A genealogical “brick wall” is when you hit a barrier with a specific ancestor, and are not able to trace back farther than that individual. Brick Walls are frustrating and often rage-inducing. Sometimes, they are completely impenetrable (although DNA research may help where traditional genealogy cannot), but there are several strategies that can be useful, some of which I’ve had success with before.

 

1. Take a break!

A Brick Wall is an eyesore on your family tree, and may be hard to look away from, but the best way to solve it is… to not focus on solving it! Skip down to a different item on your genealogical to-do list, and do some research on a different ancestor or a different branch of the family entirely. When you feel ready, you can return to your Brick Wall with a fresh mind and a new approach.

 

2. Work smarter, not harder.

There’s no need to do something twice. Search the name of your Brick Wall on Ancestry or FamilySearch’s public member trees, look at personal genealogy websites, and published family history books. One of the great advantages of the internet to a genealogist is the ability to view and interact with the research of distant relatives, allowing insight to be shared across geographical barriers. Still, no one is perfect, and no research should be added to your own tree unless it has been properly cited and verified. Beware of certain fraudulent texts published by professional genealogists—some, especially prior to standards established in the twenty-first century, can be blatantly made up. 

 

3. Location, location, location.

Location guides are in-depth research guides to any type of location, usually a state, province, or county. Note what types of records are stored at the county, state, or national level, where you can access them, and what religious or cultural groups are present. Something that has been of particular benefit to me are published County Histories, often available on Google Books or other digitized archival sites due to their age. It may be tempting to ignore those books if your ancestor’s name doesn’t appear in the text itself, but pay attention to mentions of relatives and even neighbors of your ancestor. Knowledge of the activities of the people in your ancestor’s community can help you to understand and decode your ancestor’s activities as an individual, including things such as military activity and migration.

4. Ask for help.

Professional genealogists have access to experience, skill, and resources that amateurs often do not have. An accredited genealogist can also be a massive investment, but it’s worth reaching out to get a consultation if it’s something you care a lot about. Personally, I have used a similar, but slightly different avenue. Recently I contacted the DuBois Historical Society, which, like many other local historical societies, researches your request in their archives in return for a small donation. I’m still waiting on the results, but in my opinion, the service is very affordable, and I’m always happy to support such a cause.

There are several ways of organizing information for family trees. Usually, these forms of organization prioritize recording information and connections. A useful tool for the intermediate genealogist to visualize information and form a “plan of attack,” so to speak, is a slightly different form: the surname table. 

As the name suggests, a surname table records surnames used in each generation—with maiden/birth names being used for female ancestors. The first row is the surnames of the grandparents (“GP”), and the second row is the Great-Grandparents (1st GGP or GGP in genealogist terminology). There are eight individuals in the 1st GGP generation, but only the names of the female ancestors are in this row, so there is no repetition of names. Because in each generation of ancestors, the number of individuals doubles, so does the amount of surnames in the row. In the 1st GGP generation, there are eight individuals and four new surnames. In the 2nd GGP Generation, there are sixteen individuals and eight new surnames, and so on and so forth. 

The table can have as many or as few rows as you’d like. I went up to the 4th GGP generation because I don’t believe I could accurately trace back any further, different genealogists might draw the line before or after where I put it. It should be noted that you don’t have to end the table where you stop knowing names. In fact, do the exact opposite. In my table, I have put question marks in cells where I do not know/cannot confirm those individuals’ surnames. This is one of the advantages of the format, because the genealogist can visualize where the gaps in their chart are, and which individuals to prioritize research on.  In general, it’s a good way to present data in a digestible format. Something like this can be shared with non-genealogist relatives to show them what you’ve discovered about your family.

There are several limitations to a surname table. First of all, it is certainly no replacement for a proper family tree. Obviously, vital information (birth/death dates, locations, first and middle names, non-direct ancestors) cannot be stored in it. Also, it becomes largely useless in certain times and spaces. If ancestors are from cultures that track surnames differently (such as some Asian cultures), lived in a culture or a time where surnames were not used or recorded at all, or changed their name/assumed an alias, this type of table cannot account for them. One of my personal problems with it is that it cannot accommodate different spellings of the same surname, which were very common up until recently, and most importantly does not reflect any name changes that may have happened during immigration or assimilation.

Are surname tables worth the effort? In my opinion: absolutely! It’s a wonderful thing to have in your genealogy pocket, and it is something can periodically be added to, so you can watch it change and grow.

 

1. Ancestry

Ancestry is perhaps the most popular genealogy tool because it’s paid model allows for a large marketing budget. The prices for a subscription can be scary, but luckily, a “library edition” that is functionally the same (except for the lack of a personal tree) is widely available, including through the Penn State University library.

 

Ancestry has a significant database of digitized records. Most of these records can be found elsewhere, but the search function can allow a name/place/etc. to be searched in multiple databases simultaneously. Additionally, public member trees compiled by customers can be searched. These can be useful, especially for a beginner, but be sure to check the person’s sources before adding their research to your own tree, because many of them are full of mistakes. 

