Rebuild
State one exact question, identify the strongest facts, trace where each claim came from, and put the known events into chronological order.
GENEALOGY RESEARCH
Genealogy Brick Wall Research Guides
When repeated name searches stop producing progress, rebuild the problem as a case: define the question, verify what is actually supported, preserve what does not fit, and choose evidence that can distinguish competing explanations.
Move from searching harder to investigating better
A difficult family-history problem may come from a weak assumption, an indexing error, a boundary change, a merged identity, a missing record series, or decisive evidence preserved in somebody else's records. The useful next step depends on diagnosing which problem you actually have.
Challenge
Keep conflicting names, dates, places, and identities visible. Treat precision as something to verify, not proof of reliability.
Expand
Test plausible name variants, historical jurisdictions, record substitutes, relatives, neighbours, witnesses, and other recurring associates.
Test
Write more than one explanation, predict what evidence each would produce, search deliberately, then correlate the results before recording a conclusion.
FREE PRACTICAL GUIDES
Start with the part of the case that is currently blocking progress
Each guide stands alone, but all six follow the same evidence-first case-solving method used in the book.
GENEALOGY
How to Define a Genealogy Brick Wall Research Question
A practical reset for genealogy cases that have grown too broad, too assumption-heavy, or too dependent on repeated searches.
Read the guideGENEALOGY
How to Build an Evidence Timeline for a Genealogy Brick Wall
A step-by-step way to order evidence chronologically without forcing dates, places, or identities to be cleaner than the sources justify.
Read the guideGENEALOGY
How to Resolve Conflicting Genealogy Records Without Picking Too Early
A practical contradiction-matrix method for genealogy cases where several records cannot all be accepted at face value.
Read the guideGENEALOGY
How to Search Genealogy Name Variants and Indexing Errors
A disciplined alternative to guessing dozens of spellings when a historical person disappears from an index.
Read the guideGENEALOGY
Historical Jurisdictions and Missing Genealogy Records: Where to Look Next
A locality-first method for cases where a birth, marriage, naturalization, probate, census, or other expected record cannot be found.
Read the guideGENEALOGY
How to Use FAN Research and Hypotheses to Break a Genealogy Brick Wall
A focused way to search sideways when the target ancestor's own records no longer answer the question.
Read the guideFULL CASE-SOLVING SYSTEM
Break Through Your Genealogy Brick Wall
The book develops a 12-stage Brick Wall Case Cycle, a thirteen-tool case pack, and five worked playbooks covering disappearance between censuses, immigrant origins, uncertain maiden names, same-name identity problems, and cases where names, dates, and locations conflict.
Evidence can remain incomplete. A disciplined investigation may end with a working conclusion or a clearly defined open case rather than a forced answer.