{"id":3853,"date":"2016-12-25T18:49:38","date_gmt":"2016-12-25T18:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3853"},"modified":"2016-12-25T18:49:38","modified_gmt":"2016-12-25T18:49:38","slug":"is-there-such-a-thing-as-brick-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3853","title":{"rendered":"Is There Such a Thing As Brick Walls?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Do genealogy &#8220;brick walls&#8221; actually exist?<\/p>\n<p>Some say they do and others say they don&#8217;t. I say the debate is moot. What people usually mean by &#8220;brick wall&#8221; is a point at which they are stuck. And almost all of us get to a point where we are stuck. Sometimes these points of being stuck are places where records simply do not exist to take us further back.<\/p>\n<p>And sometimes those stuck points result from one or more of the following factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>our inability to access all extant records (which may not be our fault);<\/li>\n<li>our ignorance of certain terminology, laws, social customs, historical context, etc.;<\/li>\n<li>our unwillingness to let go of certain family traditions, hastily drawn conclusions, or assumptions;<\/li>\n<li>our inability to locate certain records because there are things about the person we don&#8217;t know (but which we need to know to locate the record);<\/li>\n<li>our failure to adequately analyze information already located;<\/li>\n<li>our confusion because what has been located <em>is<\/em> confusing;<\/li>\n<li>our unwillingness to learn about all available records;<\/li>\n<li>our personal misfortune to descend from people who left few records, lived life outside social norms, or were simply a few bricks shy of a load.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A true brick wall, in my opinion, is when we&#8217;ve exhausted all available materials and have extended the ancestry to the earliest available records. Other times we are probably at a stuck point.<\/p>\n<p>And depending on the situation, it can be difficult to get beyond that stuck point.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For those whose brick walls are not of the permanent nature, our most recent &#8220;brick wall&#8221; webinar may be helpful. While I don&#8217;t think &#8220;brick wall&#8221; is the best phrase to use, it does resonate with readers.<\/p>\n<h3>25 Brick Wall Strategies<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019ve enjoyed our \u201cBrick Wall\u201d series, this one will revisit some of our more popular approaches along with new examples and a few new tricks thrown in the mix. Sometimes it never hurts to hear something again, if only for the reminder. This presentation will include a handout with the concepts discussed and brief examples demonstrating the approach.<a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/brickwallbuesters.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2790\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2790 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/brickwallbuesters-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"brickwallbuesters\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com\/cart\/add?product_id=130353&amp;method_id=139116\">Order this presentation for immediate download<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Do genealogy &#8220;brick walls&#8221; actually exist? Some say they do and others say they don&#8217;t. I say the debate is moot. What people usually mean by &#8220;brick wall&#8221; is a point at which they are stuck. And almost all of us get to a point where we are stuck. Sometimes these points of being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}