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Hammering Away On the Brick Walls

Every genealogist has his “brick wall” ancestors. You know the ones. No matter where you look, it seems you cannot find anything about their origins or fit them into a birth family. The family tree ends with them. The reasons for this vary from illegitimate births to immigration from unknown places.

My husband and I have our share of “brick wall” ancestors—Catherina Wohrmann, Katherine Stillenbaugh, John Davis Riddle, and Daniel Sherman, to name a few. We look at evermore obscure records trying to find them and still come up empty. So we sigh, give up on them for awhile, and look again when a new record set becomes available or we find a new clue. We have looked for these people for 20 years and wonder whether we will ever discover their origins.

This week local genealogist Pat Roberts spoke to the Germanic Genealogical Society of Colorado about breaking down brick walls. She, too, has had elusive ancestors, but she never gave up on them. Finally this summer she found some success with one and discovered an entire line of German ancestry in the Mohawk Valley of New York. She described her research process and gave us a checklist to use to develop an exhaustive research plan.

Her presentation serves as an inspiration to all of us. I will definitely make use of the checklist she provided next time I tackle one of these ancestors. Maybe I, too, can break down a brick wall like Pat did.

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