Meet Tom
Find Relatives and Friends LLC is a one person company founded in October 2021 by myself, Tom Marchisa. I am a self-taught amateur genealogist, spending the majority of my retirement time working on genealogy projects for family, friends, and total strangers. Before retiring in 2009, I spent most of my professional career managing software development in the Mutual Fund industry. Starting in 2014 with a 2-page paper family tree penciled by my mom in the 1980s, I expanded that effort in building my extended family tree online. My extended family tree currently contains 12,802 people, 29,121 attached record sources, 4,069 photographs, and 53 PDF stories. In addition to my own family tree, I have created over 100 other family trees for friends, in-laws, and a High School Reunion effort focused on locating missing class members.
I have traveled to Italy twice since 2015 and worked with an Italian genealogist to research my father’s roots in northern Italy. The last Italy genealogy trip in 2018 included spending 2 days at the Italian State Archives in Rome. The Italian research of my great grandmother’s first cousin has been published at www.valerioanzino.com.
In February-March 2021 I conducted a 3 part series of “Genealogy 101” Zoom sessions for people interested in starting their own genealogy projects. Here are links to the materials handed out for those sessions.
I have researched records in the US, Canada, Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Palestine, Turkey, South Africa, and Russia. I am primarily a records-based genealogist, as well as a DNA genealogist. My knowledge of and experience in genealogy has focused on finding and interpreting written records to establish family connections and uncover stories. In addition to developing traditional family trees which graphically illustrate n+ prior generations, I spend a fair amount of time locating living people at the request of relatives and former friends. I conduct this research by accessing publicly available records and analyzing the contents of those publicly available records. I am an amateur genealogist, not a private investigator.
The flat fee for a successful search, no matter how long it takes me, is $ 650. The fee is not due until after I deliver the Search Results to you and you are completely satisfied. There is no financial risk on your part. You pay me after, not before.
2018 …Tom researching baptism records from 1600s in Italy
2017 … Tom made his first discovery of a close relative, a 3rd cousin. Neither Tom’s family or his cousin’s family seemed aware of the other family! We got together from 4 states and met at the NY Botanical Gardens in 2017 and expanded our respective knowledge of our extended families.