Claire’s introduction to genealogy began when she started working for a missing heir company in 2008. This job took her all around Connecticut, to probate courts, town clerks offices and libraries. She became good at teasing out information from records and combined this with extensive online research to locate missing heirs and beneficiaries quickly. Soon she became the senior researcher, working on the biggest cases, writing reports for courts and coordinating genealogists nationally and internationally to assist with research. Since 2013 she has been utilizing her forensic genealogy skills through her work on U.S. Army military repatriation cases and since 2016 has been working for a Florida based missing heir company, heading their billable department.

While missing heir research tends to concentrate in the twentieth century, since 2012 Claire has also undertaken various family history projects, using her established research skills to uncover information from eighteenth and nineteenth century records. This has led to publications in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Karen Stanbary, CG, CGG, lectures nationally on the use of DNA test results in genealogical problem-solving, always within the framework of the Genealogical Proof Standard. She is a Trustee for the Board for Certification of Genealogists and chairs that organization’s DNA Committee.

Francine Crowley Griffis, MSc, CG®, AG®, QG™ is a New England–based professional genealogist specializing in forensic heirship and land probate research. Her work centers on complex alias-based identity reconstruction and the recovery of lost, forgotten, and hidden identities—particularly the marginalized and women whose legal and social identity are obscured in the historical record. Francine is a postgraduate researcher in the doctoral school at the University of Strathclyde. Her work, Women’s Visibility: Ephemera, Agency, and Civic Identity in Boston, Massachusetts, 1840–1920, explores women’s civic identity through their everyday acts of material and social agency.

Jan Joyce is a board-certified genealogist whose journey began in 1998 while managing the marketing initiatives at Genealogy.com. Her personal research delves into ancestral roots across Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, tracing lineages back to England, Germany, Ireland, and Norway. She holds the CG and CGL certifications from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) and the AG accreditation from ICAPGen.

Specializing in research methodology, Jan divides her time between personal research, writing, and education. She developed the comprehensive “Assemblage” course for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), which guides students through preparing, writing, and revising case studies and includes Artificial Intelligence. Her innovative Document Work Workshop helps aspiring genealogists prepare for BCG certification. And she pioneered the new institute course “Merging & Separating Identities: Strategies and Tactics to Solve” to advance the field’s understanding of this common phenomenon.