Q. Will you keep any personal details I may provide safe and secure?

A. I do not share personal information with any third party and the records I keep are purely for my own use and to assist me in giving the best possible service to clients.

Q. I do not wish to be pestered with endless emails. Can you guarantee that you will yourself use any contact details I may supply only in an appropriate way?

A. I do not keep a "contact list" and therefore will normally only contact clients when specifically or implicitly requested to do so (that is in response to an enquiry, or to provide a report on searches requested, respectively). For convenience, I do store current clients' email addresses (only) in my computer's "Address Book" for as long as this seems to me to be desirable. Please advise me if you do not wish me to store your email address in this way.

Q. If I pay you by credit or debit card, can you guarantee the security of such transactions?

A. I am only able to receive card payments through PayPal. This is a reputable organisation which obviously has its own security measures in place. I myself never have access to any personal details in connection with such card payments.

Q. I may find in the future that I need a copy of a report or other item which you have already supplied. Would you be able to provide this and, if so, how can I be sure that any personal or other details I have provided, or which you have discovered on my behalf, will remain safe and secure?

A. I do permanently store electronic copies of incoming and outgoing emails and attachments (including my reports and correspondence), in addition to printing out hard copies in most cases. Please advise me if you do not wish me to retain electronic copies of any correspondence we may enter into, or of any reports which I may send you, in this way. However, it has indeed quite often proved helpful to clients that I have been able to provide to them, as effectively "backup" data, electronic copies of reports which I have sent to them in the past. I do not charge for this service, nor for storing data indefinitely in this way. In order to preserve the integrity and security of the data, such archived files are never kept on my computer or on any network, but only in external storage. They are also backed up very regularly.

Q. If I entrust my research to you, can you guarantee success?

A. If I feel able to take on a particular search, I will naturally always do my best to achieve results. Unfortunately, however, success can never be guaranteed - there may be gaps in available records, or people may not have been born where they said they were in a Census return, or they may not have been baptised, and so on. It is only possible to do one's best to search the records which are the most likely to yield useful results, and to take the best possible care with those searches. No researcher or indexer could ever say with truth that his or her work is absolutely, 100%, accurate. All that I can say is that I do my best to make my work as accurate as possible.

Q. It would be reassuring to know that you are a member of a reputable professional organisation?

A. I am a longstanding member of AGRA, the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives, and support its Code of Practice. For details of this, please visit www.agra.org.uk

Matthew Copus
307 Dale Street
Chatham
Kent ME4 6QR

Email: info@mcopus.co.uk
Web Site: www.mcopus.co.uk