Two thousand verified profiles sounds grand until you learn the method is deliberately small: start with what you can touch, work outward in rings, and cite everything. No leap is longer than one document.
Ring one: the shoebox
Begin with what the family already holds — photographs with names on the back, letters with dates, the kitchen ledger, the reunion quilt. Photograph each item where it lives before moving anything; context is evidence too.
Rings two and three: parish, then passage
Next come parish registers and school rolls, then the harder travel records — harbour logs, passenger lists, land grants. Each ring must agree with the last before you widen further. Slow work, but it is why cousins trust this tree.