Jessica Schneider

Experience and approach

Jessica's work combines deep knowledge of historical records with disciplined, evidence-based reasoning. When a record is not where it should be, she does not stop there. She reconstructs who a person was, how they lived, and where someone like them would have left a documentary trace, then correlates evidence across sources to build a defensible picture of a family and the relationships within it. Her research is documented to the standard required for legal and estate matters, and clearly explained for the families she works with.

She works with estate attorneys, probate courts, fiduciaries, and individual clients, on projects ranging from identifying and locating heirs to intestate estates, to documenting a chain of descent for a Canadian citizenship application, to researching and documenting Upper Midwest Native American and Métis ancestry.

Credentials and affiliations

• Member, Association of Professional Genealogists
• Vice President, Colorado chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists
• Member, National Genealogical Society
• Member, Southwest Colorado Genealogical Society

Areas of expertise

• Heir search and estate administration research
• Canadian citizenship by descent and records retrieval
• Upper Midwest Native American and Métis ancestry research and documentation
• Probate and forensic genealogy
• Records research across archives, vital records offices, and repositories

Upper Midwest Native American & Métis Ancestry Research

Upper Midwest Native American and Métis ancestry research can require extensive reconstruction of multiple family lines using federal Indian records, agency and census rolls, church and mission records, archival collections, land records, vital records, census records, and other historical sources. Many relevant records are not indexed or available online, and some tribal records are restricted and unavailable to outside researchers.

Schneider Genealogy researches and documents what the available historical evidence supports, including ancestry, family relationships, tribal affiliations recorded in historical sources, and historical blood quantum when applicable. Research may support a tribal enrollment or citizenship application, but eligibility and enrollment decisions are made solely by the individual tribal nation. No particular ancestry, blood quantum, eligibility determination, or enrollment outcome can be guaranteed.