Ten Common Genealogical Problems – and How To Solve Them

If you have been tracing your ancestors for even a short while, it is more than likely that you will have come against at least one genealogy brick wall, and if you’ve been doing it as long as I have, then you will probably be an expert in the kind of genealogy problems all genealogists face, whether amateur or professional!

However, there are ways and means of breaking through these brick walls, and I thought it would be useful to list the most common problems and describe the strategies I personally use to break through them.  Of course, I cannot guarantee they will always work, and there are ancestors who remain stubbornly elusive, but sometimes just a little bit of determination, imagination and knowledge can help you to that wonderful “I’VE FOUND HIM!!!”  moment that makes all the hours of head-banging frustration seem worth it!

One thing I will always say for any of the following problems, and that is:  Remember that your ancestors were human!  Human beings are not robots – they are not always accurate, they have dodgy memories, they might lie, make mistakes, be elusive, be cunning or sometimes they just don’t know much about their origins themselves.  We should never expect tracing them to be straightforward if we understand that human beings have never in the history of the world been straightforward!

1.  Variations in Name Spellings: It is probably the most common discrepancy you will find when searching documents, and there are several reasons:  a) the name has been badly transcribed and indexed by modern search engine indexers, b) the name was written down at the time of the document as the writer heard it,  c) the name has naturally changed over a period of years or d) the name was changed on purpose.  You have to remember that until surprisingly recently surnames did not have a standard spelling, and as many people were illiterate and also did not have the hundreds of reasons to write their name as we do today, very rarely wrote their own names.  Therefore names were often written as they were heard by another person. 

Solution: Don’t always rely on the Soundex box in search engines – these do not catch every possible variation of a name.  Use your imagination – try saying the name out loud in a different accent, or mumbled, or with a cold!  If you still can’t find the person in the main ancestry search engines, try searching using other criteria (e.g. The Ancestry.com/co.uk search engines are very useful in that you can search with all other definite criteria, such as first name, date & place of birth, spouse name etc – but without using the surname box.  This can be very useful if you have enough information about the person already, and as long as the name is not a common one.

2.  Too Many Results with the same name. If I had a pound for every time I came across this one…..  It’s probably worse than not getting any results at all because you know that it’s very likely that your ancestor is there – but which one is he?

Solution: This is a situation where you need extra information, such as names of siblings, parents, children etc.  Find out as much as you can about the person’s family and then search for brothers and sisters, parents etc.  If you are searching the census, you might find that they are living near to family, or even with family.  Sometimes a sister might live with a brother as a housekeeper, or a widowed parent may live with married children.  Children are sometimes found staying with aunts, uncles or grandparents on the night of the census.  If it’s BMD certificates you are looking for, trying backing up your search by using FamilySearch.com and finding a baptism or marriage that fits.  These records will give the names of parents and/or spouses and can help you to establish which is the correct entry in the BMD indexes.  If there are just a few names, then sometimes you can eliminate some by finding the marriages or deaths of the other contenders.

3.  Conflicting Information in documents. This happens much more often than you might think, and is particularly annoying!  If it’s the age that differs, don’t get too hung up on that – people have been known throughout history to lie (sometimes radically) about their age for all kinds of reasons.  What is really frustrating is when two documents that seem to be about the same person, give two different places of birth (my grandfather always gave his place of birth as Staffordshire in the census, but he was actually born in Manchester).

Solution: First, make absolutely sure that you have the right person in both documents.  Back up your information by finding other appropriate documents (such as birth certificates etc).  Look at the documents you have and try to work out which is likely to be more accurate.  Why might one of them have the wrong information?  Did your ancestor have a good reason for giving that answer – or might someone have answered for them (such as a landlord in the census) and made a mistake?

4.  My ancestor is not in the census! Sometimes you’d think they might have left the country or even the planet!  But before international travel became easier and cheaper, it was very unusual for people to leave the country unless they definitely emigrated.  It is unlikely (unless they were a mariner or had some job that involved a lot of travel) that they would be away on census night due to a holiday (which is more likely in the 20th and 21st centuries).

Solution: First, make sure you have tried every name spelling you can think of, middle names, and every possible search criteria.  Then, as you might if you were a real detective – try knocking on their families’ doors.  Visit the census entries for parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc and see if you can find any clues (are they living with family with a name variation?).  Search in newspaper archives (try the British Newspaper Archive), and carry out general searches on Ancestry and the National Archives’ A2A website.  Are there any clues that could lead to criminal activity or trouble at home – if so, it is always possible they have changed their name?  This might make finding them difficult, but they can still be found, if you are confident enough about all other information about them (place & date of birth etc).

5.  The Records have been destroyed, lost or damaged. This is a common occurrence once you have got back beyond the census and BMD records and are having to rely heavily on parish registers (PRs) and older documents.  PRs can go back as far as 1538, but very often these earlier ones have been lost or destroyed (by fire for example).

Solution: There are many other records that your ancestors may turn up in.  However, the wealthier they were, the more likely they are to have left a paper trail, but you can still find the poorer people if you know where to look.  First of all, if it’s the parish register that’s missing, check to see if the Bishops’ Transcripts still exist.  These were copies that were sent to the diocesan registry (the bishop), and are available in diocesan record offices – and some county record offices may keep copies.  Often the transcripts may be available if the PR is missing.  Other documents, such as apprenticeship records and settlement orders can give details of family relationships – and of course wills are a very good source of information – and not always just for the wealthier classes.  For the middle and landed classes, then land records can give useful information.

