Dear Charles,

As far as I'm aware, there is no shortcut if you wanted to undertake this mammoth task, as a mammoth task it most certainly would be. To do it properly and to have authenticated documentary proof of each pedigree would cost you thousands of dollars. You have to remember that these 'bucket-shops' make their money from heraldically and genealogically naive public who have no idea of what such an undertaking would entail. There is nothing authentic about their family name histories - they are just a generic potted 'history' that includes the mention of famous people who also bear the same name and gives the impression with their wording that there is a 'family' link. This is a false and fraudulent offering to the public, as having the same surname does NOT link you positively with someone else who bears the same surname.

The most common surname in the English speaking world is Smith and in the Germanic speaking world it is Schmidt (which means Smith anyway). You will find that most families have a Smith somewhere in their genealogy. There might be a link between two people carrying the same surname coming from different parts of the world, but not very likely and to find out if it is a fact will normally cost you an arm and a leg.

< Bloomfield Software's 500,000 name database program > would be no better than purchasing for yourself a copy of Burkes General Armory of the British Isles and/or a copy of Rietstap's Armorial General which covers the European continent, and might prove a great deal cheaper as well.

<<... with at least some historical attachment to their ancestors, plus the surname histories.>> You are not going to be able to do this authentically unless you are going to go into the specific genealogy for each separate person. As for 'family histories', you can just about invent anything you wished to, and some of it is bound to be true, somewhere and at some time, whilst the bulk of it will be pure conjecture. Unfortunately - there are no short cuts if you want authentic information. Don't forget that a professional Genealogist can command a pretty high hourly fee for doing their work. Other than that, you could always invent anything that you wanted and it would have the same authenticity of any of the products from the established bucket shops.

Regards,