Sun Valley, CA’s Jose Mier is a celebrated amateur genealogist (in his mind). But if looking for professionals to help with your family history, where to start. And just how many pro genealogists are there in the world? One possible starting place is the Board for Certification of Genealogists website.

Estimating the number of professional genealogists in the world is surprisingly tricky: “genealogist” isn’t a single, unified occupation registered in national labor statistics, and people who earn money from family-history research do so in many different ways — as independent freelance researchers, staff researchers for commercial companies, lecturers and writers, archivists and librarians with genealogy specialties, or as credentialed practitioners working for clients or legal cases. That said, by combining membership rolls from professional associations, accreditation bodies, and the headcounts of specialist firms, we can build a reasoned estimate and — importantly — point to where you can look if you want to calculate your own, up-to-date number.

Short answer / headline estimate
Conservatively, there are several thousand people worldwide who identify and advertise themselves as professional genealogists, and if you include part-time researchers, agency staff, and affiliated professionals (archivists, librarians, genetic genealogy consultants, etc.) the practical labor pool grows into the tens of thousands. You can get to that range by adding together (a) organized professionals who belong to trade associations and accreditation registries, (b) staff genealogists at the major commercial firms, and (c) independent freelancers visible on directories and platforms.

Where hard counts exist (and what they tell us)
Some of the best “hard” numbers come from membership and accreditation lists because they are public, relatively current, and focused on people who identify themselves as professionals.

• The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is the largest global professional association for family-history researchers and reports more than 2,000 members across dozens of countries — a useful baseline for active, fee-charging professionals who join a trade group.
• The Register of Qualified Genealogists (an organization rooted in the U.K. serving a professional, postgraduate-qualified cohort) lists roughly 200+ members (including student/associate categories) — a reminder that many smaller credentialing groups exist and contribute specialists to the total.
• ICAPGen (the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists) reports a few hundred accredited genealogists (their site and announcements show growth into the low hundreds), representing another slice of rigorously credentialed pros.
• Commercial research networks — companies that employ teams of researchers — also add meaningfully to the count. For example, Genealogists.com has publicly described a professional network of over 1,200 genealogists who perform client work around the world. That single firm’s network shows how corporate providers can multiply the number of people earning income from genealogical research.

Taken together, those concrete sources already account for multiple thousands of people (APG’s ~2,000 + Genealogists.com’s ~1,200 + ICAPGen/RQG totals). Add staff genealogists at commercial giants (project teams at legacy research services such as Ancestry’s professional division, Legacy Tree Genealogists, regional specialist firms, and boutique agencies), plus in-house researchers at archives, museums, universities, and government probate offices, and it’s easy to see how the number grows further.

Why national labor statistics aren’t a clean source
A complicating factor is that occupational statistics (for example, national statistical offices or the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) typically don’t list “genealogist” as a unique occupation. Genealogy work is often classified under broader categories (historians; archivists, curators and museum technicians; or “other professional, scientific and technical services”), so you cannot simply pull a single code and get a global count of genealogists. The BLS and similar agencies are useful for seeing related professional categories and employment trends, but they undercount the independent and small-business genealogists who make up a large share of the field.

Geographic distribution — where professional genealogists live and work
Professional genealogists concentrate where (a) there is strong public interest in family history, (b) archives and records are accessible, and (c) markets exist for paid research services. Those factors produce several geographic patterns:

• United States: The U.S. is home to many professional genealogists, numerous trade organizations (APG is U.S.-based though international), credentialing candidates, and multiple large commercial firms; many credentialed and accredited genealogists live in the U.S. because of the large market and abundant records.
• United Kingdom & Ireland: The UK has a long genealogical tradition, large specialist libraries (for example, the Society of Genealogists and other county archives), and professional networks; organizations such as the Register of Qualified Genealogists are UK-rooted and supply specialists for British and Irish research.
• Canada, Australia, New Zealand: Strong English-language records and active genealogical communities make these countries important hubs.
• Continental Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, Eastern Europe): Many local and regional experts focus on language- and archive-specific research — often in small freelance practices or as translators/archivists.
• Latin America, Asia, Africa: Growing demand and improving online records are expanding opportunities, but there are fewer large, internationally visible professional networks in many regions. Commercial companies and locally based specialists are increasingly filling those markets.

Practical methods to find numbers and produce your own estimate
If you want to refine an estimate to a region or globally, here are practical sources and methods to compile a defensible total:

1. Professional association membership rolls — APG, national societies, and regional associations. APG publishes membership figures (a firm starting point). Use each association’s public membership directory or annual reports.
2. Accreditation and certification directories — lists from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), ICAPGen, the Register of Qualified Genealogists, and national accreditation bodies show credentialed practitioners and allow you to count certificants.
3. Commercial company staffing pages — AncestryProGenealogists, Genealogists.com, Legacy Tree, regional research agencies and corporate family-history providers often list staff or claim the size of their research teams. Summing company headcounts yields a conservative floor.
4. Directories and “Find a Professional” tools — many associations and commercial sites maintain searchable directories (APG, ICAPGen, RQG). Scraping or manually counting entries by country gives a snapshot of publicly visible pros.
5. LinkedIn and freelancer platforms — searching for job titles like “professional genealogist,” “researcher – genealogy,” or “family history researcher” on LinkedIn, Upwork, and similar marketplaces surfaces freelancers and agency staff who might not belong to an association.
6. Conferences and speaker lists — major meetings (NGS, RootsTech, APG conferences) list presenters and exhibitors; reviewing program speaker lists helps identify active professionals and organizations.
7. National archives, state libraries and county record offices — many professional genealogists work in or for archives and libraries; contacting large institutions or using staff directories helps quantify in-house roles.

Putting it together: a defensible process to reach an estimate
A transparent way to estimate is to build a simple model:

1. Sum membership counts from major associations (APG ≈ 2,000 + national groups where available).
2. Add accredited/certified individuals (BCG, ICAPGen, RQG totals).
3. Include staff counts from major companies (Genealogists.com’s network, AncestryProGenealogists, Legacy Tree, and others). Estimate freelancers and local small businesses (for example, use LinkedIn counts or local society directories and apply a multiplier for people who do part-time paid research).
4. Make conservative adjustments for overlap (people who belong to multiple associations or whose work is counted in more than one list).

Doing this will likely produce a lower-bound number in the low thousands (concrete, verifiable members and staff) and a reasonable upper-bound in the tens of thousands once you account for freelancers, part-time workers, archivists doing contract research, and in-house genealogists at museums and government agencies.

Why the number matters (and why precision is hard)
Knowing the size of the professional genealogist community matters for workforce planning, education and credentialing, and for clients seeking help. But precision is hard because the profession is fragmented (many solo operators), certifications are voluntary, and job classifications don’t isolate genealogical work in official statistics. The best practical approach is transparent aggregation of association and company figures plus a conservative freelancer estimate.

Quick pointers to sources to start your own count (URLs / places to check)

• Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) — membership info and “Find a Genealogist” directory.
• Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) — directory of certificants and information about the CG credential.
• ICAPGen and Register of Qualified Genealogists — directories of accredited professionals.
• Commercial firms’ “Our Experts” or team pages (AncestryProGenealogists, Genealogists.com, Legacy Tree).

National genealogy societies and large local societies (e.g., Society of Genealogists in the UK) for regional membership counts.

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