Free Tips from Skilled Genealogists

When you are up against a Brickwall in one of your family lines, you surely need new sources of family information. But you also likely need new ways of thinking about your search. You may be in a rut, trying again and again in, say, census records, when you need a new approach.

I worked for quite some time trying to find my second great-grandfather in the 1850 Census when he was 15 years old. Just not there, no matter how many ways I tried to search for him via Ancestry.com. I had an inkling I knew his parents, but I did not have enough information, including his mother's maiden name, to prove the connection.

One day when reading about the importance of researching collateral ancestors, people related to you by marriage, for example, a light bulb went on. My gg-grandfather was married a second time! Could I find the record for that second marriage?

I not only did but there it was, his mother's maiden name! That maiden name, a family tree in a New York genealogy book and my ggg-grandfather's name in Milwaukee city directories for the 1860s helped me finally prove that the Bradley family of Litchfield, Connecticut, was mine!

Which leads me to suggest reading some of the many free genealogy blogs and and articles on the Web, some filled with fresh ideas that can spark your own creativity and help you find a new approach to your brickwall.

One I recommend to you is Genealogy Tip of the Day by Michael John Neill. Each tip gives you fresh inspiration to try a new strategy or fresh approach to help you discover that next generation of your family, that place of burial, that lost sibling.

Another I suggest is Shirley Hornbeck's This and That Genealogy Tips, including the one on using census records. Many helpful insights.

Or go to Geneabloggers for a listing of the hundreds of genealogy blogs now in existence. They are organized by category so you are sure to find one or more relevant to your family history search.

Please join the discussion here at Finding Families for Free with other sources of free tips, ideas and inspiration to spur success in genealogy!