There are lots of other places to look for image-only records, however.

Oct 16, Check online family trees in FamilySearch, Wikitree, bushhaul.bar, Ancestry and MyHeritage. Granted, many trees are, to use a modern phrase, a hot mess, but many more contain clues or hints for further research which turn out to be % accurate. In my own research, I frequently come across my brick wall names in online trees. Apr 20, Breaking down brick walls with DNA. Have you taken a DNA test?

Watch out for variations Nowadays we are very precise about our personal details such as the spelling of our names, our birthplace and our birthdays, but our ancestors may have been much more vague.

Autosomal DNA tests are the best way to break down brick walls, especially with ancestors that are within the past five or so generations. Compare notes with other relatives researching the same ancestor. The further back your ancestor is in your family tree, the more likely it is that there are other descendants or relatives that. Mar 25, Despite our best efforts, we just can’t seem to find that elusive ancestor in the records they should be in, and we don’t know why.

DNA is a powerful tool that can help us break through these brick walls and find our ancestors on the other side. It recently helped us find the answers one client had about their brick wall ancestor’s.