Legal
Research Policy and Terms
Placeholder — not yet reviewed
These terms reflect how Dr. Carter describes her work, but they are a drafting starting point rather than a contract. Payment terms, refund terms, cancellation, ownership of research product and governing law are deliberately absent — none of them can be stated without her instruction, and all of them should be settled with a lawyer.
Scope of an engagement
Research is undertaken against an agreed question and an agreed scope: the people, places, time periods and record groups involved, and what the research is setting out to establish. Work outside that scope is agreed separately before it is carried out.
What cannot be guaranteed
No specific discovery, ancestor, document or connection can be guaranteed. Historical records are frequently incomplete, damaged, destroyed, restricted, mis-indexed or contradictory — a reality that weighs particularly heavily on families whose histories run through enslavement. Research may establish a line, may narrow it to possibilities, or may establish only that the surviving evidence cannot answer the question. All three are legitimate outcomes of careful work, and all three are reported honestly.
Standards
Research is conducted from original sources wherever they survive. Primary and secondary sources are documented and cited so that conclusions can be retraced and tested. Where evidence conflicts, the conflict is set out rather than resolved silently.
Confidentiality
Family documents and information shared during an engagement are treated as confidential. Findings about your family are not published, exhibited or shared without your agreement. Where research is commissioned by an institution, the terms of publication are agreed at the outset.
Sensitive findings
Genealogical research can surface information that is painful, unexpected or contested — including findings about enslavement, parentage, violence or family separation. Such findings are reported with care, and with the evidence that supports them.
Third-party records and copyright
Copies of records supplied during an engagement remain subject to the terms of the repositories and rights holders they come from.
Fees
Fees are discussed directly and agreed before work begins. No prices are published on this website.
Contact
Questions can be sent to thekitchengenealogist@gmail.com.