6.  Unable to find one or both parents. This can happen sometimes when a child was not staying with parents on census night, or the father’s name is missing from a marriage or birth certificate (usually when the child is illegitimate).  This can be frustrating because it’s always great when you take a step into the next generation.  If it’s a fairly common name, it can be very difficult to back up the information through BMD, for example, if you can’t be sure you’re looking at the right document.  When you go further back into early parish registers, often just the father’s name is given in baptism records.

Solution: If a child is staying with another family member, you may be able to find the parents by searching for the baptism records of those family and looking at siblings – FamilySearch.com is useful for this.  Try also searching for the wills of other family members as the parent may be mentioned as a sibling or child of the testator.  It might also be that one or both parents had died, so always search death/burial records in this case.  In the case of a missing father when the child is illegitimate, sadly this can be a dead end.  However, it is always worth checking to see if there may be bastardy orders held at the appropriate diocesan record office.  If the child is given the mother’s surname, it may be unlikely that the father will ever be known – but if there are middle names, then these could be a clue to a father’s identity.  My great-great grandfather was John Walker Bott.  He was the illegitimate son of John Walker and Elizabeth Bott.

7.  Confusing Information. Sometimes, you can be driven mad by various clues leading you all over the place and round in circles.  A person might turn up on the census with a wife and children, then turn up later with a different wife, and give his place of birth as a different village, but when you find the most probable birth record it’s in a completely different place with the same siblings but a different mother, then later you find he died in the workhouse, described as a milkman, when all along he said he was a farm labourer.  Have you got the right person – or should you throw everything up in the air and start again?

Solution: This kind of thing can really give a genealogist a headache.  Some cases get so complicated it’s like trying to unravel a huge knot.  Sometimes, the best solution is to go  back to basics.  Write down the absolute facts – the ones you can absolutely verify to be true, and try to eliminate any information that is misleading or contradicts the facts you know.  Then take each piece of information you have found one by one, and try to see how it could fit.  Remember what I said about ancestors being human – why might they have given a wrong answer or made a mistake?  Could they have been trying to hide something?  As with most problems – always look at the family for any extra clues.

8.  Place of Birth is too vague (e.g. “Scotland”) This is especially annoying if the name is a common one.  Looking for a James McDonald somewhere in Scotland could have you giving up before you’ve started.

Solution: Make sure you have traced all possible census entries for this ancestor – as sometimes, especially on the later census records, you might find that they have actually given a more specific town or village.  And again – ask the family:  look for the ancestor’s siblings or other family on the census and see if they have given any more specific places of birth.  While it might not be exactly the same as the subject you’re looking for, it may give you a clue at least to a county or area.

9.  You can’t read the document. Obviously this is more of a problem with very early 16th or 17th century documents – but sometimes handwriting can be extremely bad even in the 19th or 20th century!

Solution: If it’s just one word you’re having difficulty with, try looking at the rest of the document for letters that look similar in words you can read.  However, in the cases of earlier long documents such as wills, then it can sometimes look like a foreign language and impossible to read at all.  Actually, by learning a few basics, you can start to read old handwriting quite quickly.  The National Archives runs an excellent – and free – paleography tutorial on their website which you can access at the following address:  http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/ If you don’t have the time to learn, you might need to hire someone to transcribe the document for you.  Most professional genealogists can do this – and there are some who specialise in transcribing old hand – or Latin.

10.  You’ve tried everything but you just can’t find them! Really – it happens to the best of us.  Losing an ancestor is not carelessness – it’s just part of the journey.  It can happen any time – but as you move back further in time finding ancestors becomes more difficult, particularly if the family moved a lot.  Before the census started, there are not many documents that will tell you where a person was born, so if they disappear from the parish registers you can be left wondering where they came from without any clues.

Solution: Make sure that you have tried all document searches: wills, apprenticeships, newspapers, settlements etc – and check the National Archives’ A2A search engine.  Sometimes a google search can come up with something you haven’t seen before.  If you are searching before the census, check to see if your ancestor married by licence, and then look for the marriage bond – this may give a clue to place of origin.

It’s a very good idea to take a break from an elusive ancestor and go and search another line for a while.  Sometimes, when you come back a few months later, your brain is refreshed and you might see clues and possibilities that you didn’t think of before.

If all else fails, then why not try hiring a professional genealogist?  It may be that they will look at what you have done and say, well, there’s probably not much else I can do – but on the other hand, they may have other ideas you have not thought of, and sometimes have access to records that you may not know about.  They are also usually knowledgeable in local and/or national history which can help in working out possible movements of ancestors.  Most professionals have a lot of experience in breaking through brick walls and it could be worth paying for this service if they can find that elusive ancestor.  Of course, you will have to pay for their time even if they are not successful, but at least you will know that you have tried every possible alternative.

My own professional service for the UK is detailed on my Home Page.

These are certainly the most common genealogical problems I have come across.  If you think I’ve left anything out (whether a problem or a solution) – please let me know!