Ideas for Breaking Down the Brick Walls

In upcoming articles I am going to offer ideas on steps to take in order to break down those many brick walls that happen as we do our family search. The first step is to not make assumptions that all things are correct with the information that has been collected on your family. Normally we gather information from a variety of sources when we first start working on our family line. It is important that you take the steps to verify all the information from vital records, census and the variety of other documents. Many errors and miss leading ideas occur in genealogy. Validating information with at least three sources is a excellent rule of thumb. Trust nothing until proven and make sure to document. An example of a common assumption is that the first child was born after the couple was married. This was not always the case. Only through documentation can we actually prove this fact. Many things today that we see as scandal would get easily swept under the rug in the early days. Stay tuned to more postings on Brick Walls. Look forward to your input.