Breaking Brick Walls

If we do genealogy research long enough, we will get a tough problem we cannot solve that many call “brick walls.” These might be questions we cannot answer such as who a parent of an ancestor is, or wanting to know when an ancestor married or died.

I have some strategies I use when I get tough problems. Often the answer is there but I have not looked in the right place. Let’s look at my tips, one by one.

Review Previous Research
My first strategy is to review all my previous research. I look at every document I have saved, whether digital or on paper. In fact, we sometimes forget about those older paper files we have. We might have written down a note about someone whom we could not place in the family at the time, but with time, we have more information and can now place them properly within the family.

When reviewing the research, I review any handwritten notes I have made and that I have transcribed and extracted all the information pieces from every document. Sometimes just copying the information into a new place sparks ideas for further research or brings clarity to the old research. I then add new research ideas to my future research plan.

Example: Here is when I did not extract the information carefully and how re-reading the document brought clarity. J.N. Gorrell lived in Webb City, Missouri, and died in 1960. I have a copy of his obituary and a photo of his tombstone in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Webb City. However, I could not locate his death certificate on the Missouri State Archives website, where images of death certificates are located. When I re-read the obituary, it clearly stated he died in a rest home “at Pittsburg.” Pittsburg is in Kansas and where his daughter, Bertha lived. All I needed to do was order the death certificate from Crawford County, Kansas.

Reorganizing Your Research
Most of us record our research in genealogy software on our computers or in online trees. However, sometimes we need to see the data in different ways. Try putting the data into charts, tables, lists, or spreadsheets. These are useful to help in analysis and correlation. It is difficult to “see” data that is across several people but when put into a table, it is easier to see conflicts or holes in our research.

Example: Here is a table of Samuel Johnson/Johnston names in Alabama. Trying to locate the family in the 1840 census. Three of them look promising with children of the right age.

Putting your data about a person or couple into a timeline is also helpful. This way you can see gaps where you might need to find more documents. Timelines can also help you see conflicts, where a person is in two places at the same time. Obviously, one is not your ancestor.

Write About Your Research
If you have not been writing as you research, start now to write. Start with your problem or start with the timeline. As you write, you might see that you do not have certain pieces of information or that you do not a source for a piece of information. You can write as if you are telling the story of your research to another person. Ideas for future research might pop into your head. Or you can share your writing with another person to get their perspective on your problem.

Also, by keeping track of your research as you do it, you will have a record of the records you have searched whether successful or not, and it is also a place to record your thoughts about the problem and what future research you should do.

One bonus of writing is you may already have solved the problem but did not realize you had the sources and evidence.

Broaden Your Research
Some of our research blocks are that we have focused only on our target ancestor. He/she did not live in isolation. Research their family, friends, neighbors, and associates as completely as you did the ancestor. Broaden your research in the locality, too. Check out neighboring townships, towns, counties, and states. Our ancestors may have been closer to the neighboring county’s courthouse and recorded their documents there or got married there. Lastly, broaden your research by using all record types. Have you used land, probate, court, tax, and military records to their fullest? We cannot do reasonably exhaustive research without using all types of records that could answer our research question.

Examples: A wife’s name may be mentioned in a sale of land. A son may suddenly appear in a tax record indicating he came of age. A probate record may give the date of death in a location with no death records. A newspaper notice of land transfer pointed to a woman’s birth family as we see here in this real estate transfer notice about the estate of their brother Frederick Vohringer.

Caused Your Own Brick Wall
My last tip is about those things we do to ourselves that cause the research block. We made a wrong assumption about an ancestor or location. We were not flexible about the spelling of the surname. We did not understand the record that our ancestor was named in and misinterpreted the meaning of the record. Our ancestors could be hidden using a step-parent’s surname, being listed with only initials in a record, or not being in an index but in the actual record and you cannot find them without going page-by-page.

So, the next time you have trouble finding the answer to your research question, try one of my strategies. It just might help you as they have helped me.

#52Ancestors-Week 21: Brick Wall

This is my sixth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.