Good questions. Straight answers.

No. The hunt is free to follow and free to play. All you need is curiosity and, now and then, a library card.

No. Every clue is solved on paper: in books, maps and records, many of them free online. The hunt never sends anyone onto private land or near a grave.

Post your answer in the comments on Facebook, with the book and page, or the link, where you found it. The first solver who can show the page is named in the next post and on the case board, and gets a solver’s keepsake to print.

Yes. Every case page has a “Start here” box with the first pages to open, many of them free online. The glossary explains the old words, the guides show you how to read a death certificate and old handwriting, and the hunter’s worksheet keeps your notes straight. All you need is curiosity and, now and then, a library card.

Use the hunter’s worksheet: one page to log each record, who made it, when, and where you found it. Print as many as you need.

Perhaps. There is a line of code at the foot of every page, a gold diamond that answers if asked, more than thirty tin badges to earn, and every page has a back side. Curious hunters know where to look.

Yes. Write to research@projectscroll.com, or send Project Scroll a message on Facebook, with what you know. We’ll tell you honestly what the records are likely to show before you commit to anything.

Yes. We make family registers (every descendant of one couple), ancestral monographs (every ancestor of one person) and full family histories, built from the records with every statement marked. See a specimen, or download the sample family register.

It depends on the question and on what survives. Some mysteries open in an afternoon; some take a season. After the first read we tell you what we expect to find, and roughly how long it should take, before you commit to anything.

It started in one Michigan county, but the methods work anywhere, and so does our research. Mysteries are welcome from wherever you are. The St. Joseph River does not stop at the state line, and neither did the families: South Bend, Mishawaka and Elkhart mysteries are as welcome as Cassopolis ones.

Yes. Alongside the research, we scan and restore old photographs and documents, bring up faded ink, design family-history books and charts, design and build websites, photograph heirlooms and places, model landscapes in 3D from public LiDAR surveys, make 3D animations and family-history films, and keep living documents that grow with the research. See the studio work, then send us a message with what you have and what you would like made.

Michael Urbanski, an independent historian and author who writes narrative nonfiction about the history of the St. Joseph River Valley of southwest Michigan and northern Indiana, trained in visual communications. The research behind those books is the same research we offer you, and the imaging and design studio grew from that training. More about Project Scroll.

Look for the Scrollsigns™. Every statement in our research carries one: Documented when a source says it, Reading when it is our interpretation, Open when nobody knows yet, and a gold New finding for something we found that no earlier telling has. Every source is listed at the foot of the story. What the Scrollsigns mean · How we research

By sponsors: friends who give a few dollars a month, patrons who fund a case, local businesses with a card in the sponsors’ strip, and organizations that underwrite a hall. Sponsorship funds the work and never shapes a finding. How it works, and the ledger of what every gift paid for.

Only if you say yes. On your first visit the site asks whether it may count your visit with a small Meta script; until you choose Allow, nothing is loaded and nothing is counted, and you can change your answer on the Privacy page. The things the site remembers, such as your followed cases and your notes, stay in your own browser either way. What this site keeps.

Email research@projectscroll.com, or message the page on Facebook. Both reach the same desk. The form on our contact page lays out what to include. Expect a first reply within a few days; a full read of your records takes longer, and we say how long before we start.