Today’s questions, what are your biggest challenges? Not what people but what issues do you find the hardest to get past in your family history hunt and how long do you struggle before you move on at least temporarily? What do you do when you get to them?

I read a suggestion somewhere, that calling things “brick walls” is not helpful. It assumes a non-penetrable problem. Kind of like taking your water ball out in golf when you come to a water hazard. It becomes a precursor to what is to come. You remember the little train, “I think I can, I think I can…” We will call them today’s challenge.

For me, I am going to say finding birth information past great-grandparents. I have not had great luck with church records and other alternatives to the birth certificate. As I say that, of course working backwards the death certificate usually has the info but then to verify it is the next challenge. Often, I will look at the parents if I have that from say a marriage document or a census. I can do some math (I taught it for 1 day in my career) to estimate the year and perhaps get suggestions for a location. If it is prior to 1850 it gets harder as we all know because the census records are harder to get information from if you don’t have much already.

Taking a look at alternative sources such as newspapers, archives, even subscription resources may help. Sometimes I have subscribed for a month when I have a list of several people, events, etc to hunt down and the time to hunt.

I have really come to love timelines and looking for the birth dates and locations of siblings and children. I find it interesting to work out the puzzle of where people were during the non-census years and the gaps in the timeline information. By doing that I can sometimes anticipate potential research hints that I can look into. Things such as where other family members were, what was happening historically in the area at the time, military connections. Then when I look at the details in the big databases and find records or information that other people have found and connected to the tree, I can attempt the verification process.

Anytime I have a location for some event in the life of these ancestors, looking for the history of the area is interesting. I don’t know if it helps me find vital statistics but it can help tell the story and it is fun.

As I think more about it, I am wondering if this really is my biggest challenge. I think perhaps it is staying motivated when I come across the challenge, look for a while, move on to the next person or place only to meet the next challenge, look for a while, etc. This is when it is helpful for me to: 1) review what I already have looking for things I may have missed because…my current level of awareness was different, 2) talk through my work with my genealogy “buddy” and 3) go to HQRL to get help from a librarian there and use their materials. I also might just take a break for a few days and/or use some time to see what new things I have learned and try to weave them into the Family History Story I am building and writing.

What are your family history challenges and how do you meet them?

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com