Skip to main content

5 Tips to Break Down Your Brick Wall



Originally posted at Lost Tree Project as a guest post February 2019.

 Eventually we all hit a brick wall.  My first brick wall was with Joseph Thomas {my husband's 3rd great grandfather} I spent months searching.  Brick walls can last weeks to months to years.  Below are some quick tips to help you break through that brick wall.

  1. Research another ancestor for a while and then go back to your brick wall .  You will see your brick wall ancestor with new eyes.
  2. Use a checklist to see if you missed any records.  {You can find my Evernote Research Checklist in my shared genealogy notebook.}
  3. Revisit your research.  Maybe you missed a piece of information in a document.  Maybe something seemed like it wasn't important but now that you have more information you find it is important.
  4. Learn something new.  It does not need to be genealogy related.  When you shift your thinking to something else and then go back to the brick wall you are likely to see your research problem in a different light.
  5. Take a break from your genealogy.  Read a book, watch your favorite TV show, binge on Netflix; do anything to shift your mind off of your genealogy brick wall.

Doing one or all of the 5 things above will help clear your head and allow you to see your genealogy research problems with a clearer head.

How do you break down your brick walls?

By Shannon Thomas
Labels:

Comments

  1. The Bigham FamilyFebruary 4, 2020 at 2:55 PM

    Thank you for this. Great ideas, that I can use to help with my brick walls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shannon ThomasFebruary 6, 2020 at 11:23 PM

      Thank you so much for stopping by! Let me know if you break down any brick walls!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marine Casualty Card Database

By Shannon Thomas
While I was writing Top 10 Blog Posts for 2019 I discovered that my top post was US Marine Casualty Cards from 2014.  Wow!  {There is also an update to the original post here  where I show some more information that was sent to me.}  I went back to read the post and discovered that the links no longer work.  I did a little digging and found a link to the Casualty Card Database at the Marine Corps University website.  At this site you click on the war you want to search and download a searchable spreadsheet.  Once you locate your Marine you send an email to request the card.  There are also links to download information about what the codes mean on the cards. I also found that you can search the U.S. Marine Corps Casualty Index, 1940-1958 , at Ancestry.com.  It gives the casualty date, type, unit, and service number.  There is a link to go to another website from the Ancestry database but that link does not work. {I believe...
2 comments
Read more

Evernote to OneNote | Importing Notes

By Shannon Thomas
A few weeks ago I posted about moving to OneNote from Evernote .  To start the process I searched for a way export my Evernote notes into OneNote.  At the OneNote website you can download a OneNote importer.  Once it is downloaded double click to open and follow the instructions to link your Evernote account.   {Save the importer because you will be using it a lot to import your notes} .    I do not suggest selecting all of your notebooks and doing them at one time, especially if you have a lot of notes.  Before I started the importer I did a little housekeeping in my Evernote notebooks and deleted notes that were not needed.  You can also create some dummy notebooks in Evernote to break up your notes into smaller chunks so you do not run into any issues when importing to OneNote.  Once in OneNote you will want to move your notes around into your new organization system. Select your notebook, select next an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodbye Evernote, Hello OneNote

By Shannon Thomas
What?  I'm leaving Evernote behind! As most of you know I have been a huge Evernote supporter from the beginning and I have had a paid membership from the beginning {until October 1st}.    There has been a lot of talk about Evernote not lasting much longer because they have been making a lot of changes and letting people go.   That got me thinking about what I would do if they did cease to exist.   I started looking at all of my options and the best option, for me, is OneNote.   I already have it on my computer and it is free.   I can use OneNote on my desktop, laptop, phone, and table all for free.   I can still use tags {a bit different than what I am use to but it works and I am finding that I really don't need that many tags}.   I can still search for things and actually find what I am looking for.   I can still clip stuff from the web using the OneNote clipper.   I'm currently working on moving notes from Evernote t...
2 comments
Read more