Knocking Down Those Brick Walls - Part 2
It has been roughly a month since 'Knocking Down Those Brick Walls - Part 1' was published and you've all been very patient! So as a reward (other than knocking down brick walls!) here is part 2!
It can be hard to knock down brick walls, especially when you’ve got to deal with no census records being around for help. But that doesn’t make it impossible.
The first type of pre-census brick wall, is the 'Multiple Option' brick wall. These are when there are more than one possibility.
The next type is the 'No Possibility' brick wall. These are when there are no possibilities in the parish you are searching.
There is one other type of brick wall, the 'No Option' brick wall. These are when the records run dry and you have 'no option' but to stop.
I hope this has helped you knock down some of those brick walls and if it has feel free to comment below!
It can be hard to knock down brick walls, especially when you’ve got to deal with no census records being around for help. But that doesn’t make it impossible.
The first type of pre-census brick wall, is the 'Multiple Option' brick wall. These are when there are more than one possibility.
- Compile a list of possibilities, with all the information you can point down to each one - including possible burials as it's not uncommon for a young child to die and the next child born to be called the same name.
- Check the marriage you've got, if you have one, sometimes these contain information like ages or parish of birth. If not don't worry as you can probably say they will be about 20-ish. This means you can dis-include ones below that age.
- Look for other marriages from around the same time, these might rule out some of the possibilities.
- Look for other records than parish records, like wills, these can be a valuable resource as they tend to list family members.
- Look at the names of there children, these tend to include family names. Slightly rarer names may become of value here!
The next type is the 'No Possibility' brick wall. These are when there are no possibilities in the parish you are searching.
- Look in neighboring parishes. Sometimes someone from the next parish would be seen in the other parish. Family Search Maps can be very helpful for this.
- Check the marriage, if there is one, these will generally say 'of ....' if they weren't originally from the parish they married in.
- If you can't find a marriage, try sites like 'FreeREG', these will probably have lots of parishes around the area they are living in. This has helped me find a few marriages a lot of researchers had struggle to find.
- Again, look for wills or other records as these can be very helpful in knocking down those brick walls.
There is one other type of brick wall, the 'No Option' brick wall. These are when the records run dry and you have 'no option' but to stop.
I hope this has helped you knock down some of those brick walls and if it has feel free to comment below!
Widget is loading comments...
*Note - No copyright infringement was intended. If there is a breach in copyright contact me through the 'Contact' section so it can be removed. All photos are Copyright © 2015 Harry Clarke. All Rights Reserved. The homepage photo for this article is courtesy of Marilyn Biddinger.