By Gayle Van Horn
Every family historian eventually meets one: the ancestor who simply refuses to cooperate.
You have searched census records, marriage records, death certificates, cemetery listings, online family trees and every genealogy database you can think of. You have tried alternate spellings, neighboring counties and different dates. Still, you cannot find the parents, birthplace, maiden name or other piece of information you need.
Welcome to the genealogy brick wall.
Before deciding that the answer has been lost forever, however, there are several things worth trying.
Go Back to What You Know
One of the best ways to attack a brick wall is to stop searching for new information and review what you already have.
Start with the earliest record that you can definitely connect to your ancestor and work forward again. Look carefully at every name, date, location and relationship. Something that seemed unimportant years ago may suddenly have new meaning.
And don't assume that information you recorded years ago is correct simply because it has been in your family tree for a long time. Where did that birth date come from? Who identified the parents? Was there an original record, or was the information copied from another researcher's tree?
Sometimes the first step in breaking a brick wall is discovering that one of our original assumptions was wrong.
Search the Entire Family
When your ancestor disappears from the records, stop searching only for that person.
Research the spouse, children, siblings, in-laws, cousins and even grandchildren. A brother's obituary might identify the parents. A sister's death certificate might provide their mother's maiden name. A child's marriage record may reveal a birthplace that appears nowhere else.
Genealogists sometimes call this cluster research—studying the people who surrounded your ancestor rather than concentrating on one individual.
The answer to your ancestor's mystery may actually be hiding in someone else's records.
Pay Attention to Neighbors
This is particularly important when researching families in the 1700s and 1800s.
Families often migrated together. Neighbors in one census may appear beside each other again hundreds of miles away ten or twenty years later. Witnesses on deeds, bondsmen on marriages, executors of wills and people purchasing property at estate sales may turn out to be relatives.
Make a list of recurring surnames around your ancestor. Then research those people.
You may discover that the seemingly unrelated neighbor living three farms away was actually a brother-in-law, uncle or cousin.
Follow the Land
Land records can be invaluable when vital records do not exist.
Deeds may identify spouses, heirs, and relatives. They can show when someone arrived in an area or when they left. When land passes between people with different surnames for a token amount, take a closer look—there may be a family relationship involved.
Also remember that your ancestor may not have moved at all. County and state boundaries changed frequently. A person can appear to have lived in several different counties while occupying the same piece of land.
Look Beyond the Internet
It is easy to forget that only a fraction of historical records are available online.
County courthouses, state archives, historical societies, libraries, university collections and local genealogy societies may hold material that has never been digitized.
Probate packets, loose court papers, tax lists, church registers, newspaper files and manuscript collections can contain information that will never appear in a simple online name search.
Sometimes breaking a brick wall requires leaving the search box behind.
Search for the Name Differently
Spelling was remarkably flexible in earlier generations.
Try phonetic variations, initials, nicknames, and common transcription errors. Search without a surname when possible, using only a first name, approximate birth year and location.
And remember that the person who created the record may have misunderstood the name—and the person who indexed it many years later may have misunderstood it again.
Build a Timeline
Create a simple chronological list of everything you know about your ancestor.
Where was the person in 1820? 1830? 1840? When were the children born? When was land purchased? When did the family first appear in a particular county?
Once everything is placed in chronological order, gaps and inconsistencies become much easier to see.
Those gaps give you new research questions.
Separate Evidence from Speculation
Most of us eventually develop theories about our difficult ancestors. There is nothing wrong with that. A theory gives us something to investigate.
But label it as a theory.
Keep proven facts separate from possibilities. Write down why you think a particular couple might be the parents of your ancestor and then ask yourself what evidence would prove—or disprove—the idea.
One of the greatest dangers in genealogy is turning a reasonable possibility into a "fact" simply because it has been repeated for years.
Revisit the Problem Later
Sometimes the best thing you can do with a brick wall is put it aside.
Newspapers are digitized every day. Archives place new collections online. Another researcher may publish information about a related family. DNA matches may appear. A record that was unavailable ten years ago may be searchable today.
When you return to the problem with fresh eyes, you may also notice something you overlooked before.
And Finally—Don't Give Up
Some brick walls really are difficult. Records may have burned, never existed or disappeared through time. Occasionally we have to accept that a question cannot be answered with the evidence currently available.
But "I haven't found it" is not the same thing as "it doesn't exist."
Genealogy rewards persistence.
I have returned to some family lines again and again over the years, sometimes after setting them aside for a very long time. More than once, a new record, a different search technique or one small clue has opened a door that previously seemed firmly closed.
So when you reach that stubborn ancestor who seems determined to remain a mystery, don't consider the research finished.
Change the question. Search the family. Study the neighbors. Recheck your evidence. Look somewhere you haven't looked before.
That brick wall may not come down today.
But sometimes all it takes is finding one loose brick.
