Learning by Example to Overcome Your Toughest Genealogy Problems

All genealogists face research obstacles. Recording errors may lead someone to check records based on middle names or unfamiliar nicknames. Sometimes locations seem to disappear off the map when churches and cemeteries move, or roads close and fall into disrepair. What happens when records are misread, or graves turn out to be empty, or when people change their name? These are just a few of the problems genealogists face everyday. Genealogists around the globe have made breakthroughs in resolving these types of difficult problems through creative research and a never-give-up attitude to overcoming obstacles.

Family Chronicle magazine called these breakthroughs “Brickwall Solutions.” Recognizing the value the stories and the examples behind these solutions can have for the day to day genealogists, Family Chronicle collected hundreds of these stories from contributors around the world. The compiled result is 500 Brickwall Solutions to Genealogy Problems, the perfect lead by example book to solving unique research problems.

The book was not written by a single individual. Rather, this book is a collection of difficult problems solved by genealogist everywhere. The editor credits each story’s solution to inspiration and hard work as well as efficient and experienced research techniques. Contributing stories were selected for their inspiring, insightful, and professional resolution to difficult research problems. Each story inspires and gives ideas for new ways to overcome common, and sometimes less common, problems faced by family historians everywhere.

Here are some story titles taken from the book:

• County Poorhouses
• Nun Sense
• Website As A Brickwall Solution
• Funeral Sign-In Books
• Searching Family Mysteries
• Follow the Females
• Glove Marks the Spot
• The Many Wives of Cassidy
• Microfilm Mistakes
• Mapping Your Ancestors
• Different Registered Name
• Maternal Lines and Unusual Names
• They Changed Their Name
• The Mystery of the Non-Existent Grave

The list goes on and on. 500 times actually. I could not possibly list the entire table of contents in one blog. However, 500 Brickwall Solutions is an apt title. Each story runs from a few paragraphs to a couple of pages in length. Contributors are listed, sometime with contact information, at the end of each story. Many of the stories are funny and exciting, while all demonstrate what a little inspiration, creativity, and mostly perseverance can do in solving almost any problem.

Get a copy of 500 Brickwall Solutions to Genealogy Problems from Family Roots Publishing; Item #: MM002.