This page explains how CNTA reviews services and writes guides, so you can judge the recommendations with the method in front of you.
Independence
CNTA accepts no payment, free subscriptions, or other consideration from the services it writes about. No review is commissioned, none is paid for, and no service can buy a better verdict or an earlier placement. Sections that link to a service do so because the service is the relevant tool for the task, not because of an arrangement.
Some links go through the ordinary affiliate programs of the larger platforms. If we ever add a link that could earn us a commission, the page will say so in plain language on the page itself, and the affiliate status never changes the verdict. Nothing on this site is currently funded that way.
How a review is built
Every review and comparison follows the same sequence:
- Define the task first. A “best service” question is meaningless until the task is named: a grave, a death date, a living person’s contact, a family tree. Reviews state the task they answer.
- Name the record layer. We identify the records the service actually draws on — memorials, census, public records, current directories — because that decides what the service can and cannot do.
- Check claims against the sources. Record counts, coverage claims, and feature descriptions are checked against the service’s own documentation and, where possible, the underlying government sources. Claims we cannot verify are either omitted or marked “check current pricing on the official site.”
- Test the free tier. We use the free search before writing about the paid one. If a free index answers the question, the review says so loudly.
- Date the facts. Prices and policies change. Pages carry a “last checked” date where a fact is time-sensitive.
What gets into a verdict
Verdicts are per task, not per brand. We do not crown a single “best service” because the services solve different problems. A review says which task the service is built for, where it is weak, and which layer to try before paying.
Corrections
When a reader or a source shows us an error, we fix it and note the change in the page. Corrections are dated. To report one, see contact.
What we will not publish
- Invented prices, record counts, or statistics.
- Descriptions of neighborhoods by race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, or similar characteristics. Neighborhood and crime content relies on official crime data only, per the standards in our disclaimer.
- Sensationalized treatment of deceased people. The records we cover are respectful by default; the guides say what happened, not what sells.
- Content funded by the services under review, unless disclosed in full on the page.
The source of the guides
Guides are written by the CNTA editorial team and checked against public documentation and the official sources linked in the text. Where a claim rests on a government dataset — the FBI Crime Data Explorer, the VA gravesite locator, state vital records — the official source is named.