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[if you have] I have a couple and they are not far back in generations, but they are far away in time and distance. I haven't gotten past them in 20yrs! I have found all kinds of cousins and traced all kinds of family ties out from the center and ties by marriage, but they all end with one GGgrandfather.
Part of my problem is access to records, as they are only available in one specific archive, and they are incomplete, deteriorating and not all are available to view even there.
That said - the things which have been most helpful to me have been wills and deeds. Their descriptions of relationships have often given me clues, if not the direct answers. In the small world of that GGgrandfather, maps have also played a big part in knowing more about him, but don't reveal his origins.
The filming that the LDS did over time really is invaluable to me to create the bones of my work, but I think most of my "aha" moments have come from wills.
What are your most valuable tools for moving around or through those brick walls?
Years ago, my grandmother gave me her brother’s dogtags (made of leather but in perfect condition). I was able to use the number on the dogtags recently to find my great uncle’s record (Canada has some excellent genealogical resources)-
My second cousin once removed agreed to do the YDNA test and through him we found our illegitimate ggrandfather's bio father. Add that to court records (1840 or so) showing that the unwed mother went to court and the bio dad was found responsible, that helped a lot. From that found her father and mother.
Irony is the bio Dads family's current descendants contact us now to find out more about their family.
One line was confirmed not from a will or deed but a Chancery Court case in VA.
Another was solved with clues from Ancestry.com and the fortuitous circumstance that a female's maiden name was on her grave stone. I learned not to ignore misspelled names that seem impossible.
Recently, I found a clue online from a rootsweb post from 1999. I do not remember if I just never did a search on that particular name or not. I am still working on that one.
Since new material becomes available online every day, it pays to periodically search again. Search with different possible spellings, too.
One was solved by an article in The American Genealogist. I would never have had the access to materials back then to solve this mystery. Even so, when I contacted the professional who wrote the article, she said it was circumstantial and that it just "had" to be him.
I have another brick wall in the family and all I can hope for is a trip to the New England Genealogical & Historical Society in Boston to maybe get through this one too. I don't know....sometimes the information may just be lost.
These are really interesting to read ..... I agree about new info all the time. Plus there are always new people discovering genealogy, and always interesting to read 10 years later replies to some of my posts.
I did find someone's info through a book, not an old one,but a fairly recent account of a family. I had purchased it for someone I was doing research for to provide an account of someone whose family was from the same town & life there at the time. There on page 12 was this persons Ggrandmother and 3 of her children mentioned in connection with their father, who also had fathered the mother of the author. I was able to contact the author - called her actually. I have become quite comfortable calling strangers doing this! We talked & corresponded until her death. Also was referred to someone who assisted her research and we shared info on the 'other' family - the focus of my project at the time.
I could not find out what happened to my great-great grandparents for the longest time! After their listing in a 1924 City Directory, they simply disappeared. Every old timer that remembered hearing about them, told me that they went back to Europe. Finally, I wrote to my grandfather's cousin to see if he remembered anything and he sent me back an obituary that he finally found giving away the year of death and location! So I was then finally able to find out that my G-G-Grandmother died in a neighboring county (very important since the State of NJ organizes searches by county) in 1929. Her death certificate confirmed her husband was still alive at the time of her death. Now, I just need to find out what happened to my G-G-Grandfather. I now know that he died sometime after 1929, but since he moved around so much, I have no idea when and where he died.
I recently did the DNA thing for the first time. (I was a holdout. ) It has already knocked down a wall or two. It's confirmed some kinships - for me anyway. These were known, but not quite tied together on paper.
I have hit a huge brick wall relating to my ancestors in Wales. The problem I have run into is that many first names can also be last names and it has gotten way too confusing. I don't think I am ever going to get past this problem. I have found Wales to be an extraordinarily difficult country when researching genealogy.
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) It has already knocked down a wall or two. It's confirmed some kinships - for me anyway. These were known, but not quite tied together on paper.
