{"id":2536,"date":"2017-04-11T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneosity.com\/?p=2536"},"modified":"2019-05-09T05:44:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T10:44:40","slug":"ive-hit-a-brick-wall-now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneosity.com\/ive-hit-a-brick-wall-now-what\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Hit a Brick Wall… Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Brick Walls in Genealogy and Family Tree research, 2nd edition.\u00a0 Updated 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n It happens to everyone. You\u2019re chugging along, having a fantastic time learning about your family tree<\/a> and sharing with your relatives all of the fascinating facts you\u2019ve discovered.<\/p>\n And then it happens.<\/p>\n You find that certain someone in your tree that, no matter how hard you try, you just can\u2019t seem to get any further.<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019re stuck with a \u201cjump across the pond\u201d (i.e. you lose the paper trail at the time of their immigration). It could be that all you have is a name; maybe your great-great-grandmother is listed as living with one of her children in a census record, but you have no other information.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve spent hours (or days…or weeks\u2026) trying unsuccessfully to make progress, what can you do to break through that brick wall?<\/p>\n Give it time. <\/strong><\/p>\n I know that you just want to keep pushing and searching, but quite often the best approach is to wait. With services like Ancestry.com<\/a> and FamilySearch continually updating their available records, you could very well come back after some time away and find that the one piece of information you needed is now readily accessible.\u00a0 Often new matches will begin appearing in Ancestry if you take a break from that particular record and move on to something else for a while.<\/p>\n Go lateral. <\/strong><\/p>\n No, I\u2019m not talking about football! Finding lateral lines \u2014 cousins, spouses of siblings, etc. \u2014 provides a surprising amount of insights. It\u2019s not uncommon to find a census record showing a brother living with his sister\u2019s family after he was widowed , or an obituary included with a burial record that reveals the names of extended family members.<\/p>\n Reach out on social media. <\/strong><\/p>\n Are you working with an unusual last name, or a family that tended to live in one specific geographic area? A quick search of Facebook or even LinkedIn might open new avenues.<\/p>\n