A few months back I took a wonderful course through Family Tree University, called 101 Brick Wall Busters. It is something that happens when researching our family. Records are lost, destroyed in fires, or never even existed. Record keeping wasn’t as wide spread in the early days of our Nation, many areas never kept records until the past century, less in some areas.
In the age of Technology and instant information, it is shocking to many that there isn’t a data base somewhere with every article of information on our ancestors. The LDS Church has done a wonderful job of gathering many records, but there are still gaps in the research.
In the course 101 Brick Wall Busters it discusses several ways to find this information or at least find information that can lead you in the right direction.
I will be touching on a few points each post.
1. You have to access the problem, what records do you have, what is it that you are trying to find out. Birthplace? Maybe the Date of Birth was left off or the common brick wall of a mothers lineage. For some reason the woman’s line is always incomplete.
Ask family first, see if a relative ended up with a box of photographs, documents, letters between family, or land deeds. Recently while researching the death of my Grandma’s little brother, I couldn’t find any state records for 1929 of his death. My Great Grandma had given a trunk of paperwork, birth records, love letters between her and Great Grandpa to my Grandma’s sister and now her Daughter has all the information. It was a real break through on proving his death and burial area. The photograph we believed was Grandma with her father and brother standing by a grave was not the grave of her brother, but her Grandfather who passed away in 1926.
2. Don’t skip any steps, check all records here in the US before venturing overseas. If there are not State or County records, see if the papers of the time have any articles on your ancestors. I recently found a wonderful article written by the Senior Center that my Grandma was active in, honoring her crafts and involvement at the Center. County Fairs, Senior Centers, newspapers are a few places you can look for more information.
3. Create a time line of their life. Do you know when they lived, who else in your family was around during that time. My Aunt Lovella was my Grandma’s Mother’s youngest sister of seven children. I always referred to her as Aunt, when really she was my Great Great Aunt. Knowing the time line of the family helped when filling out the lineage chart. Other things to know is what sort of things were going on in the world during the time of their life. Was it during War time, there are a lot of War records that can help bridge the gaps.
Gip and Nancy Akin, with their children.
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