Unsolved Ancestry Awards
If you have hit a brick wall with one of your genealogy lines, Unsolved Ancestry.com could help you. I learned about this site from a post by Dick Eastman. All you do is post your question with all the known facts and offer an award. The average award seems to be around $100 - $200. Some of them are as little as $10, which might not entice many people to help you, but others go as high as $500...even an $800 reward. I'm sure there are some professional genealogists and amateur genealogists interested in making a little extra money, depending on how hard the problem is.
If you are interested in solving the mysteries, you will need to provide "proof" by genealogical standards. The unsolved mysteries are listed by surnames, so you can't just search for your area of geographical expertise.
The highest award listed right now is for $1500! It is to find the parents of Arthur Garfield Taft. The original award was for $500, but then someone else who was interested came along and added a $1000 reward. This seems like a good way to get a mystery solved. My mother and I are both having trouble working on our Reed line, so perhaps we should pool our money together to offer a big reward for some help.
You are allowed to post your unsolved case for free for the first 3 months. Then it will cost $10 for the rest of the year. And once your mystery has been solved with adequate proof and you pay your award, you will also have to pay 3% of your award amount to Unsolved Ancestry. So you need to remember that extra 3% when determining your award.