Fewer than 10 documents — full refund

You pay $499 for a search, and a search can come up short. If it does, you get your money back and keep everything we found.

What counts as a document

A document is a record that meets all four conditions:

• it comes with an image of the original source — a page of a register, a census sheet, a list, a gravestone;
• it names a person from your tree, or an ancestor of theirs we found during the search;
• it has a reference: which archive or collection holds it and where in it;
• it wasn’t already in the tree you uploaded.

What doesn’t count: an index line with no image behind it, a second copy of the same record, a translation of a record already counted, and a neighbouring frame of the same event.

How the count is made

On day 7 your dossier arrives with a numbered list of documents — each with its image, its reference and the person it belongs to. The count is that list. You don’t have to prove anything: if the list has fewer than 10 entries, the refund is ours to start, not yours to request.

If you think an entry shouldn’t count — it’s a duplicate, or the person isn’t yours — tell us, and we remove it from the count.

How the refund is paid

• The full $499, to the card or account you paid with.
• We send it within 3 business days of delivering the dossier. How fast it reaches you depends on your bank — usually a few more days.
• You keep the dossier: every record, every card, the list of where we looked and what to try next.

If you change your mind

Until work on your tree has started, you can cancel for a full refund — write to leo@alteheym.com. We take trees in small batches, so there is usually a short wait between payment and the start; we tell you the start date when you order.

Once the search has started, the guarantee above applies.

Deep search

Deep search is offered only after your dossier is delivered: $249 a month, paid once for three months — $747 in total, with no automatic renewal. Nothing is charged after the three months unless you order again. Until the first month’s work has started, you can cancel for a full refund.

What the guarantee is not

It isn’t a promise to find a particular ancestor. Books burned, towns changed names, people changed surnames. What we promise is to search where your family’s records could be, show you every one we find, and tell you plainly where the search came up empty.