What is a “brick wall” in genealogy?
In my opinion, a genealogical brick wall is a question (name, date, place, relationship, or other detail) that remains unanswered after you have researched in the most common or most obvious sources that are available for your ancestor’s time and place. In other words, you can’t declare a brick wall until you have done some research on the question.

For example, consider the quest for a maiden name. You need a maiden name so you can research to identify the parents of a female ancestor. Sometimes, you find the maiden name and parents’ names all at once, but in a brick-wall case this information may come from separate sources. Many times, you can’t just head out looking for parents’ names. You have to study the female’s life and family and let their records lead you to an answer.

Note on the Internet. If you have downloaded generations and maiden names from the Internet, your first task is to confirm that information in documents contemporary with each generation of ancestors. Begin with yourself and confirm each generation’s link to the previous one. As you research on a brick wall ancestor, it may be helpful to visit surname web sites and county web pages to communicate with other genealogists working on the same family or the same location. They may have the answers you are looking for, but you must ask for documentation or find it yourself. Quite often, your real brick walls are also the brick walls of other researchers. Together you may solve the question.

What research strategies can you use in overcoming a brick-wall problem?
Specific strategies will depend on your question or problem as well as the ancestral time period, place, and existing sources. However, certain general strategies apply:

1. Focus on the “problem” person and spouse so you can concentrate on details. (We cannot work effectively on numerous ancestors at once.)

2. Create and work from a chronological profile of that person, listing and documenting everything you know and everything you have learned in research so far. (If you haven’t researched the person, you don’t have a brick wall...yet.) An effective format for such a profile, as illustrated in The Unpuzzling Your Past Workbook, is four columns: (a) dates of events in the person’s life, (b) the age of the person at the time of each event, (c) a description of each event in the person’s life and where it took place, and (d) your documentation for that information.

3. Study what you already know. Break that data into bite-sized pieces to investigate further, one piece at a time. Identify and use clues from the profile. Identify items on the profile that say maybe, possibly, probably, or check again. These are details to try to firm up or questions to resolve.

4. Plan research using what you know, especially the known locations. Those are the locations where you have to start your research. Find out what sources are available for that location at the time the ancestor lived there. Plan your research to include local, county, state, and federal records, as they exist and as they apply to the ancestor’s particular situation.

(Just to clarify in case there is any misunderstanding: When we say to start your research in the known locations, we don’t mean you have to go there physically, although you can do that. We mean that you need to get hold of records on microfilm or get photocopies of records from that location, or even published abstracts or transcriptions of records as a start. Any time you find abstracts or transcriptions of ancestral records in books or journals or on the Web, be sure to follow up with the most original form of the record. All abstracts and transcriptions are subject to human error or omission.)

In the example of the maiden name, have you identified the female in all available censuses (state and federal) during her lifetime—at least the adult lifetime that you know about? Have you looked in the known locations for a marriage record? Have you studied her husband in land, probate, court, and other records? (Often husbands had dealings with their in-laws.) Do you know the identities of any of the female’s relatives: siblings, cousins, etc.? Is there an older person in her household in censuses of 1850 and after who could be related? Who were her neighbors? Could her children have been named for her relatives or her husband’s relatives? (This means you need to study her children and maybe her husband’s relatives.)

5. Study the nuclear family: spouses, children, grandchildren. You may need to study other cluster members: neighbors, associates, others buried in the same cemetery if it is small. If you don’t find convincing answers or evidence in one location, try another location where the person lived. (For example, if some of the children in a family were born in different states, you have different locations in which to research.)

6. Remember, you may not find one direct statement that gives you an answer to your question. You may need to piece your answer together like a jigsaw puzzle, based on the evidence you find in your research. You may have to lay the case aside and work on something else while you mull over your options. Some brick walls take months or years to get over, under, or around.

7. Gather enough evidence to make a convincing argument and to explain away any conflicting evidence or discrepancies in information. (For more, see The Sleuth Book for Genealogists.)

8. Keep an open mind. Be cautious with preconceived notions and family traditions. They may be right; they may be wrong. They may contain some truth but not the whole truth. Many people get stuck trying to prove one theory correct instead of keeping an open mind for other possibilities.

On the other hand, don’t get bogged down in pondering all the various scenarios that might have occurred to create your ancestor’s situation. We genealogists are great at coming up with dozens of scenarios of what could have happened and why things might have been the way they were. This speculation can bog you down. Deal with the most common or most likely possibility or situation first. If that doesn’t help you find your answer, then begin investigating other possibilities, one at a time. Let the ancestor and the evidence guide you.

9. Remember, every ancestor was unique. The records on each one are unique to that person. We can generalize about records to use in research, but no one can tell you what one document will solve your case. It depends on when and where the ancestor lived and what kinds of records the ancestor created, what records were created about him or her, or what records of other people might mention him or her.

10. As you progress, discuss your research with other genealogists. Read case studies in journals such as the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and in books such as The Sleuth Book for Genealogists, The Genealogist's Companion and Sourcebook, 2nd edition, and A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your African-American Ancestors. Keep learning. If there is an answer to be found, you will likely find it with thorough research and good sleuthing.