CHAPTER 1

A Family Affair

Our Beginning as an Agency

Research Etc, Inc. was founded in 1995, and is the product of a collective brainstorm between sisters Kristen Hamilton and Judy Andrews, along with their mother Ava Friddle. Through Research, Etc., they have conducted more than 500 adoption searches and have successfully resolved approximately 98% of them.

     From the beginning, it’s been a family affair. Kristen, who was a paralegal, was also a first time expectant mother and starting a family-owned business would give her the opportunity to continue working while being at home with her child. At the same time, it would allow Ava and Judy a hand in raising this eagerly awaited baby, the first in their family in eighteen years.

     Searching for and reuniting with old friends & lost loves, etc. had become very popular and widespread, and since we were all pretty much computer literate along with being just plain nosy, this type of business seemed to be our most natural course of action. With Kristen’s paralegal background and her gift of gab, Judy’s land records expertise along with her limitless tenacity, and Ava’s many years of office management (plus, she says raising two daughters made her a natural detective), the investigation field seemed the logical choice for an interesting and rewarding family-based business.

     Once decided upon, we went to work. We were lucky in that Ava had a large, empty sunroom in her home that we could use for an office and we quickly installed new telephones, office machines and furniture. Business cards were ordered and although we already had a large collection of software to help with our searches, we bought more.  

     We agreed on the name Research Etc. for our agency because we thought it sounded honest and non-threatening, and that’s what we wanted our business to be.

     Our next step was to call on Judy’s daughter Amy and her boyfriend Shawn, both college students, to design and maintain a website for us. We advertised as being ‘People-Finders’, searching for and reuniting ‘old classmates’, ‘lost loves’, ‘military buddies’, etc. As soon as our website appeared on the computer, our phones started ringing and we were in business!

     Or so we thought . . .