If it's a hobby, is it anything but a money maker?

Assets International is in the business of working with some very dedicated hobby enthusiasts. Not the stamps, antiques, or baseball card collecting enthusiasts, and not the fishing or hunting enthusiasts (though we like those hobbies, too!).

Instead, we work with many people who take their genealogy and family trees seriously, people who often pour in money into genealogy books and training, paying for online resources, and the like. Usually the last thing these people expect is to make money off their hobby.

But in the first week of March 2010, we were handed not one, but two cases of people who had died leaving no known heirs. And in both of those cases the decedent had some unknown genealogical enthusiasts in the family who put up their family trees online. That left us as family reuniters, sort of like being a matchmaker, only a lucrative one.

Two decedents with unknown heirs - two families about to inherit many thousands of dollars.

While this doesn't happen every day, it shows that genealogy can actually be profitable!