed to doing our very best in an effort to meet each client’s goals. We truly believe that our deceased ancestors are indeed “Old Friends” whose decisions, hardships and joys still impact our lives today. If you choose us to do your genealogy searches, then do so not just because we are affordable, but because it is our PASSION and AVOCATION to help others find their “Old Friends.”

After a potential client contacts us, we typically exchange emails or talk by telephone or Zoom to establish and prioritize their goals for us. If the client agrees to have us conduct a search, then we accept payment by check or Pay Pal.

We have had clients from all corners of the U.S., as well as Canada and Ireland. We communicate back and forth with our clients as we undertake and complete a search. This “team approach” provides the best possibility for a successful search.

Results after 30 years of trying on my own…

For 30 or 40 years I have worked on and off trying to get my Irish citizenship. I managed to find very little needed information in the States and no official documents from Ireland. Then I found Mike and Kate with Old friends Genealogy. I couldn’t believe the miracles they worked. They managed to help me compile all the required records from the States and Ireland needed for me to submit my application for Irish citizenship. Six weeks after submitting the application, I became a citizen of Ireland!

The Lancors were able to obtain the Irish Civil Birth record for my grandmother Susan Sara Fitzsimmons, as well as her Catholic Church baptism record from Co. Down. Mike and Kate even found the farmland in County Down where my great-grandparents John Fitzsimmons and Sarah McGrath lived when my grandmother was born in 1864. John Fitzsimmons farmed 13 acres of land for an English lord.

Mike and Kate also traced my Dunigan ancestry line back to Co. Offaly (formerly Kings County). My family had no idea where in Ireland my great-grandfather Dunigan lived nor did we know he was named after his father! The Lancors also discovered that there was a chain immigration of Dunigans from Kings Co. to Ohio in the 1840s. I just can’t believe how many records Mike and Kate came up with in such a short period of time and for a very reasonable cost.
Mike D. Pampa, Texas

Kate and Mike light candles on behalf of Mike D. in St. Matthew’s RC Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Mike D’s 2nd great-grandparents John Fitzsimmons and Sarah McGrath were married in St. Matthew’s in the 1860s.