The dreaded brick wall

[GreyFitzsimmons]

I have two main brick walls in my tree, Both are due to lacking info. Has anyone ever broken their walls even though they have/had so little info? any tips or advice?

[groom]

Can you give a bit more information - what dates, where  etc? What was the last piece of information you found that was correct?

[iluleah]

Hi and welcome to rootschat

Anyone who researches FH have brick walls so knowing the records available to research for the particular era helps and the further back you get the less records are available....

It is much easier to find scanned records or transcriptions now as we have the internet, but pre internet it was a very different thing and much more difficult.

A way to break brickwalls if you can't find records of the individual then it can help researching a proved sibling or spouse of the person as this often leads to finding other information and sometimes the individual you are looking for.

It may help if you give some details of name/place/date and other rootschatter could advise/help you

[chrissiecruiser]

Hi there and welcome to Rootschat from Australia!

Yes, I had a brick wall where my whole family emigrated to Australia C.1849.

Not on any lists of ships I beavered through.
How could 10 people just disappear???

After 12 years a Rootschatter gave me the hint to look laterally, and I found one of the girls' future husband on a list which was totally named for mining ventures etc!
As I glanced up the list...there they all were!!! 
Talk about elated!  I reckon I celebrated for weeks!
My poor kids got an ear bashing.



Sooo, don't give up.   It will happen.

Cheers
Chris

[ansteynomad]

For years, I could not find my great grandad and his brother on the 1881 census, and no wonder!

Although their name was Goadby and their mother’s married name by then was Smith, the whole family is a hundred miles from home and recorded as Chapman!

I found them in the end by working through the extended family and discovering that one of their cousins was staying with them on census night.


 

[GreyFitzsimmons]

The only info I have for my one brick wall that should be correct is her name was Adeline O'Handley (Born Lynch) she was born July 16th 1905 in Newfoundland Canada, And she died Sept 9th 1964 in North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Her husband was John Leon (Leo J) O'Handley, I have their children and where she is buried. Seems good, I have decent info.

but that's all I have, I can't find records, Census's, ect., I have an obit for her and that provides just her name and Leo's name.

She passed away when my grandpa (His mom, My greatgrandma) was 16 and he has passed away now as well, her living children have had their kids start tree's as well but we all have the same issue, We can't find records, Parents, Nothing. I've looked at her husband and his records but there is also nothing there.

[heywood]

Her marriage as Mary Addie Lynch
Parents Harold Lynch and Annie Lynn
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVBK-SSV2

[heywood]

Perhaps a sibling’s death - Ethel, 2 yrs
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9S-ZVW1

[oldohiohome]

Could she be

In the household of Wilson Ingraham on King St, North Sydney, Cape Breton, NS 
Adline Lynch, 16, servant, born in Newfoundland, parents also, Church of England, arrived in Canada in 1906

http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1921&op=pdf&id=e002903529

if so, then her parents probably came to Nova Scotia also

-- Edit: this might not be her. She said she was Catholic when she married, see post above by Heywood.

-- Edit again - it might be her after all. Ethel's death record, see above, said Ethel was Church of England. Adeline might have converted to mary Mr O'Handley.