Lions and tigers and brick walls..oh my

It happens to the best of us, almost every genealogist has had one of these very frustrating "brick walls". Unfortunately I have had the opportunity of running into some in my tree, and after hours and days of hacking away at it, I finally can break through a few discovering so much I never knew about my family.

One of the most common reasons for hitting that "brick wall" could be the spelling of names. Double check your current spelling and consider other spellings. Through the years names can change in different ways, or you could have read a document with writing that you could not understand.

There are many other reasons you could run into this horribly frustrating walls in your tree, but you will feel so accomplished once you eventually get through them. Make sure you also check different websites before taking a break from the wall. Alot of websites sometimes have more information than others. Ancestry.ca and Family Search are my favorites for digging around in. Also if you are doing searching closer to home, your local library would be your best bet. If you are stuck in other countries on your tree you can always check to see if that country has a genealogy society of some sort or a historical society that you could email to request help. I've done this also.

My last and most important tip on "brick walls" Do not get frustrated and don't give up. Maybe just take a break from that part of your tree and work on another area for a while.

Cyndi's list has some good info on hitting brick walls