 

2. FamilySearch

FamilySearch is a free-to-everyone website that has a similar search function to Ancestry. Unlike Ancestry, it does not have separate searchable user-made trees. Instead, it has one tree that all members work collectively on. This is advantageous for collaboration, but it also means that anyone can edit anything at any time, so it’s best to keep a separate copy of your tree on some other application or on paper in order to archive your research.

 

3. Findagrave

Findagrave is another free website with a search function. The search function, as its name suggests, is more limited than FamilySearch and Ancestry, because it only searches cemeteries. Each grave has a profile, and the large international user base can volunteer to photograph those graves. Additionally, users can attach valuable information such as death certificates and obituaries to grave profiles, so it is worth taking a look at.

 

4. Periodical Source Index (PERSI)

Before the popularity of the internet, many genealogists and genealogical societies published research in the form of newsletters or other periodicals. PERSI allows the user to search an index of those periodicals for keywords like a surname. The periodicals in the index may or may not be digitized, but more experienced genealogists can use PERSI for in-depth research.

 

5. Newspaper Databases

There are several paid-access newspaper databases, such as Newspapers.com, which is owned by Ancestry. If you are not willing to fork over the admittedly quite hefty fee, multiple more specific newspaper databases can be accessed through the Penn State Library. For example, I used the Pennsylvania News Archive to find this issue of the Daily Collegian from October 30th, 1948, which contains my grandparents’ engagement announcement.

There are still plenty of microfilms available for the intrepid soul to search, including at the university library. If you have family that went to Penn State, I would suggest searching the Daily Collegian like I did, and you can see all sorts of things that they got up to.

Good luck on all of your genealogical journeys!

In March of 2022, I took a very chilly excursion to Gettysburg with my dad. This was a very special event for me, not because it was my first visit to Gettysburg, though it was the first one I remembered (why my family insisted on dragging my four-year-old self to battlefields, I do not know). Although I still intended to make the most out of my Civil War nerdiness, it had a much more personal goal. I wanted to trace the steps of my great-great-grandfather, Calvin Dixon, of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. 

Growing up, I had no idea that I had an ancestor (actually multiple, because there are two more on my dad’s side) who fought in the Civil War. In 2023, 1860 seems like a very long time ago, but in reality, it was only four or five generations ago. My parents, born in the ’60s, met people during their lifetimes who were born in the 19th century. This is when it comes in handy to have an older relative interested in family history, because people generally don’t put much thought into remembering an uncle they met once in their childhood, or the details of their grandmother’s life. My great-uncle Boyd, unfortunately, died before I was born, but his love for writing newsletters helped me in my own genealogy journey. He would have gone to a physical library to search through microfilm to find Calvin Dixon on the 1862 muster roll; I was lucky enough to encounter it in a digitized form.

A muster roll is a very useful document for military ancestors because it has several pieces of information associated with it. I can conclude Calvin’s age at enlistment (21), where he enlisted (Brookville, although the regiment was assembled in Harrisburg), his company (“I”), and his regiment (the 148th Pennsylvania Infantry). His presence in the 148th Pennsylvania is significant because it marks him as a volunteer rather than a drafted soldier, and also because the 148th, like many other regiments of the Civil War, created a record of their wartime experience. The story of our regiment; a history of the 148th Pennsylvania vols., written by the comrades., available on the Library of Congress website, provided an invaluable resource for me in tracing Calvin’s journey. Although his was not one of the accounts recorded, the perspectives of his fellow soldiers provide a vivid description of the regiment’s campaigns, from muster at Harrisburg, to the Battle of Gettysburg, all the way to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Additionally, Calvin’s name does appear in the book, in a story of how he captured a “Reb” at Gettysburg.

Seeing Calvin’s name (circled in green) on the monument dedicated to the 148th was a deeply fulfilling experience for me, because it drove home the fact that genealogy isn’t just sifting through censuses and tax lists, it’s also the act of encountering the physical presence the people of the past still have in our world.

One of the hobbies that I devote the most time to is genealogy. Whenever I mention it to people, I tend to get responses that they would love to work on a family history project, but they just don’t know where to start. I remember when I was first starting out that it was very intimidating, and there weren’t many resources geared towards complete beginners who had very little knowledge of their ancestry. A blog with tutorials, guides to specific resources, and also write-ups on my own research could serve as both an accessible aid to people interested in amateur genealogy, and also a way to record my own progress in researching my ancestry and local history.  

 

I also love historical fiction and reading in general, especially older, more obscure authors. Another blog concept I have is a series of book reviews and/or recommendations for historical fiction, cataloguing both the good and the bad. The aim of the blog would be to help introduce readers to a good book they wouldn’t have heard of otherwise, as well as a place to showcase my analysis of the novel and why I like it (or don’t).