Brick Walls & Families on the Move

These steps will help when you can't get back further.

1. Make sure you have made your lists:

2. Make a commitment to the TIMELINE

Ancestry Trees and most genealogical software make building timelines easy but if you don't use those you can build a timeline in a word processing app like Word in Google Docs.

You know more about your family than your realize but if it doesn't get in the timeline you will forget. Examples of things that should be on your timeline:

births of children
deaths of parents
events with siblings that might have affected the family
details about records – Ella is missing on the 1850 census. Put it in the 1850 notes on your timeline.
military service
migrations
questions - is there an important question in this mystery? Add it to your timeline so you don't forget you need the answer.

3. Stop and think about time and place

4. Is this an immigrant family?

American immigrant families usually took about three generations to "become American".

Typically the first generation will stay in the city where they get off the boat and work a little while to raise money for the next leg of the migration. Many times in early America they were indenture out so they had to stay on the Eastern seaboard for about seven years. They then would often go join a community that had friends or relatives from back home.

This means if you have been unable to find their first papers/declaration of intent in the county you expect try the city where they got off the boat in case they stayed there for a while.

The second generation in this immigrant family will be the bridge generation. They will often expand the family's cluster past their own ethnic background. If this is a German family a couple of kids may marry Irish girls. They will still trend towards German customs but new cultures join the German experience.

The third generation is usually the generation that identifies more with their American future than their ethnic past. They don't usually try to settle in ethnic communities anymore though they may still be surrounded by Germans simply because those are the relatives.

Watch your family to see if they keep this pattern. It is the most common but some held strong to their ethnic background for generations and that helps predict what they were doing and why.

5. Census & Census Substitutes
Start with the couple you are working on - BOTH the husband and wife. Begin with the latest census in their lifetime and work back.
If you already have census attached to them you won't have to find them again but look at each one again.

Note the following things:

* where people say they were born
* read the page before and after - are there names you recognize? families with similar migration paths?
* are there families with similar naming patterns? If Grandma had a sister named Cinderella and the neighbor has a girl named Cinderella add that family to your cluster list for further investigation.

Always take particular care with the first census after a move. They will nearly always have someone with them/next door/nearby that came from the same place and has a previous tie to them.

* If you see your family surrounded by another family add that family to your cluster list. Example: Your John and Lydia Berry are surrounded by Carlson families. Carlson should go on your cluster list to investigate.

* Is your family's migration unusual in this place? If your family shows older members born in Canada search the census for people in this county born in Canada. If it is a highly populated county look for those in this township born in Canada. See how common an occurrence this is. If it is uncommon any Canadian-born families close to yours become of interest.

Are there state census for this place? Google FamilySearch Wiki State Census for a nice directory

If census is missing the following resources are good for "name finding" to pinpoint where a family might have been:

City Directories (Town people). On the east coast these began as early as the late 1700s for places like Boston, Philadelphia, New York. Throughout the 19th century city directories became more prominent in even small towns.

If you have ancestry go to the search pull-down and choose card catalog. Put City Directories in the title. search. Over on the right side of the screen is a sort-by pull-down. Choose Record Count. The U.S. City Directories 1822-1995 will be at the top of the list. Always start here. because it is the most comprehensive.

After you have searched that database you can use the state filters and see if there are any smaller city directory databases that might help.

Deed Indexes. Deed indexes are excellent for locating your greater family. Even if you are new to original records and don't feel confident about the handwriting most deed indexes are easy to read. There can be several ways they are organized and some are easier than others but some basics:

Go to FamilySearch and choose their catalog. Put in your county and state.
Choose Land & Property and look for Deeds (their author will always be the county as opposed to abstracted deeds that have named authors).

Look for the Index. Sometimes there is general index to all. Sometimes there is an index by Grantors (Sellers) and one by Grantees (Buyers). Sometimes there is a reverse / direct index (also buyers and sellers)

High traffic counties may have a lot of rolls to their index

A standard index lists all the A names together. Sometimes they are simply chronological. Sometimes they have added another layer so that all the A names with A given names are at the start then all the A names with given names beginning with B come next.

If you have a deed index that doesn't make sense to you FamilySearch Wiki has a great overview of United States Indexing Systems.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/United_States_Index_Systems. If it can help you find the name of the indexing system you are looking at you can google that indexing system and try to find a good overview with tips on how to use it.

If you are still having trouble using a county's deed index always check and see if there is a small index at the beginning of the deed book that is easier to use.

6. Work your cluster using online trees at Ancestry and the big tree at FamilySearch.

Why am I doing this? You are looking for members of this cluster that go back with the family you are searching for. They will often have previous kinship ties with your family and they will help lead your family to the right group in the right place before their migration.

If you keep a tree at ancestry start within your tree. Look carefully at the hints for the people who married into your family. If the hints give you parents for the person marrying into your family add those parents and look carefully at the parent's hints. Keep in mind that online trees are not always accurate but you are trying to quickly find out a little more about this family so if it seems reasonable add it so you can work with it.

If the Ancestry trees are not helpful OR if you discover something important (like this family and your family came from Westmoreland Co. PA) go to the big tree at FamilySearch where it is easy to find a good groupsheet and will quickly give you a pedigree chart back to see who the ancestors were of this couple.

Do this for everyone on your cluster list (even if it is constant neighbor or some guy that witnesses a document). If Mark McGregor was the administrator of Grandpa's estate and you can't figure out how to find him just go to a tree database and put in McGregor born in the county where you have seen him in the right timespan because someone in the McGregor family probably had a baby there. Hopefully, this will lead you to Mark but even if it doesn't it might give hints about where the McGregors were from.

Do a hidden parent search in the tree databases.

Your couple is Thomas Jacobson and Lucinda Marlow who lived in Mahaska County, Iowa

Go to the tree databases and search for
people living in Mahaska Co. whose father was a Jacobson
people living in Mahaska Co. whose mother was a Jacobson
then do the same for Marlow