Hello, I am excited to share the incredible journey that my family and I embarked on, resulting in an extraordinary gift for my dad’s 80th birthday.

We recognized that while we are born into the world with nothing, we leave behind love, family, and legacy. So, we wanted to capture and preserve our family’s heritage and history for future generations to cherish.

Initially, we had a simple idea to create a book for Dad, but it turned into a two-year adventure that took us down the rabbit hole of our genealogy. We ended up with four volumes, over 1,000 pages of narrative, and over 11k scanned artifacts. We traced back our family’s history to eight-plus generations… and wrote detailed stories on five generations of our family.

The project was more than just a gift. Genealogy can be therapeutic, and it helped us understand relationships better with our parents and grandparents. It gave us a gift of heritage and history that we will pass down to our children and grandchildren, and beyond.

What surprised us the most was the sheer volume of published material we found on our family dating back to the 1880s. We learned that our family fought in many wars, including the Revolutionary War, and that resilience shines brightly over generations.

We couldn’t have done it without the help of Matthew McCormack who played a significant role in making this project a reality. He cleaned the physical and virtual closets, normalized all the data, and was meticulous about nailing the details. He is a great storyteller and writer, and we feel lucky to have met him.

We also donated many volumes to genealogy libraries and other societies, hoping to inspire others to embark on their own genealogy journeys.

Reflecting on our experience, we are curious to see how our generation’s stories will be written in the age of mobile cameras and social media. But for now, we are grateful for the gift of family, love, and legacy that we can share with generations to come.

Not only did we hire a thorough genealogist to trace our family’s roots, but Matt is also a passionate historian. When he dives, he dives deep, turning every stone, shining light into dark corners, digging up every artifact and putting as many pieces of a fragmented past together into a meaningful mosaic. Matt’s work put a stake in the ground of our family tree making it easy for future generations to maintain and enjoy. He is friendly, fun, curious, energetic, easy to work with and we are proud to display his final work product. If you’re considering a family history project and you want confidence that it’s researched and documented properly, Matt is your man 100%.

I started working with Matt about 8 yrs ago, at first just to put together a family tree. That morphed into a rather deep dive into my family history which culminated in a book about my maternal grandparents. Along the way I discovered secrets about my family that no one knew about – it was shocking to say the least! Matt encouraged me to “interview” my mother and get her memories down on paper. Matt was able to verify recollections of my mother through newspaper stories and other documents. He was also able to document my family back to the Revolutionary War…what a surprise to find out I had a relative who was a Minute Man! Because of his tireless efforts I was able to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Matt is a joy to work with, his knowledge and understanding of genealogy is unsurpassed! He makes it fun, he makes it relatable, he makes it usable! What more could you ask of a researcher?

The one thought that I came away with from examining my family and working with Matt is, you may not like what you find, but you can’t change it or make it go away. Your history makes you who you are, embrace it, save it, cherish it.

We were working on a corporate reorganization that involved aggregating shareholders in family groups. I thought I had a handle on it, but we had over 400 shareholders and it was not going smoothly. Regulation permitted us to look back six generations, but what an intricate web that created and time was running short! Fortunately, we heard about New Line Genealogy. One phone call and meeting with Matt McCormack and I knew we had found the right person. Matt worked his tail off to complete our project in a timely and entirely thorough manner. I am totally impressed and forever grateful to Matt McCormack and New Line Genealogy.

I contacted Matt with the hopes of creating a history of my family to leave to my grandchildren. What Matt was able to do far exceeded my most optimistic expectations. He created a database going back six generations, employing both classic research methodology and the latest internet based technology. My grandchildren will someday be truly indebted to New Line Genealogy. It has been wonderful working with Matt over the last several years. I would strongly encourage others to ask Matt to help them discover their family history.

I contracted Matthew McCormack, a professional genealogist, to help me with my family genealogy. He has been most accommodating – always communicating with me, and answering my questions, highlighting most interesting stories, and thoroughly searching the family lines. I am very pleased with the results of his work and highly recommend him to anyone wishing to trace his/her family tree.

We are so pleased with the professional and meticulous care New Line Genealogy took with our photos and documents in preparing the most amazing family history for us! Your research and attention to details is wonderful, and we love the results. Thank you for helping us “make sense” of our history. We have a gift we can share for generations. Your work was fabulous, and we will definitely be happy to recommend you to others. The Bevins family

Many years ago I learned that my name, Bellefleur, was a French word but not a French name. While growing up I had heard a legend about the origination of my name in French Canada. I knew therefore that I did not know my real family name, and I wondered if the legend I had been told was true. New Line Genealogy L.L.C. was engaged to discover that original name and to verify the legend about the creation of the Bellefleur family name. The results were both satisfying and delightful!

I have been extremely pleased with the work of New Line Genealogy, LLC. After reviewing the history of my mother’s family, I have engaged Matt to work on my father’s side of the family. The detail found in his work is better than any I have seen. I would definitely recommend his company for research.

I was incredibly impressed with Matt and his research. Coming from an obscure ethnic group being a Yooper, I didn’t have high hopes. Matt blew them out of the water. Not only did he trace my family back to Europe, but gave me a perspective I would have never had otherwise. I highly recommend Matt, you simply cannot go wrong with a genealogist of his caliber. Tony Yowell.

I have for years wanted to find out the history of my mother’s family. So for her 85th birthday my Sister and I chose New Line Genealogy for the project. I can only say that Matt McCormack is passionate, professional and as excited as you are when you discover your history. It has been nothing but a pleasure to work with Matt and I would recommend him to absolutely anyone wanting to know about who they are and where they came from. Jacqueline Schiller-Chelsea MI

Matt McCormack takes a personal interest in his work. He digs deeply until he finds the answers our family was seeking. He has done work for my family over a number of years, updating as he finds new data and digging deeper into our history. Matt is passionate about getting the details right. He seems to have the sources to answer most every question we could have asked, sometimes before we even asked the question. He takes the initiative to do the job right and to do it thoroughly and that in my opinion is why you hire a genealogist. I would not think of using anyone else. John E. Swisher III Former Chairman Swisher Commercial Ann Arbor, Michigan