Genealogy brick walls refer to the idiom - “Run into a brick wall,” in which someone faces an obstacle that halts progress and seems insurmountable. Thus in genealogical research, a brick wall refers to a research problem or obstacle that cannot be solved with the available evidence. It describes a point in their research where they have reached a dead end and cannot find any further information about a specific ancestor or family line.
What causes a genealogy brick wall?
Genealogy brick walls may occur for many reasons, such as the lack of vital records, incomplete or missing census data, incorrect spellings of surnames, or the destruction of historical documents. They can also arise when ancestors moved frequently, changed their names, or left no clear paper trail.
Sometimes the obstacles to progress stem from a lack of skills. This limitation may include lack of familiarity with various records, historical context, or analysis techniques. Sometimes the barriers involve disorganized research or overlooked details in previously found documentation. With study and practice, these obstacles seem like hurdles rather than insurmountable roadblocks.
Lack of access may cause other brick walls. For instance, not all relevant resources are online, indexed, or publicly available. Other barriers include your inability to read a foreign record or travel to a repository that has an offline collection. Time and patience are often needed to overcome these challenges.
A third category halting progress in research is the lack of records. Some cultures were not record-keeping people. As such, after exhausting any available records and the minds of the history keepers, research is nearly impossible to continue.
Similarly, some locations worldwide lacked the mandate to record life events or established barriers for our relatives to participate. While neighboring areas created records, our ancestors, unfortunately, lived in a location that created universal population collections. In other instances, record losses caused by war, natural disasters, or insufficient archival practices reduce the availability of relevant genealogical records. Most researchers will seek out alternatives to the primary sources of their ancestors.
It is possible to overcome brick walls by using a genealogy research platform like MyHeritage.com. An additional tool offered by MyHeritage, the DNA test, can aid in breaking these brick walls by identifying unknown relatives, verifying ancestral connections, tracing geographical ancestry, and revealing family secrets. Furthermore, the Legacy Tree Webinar series features many genealogists who provide valuable insights, equipping researchers with a better understanding of their specific area of interest.
Explore more about brick walls
- Writing Conclusions After Busting a Genealogy Brick Wall by Devon Noel Lee on Family History Fanatics.
- A series on genealogy brick walls at Legacy Tree Webinars.
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