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Brick walls: why the search fails, and what to try next

A brick wall is almost never a missing record. It is a wrong assumption about a name, a place, or which record set should hold the answer.

The seven usual causes

1. The spelling

Assume every surname has at least three plausible variants before 1900, and that first names were anglicised while surnames were not, or the reverse. Search phonetically, and search without the surname entirely using first name, birthplace and rough birth year.

2. The county boundary

County lines changed constantly in the nineteenth century, and records stayed with the county, not the family. A family "in" a county in 1850 may be in a different county's records for 1840. Check historical county boundary maps before concluding a record does not exist.

3. The burned courthouse

Courthouse fires destroyed records in many counties, particularly in the South. When the deed or will book is gone, substitutes include state-level land grants, tax lists, pension files, church registers and newspaper notices.

4. The wrong generation

Two men with the same name in the same place, one a generation apart, is the most common false merge. Establish ages from at least two independent records before attaching a new generation.

5. The unrecorded migration

Families moved in stages, and the middle stop is invisible if you only search the origin and the destination. City directories and state censuses fill that gap better than federal records.

6. The missing woman

Women disappear from records because most documents name only the husband. Look for her in her father's will, in church records, in her children's death certificates (which often name her maiden name), and in cemetery and funeral home records.

7. The record you have not thought of

Fraternal society records, insurance applications, draft boards, school registers, poor-law and asylum records, prison registers, and union records all contain names and often birthplaces. When the standard seven fail, go sideways into institutional records.

What not to do: do not accept a match because the name and approximate year fit. A wrong ancestor poisons everything above them and is far harder to remove than an empty branch is to fill.

When to bring in help

If you have exhausted census, vital, immigration and military records and written up a clear summary of the gap, a professional researcher can often resolve it in a few hours because they know which repository holds what. See hiring a researcher for what to expect and what to ask.