Brick walls - We all have them

     Brick walls, we all have them. That stubborn, well built, solid brick wall that we just can not break through. We throw sticks, rocks, dynamite, whatever we can get our hands on, but just like with the big, bad wolf, we can not blow that darn thing down. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's maddening. It makes us throw our hands up in anger and walk away. But, then all of a sudden, a crack appears and we have hope. It's not as permanent as we would like it to believe. So we do our best to chip it away, piece by piece. It may take months or years before we finally see through it, but we make progress.
     I know you are probably asking, "Why are we talking about masonry?" LoL! Because this brick wall I am referring to is our genealogy research. Those illusive ancestors that we just can not get past. I know you have a few of them. I have a few of them. They have literally put up a road block in our research, and we can not walk forward any further. How does this happen? Could be records were destroyed. Could be our ancestor lied about some information. Could be we are looking in the wrong area. Whatever the reason is, it is maddening! Sadly, some mysteries will never be solved. As hard as we try and as much we throw at our brick wall, it may never come down. But that is not always the case. There may be a key out there that just unlocks a hidden door in that brick wall. We must not give up. We must continue our work. We must do a reasonably exhaustive search to eliminate all possible avenues. Don't give up. Keep pushing forward.
     I'd like to share with you some of my brick walls from my tree. Some have been solved, others have not. Some just have a few missing bricks. But I want to share this to encourage you to not give up. With the advances in DNA and records being digitized every day, you may still break through. So here are a few of my brick walls.

Joseph Melchoir Ilg & Margaret Buer's marriage

This was my first brick wall I encountered when I started doing genealogy research back in 2012. I was told Joseph and Margaret were married July 23, 1919. I had this information written in the family datebook along with other pieces of info backing this up. Well you can imagine my surprise, when I found them both in the 1920 census, but they were both still single and living with their own families. I had known they had went to Detroit, Michigan at some point because my grandma was born there. I looked everywhere in St. Louis for their marriage record, but no luck. Then finally with the help from another genealogist, they located the marriage record in Detroit. That makes sense. But what did NOT make sense was the date. The marriage record stated they were married July 23, 1920 - not 1919. Uh oh... that means they were pregnant when they got married since my grandma was born September 9, 1920. So they went away to Detroit to get married and hide the truth. I mean, they never would have expected years down the line, their marriage record would be put online and their great grand daughter would just happen to come across it. Sorry Great grandma and grandpa, but the truth has come out. Oh and they went to great lengths to hide it too. So as you can see this brick wall is solved. The reason it was a brick wall to begin with was they had lied and purposely recorded the date wrong.

Jacob Helfrich & Family
My 3rd great Grandma Maggie Molten had two husbands in her life. One being Jacob Helfrich, her second husband. This information was written in the family date book. Sadly, there was not a lot of details about Jacob Helfrich.

I had no birth date, marriage date, parents, residence, nothing. So tracing him and connecting him to his family was going to be difficult. For four years I was stumped, not knowing how to proceed. He had been killed in an accident according to the date book and he was not buried with Grandma Maggie. Maggie was listed in St. Louis in the 1900 census as being a widow. The last census I had for Maggie before that was the 1880 census where she was still married to her first husband. So that doesn't help. I checked City Directories but found no help there. Then one day, I was looking more closely at Joseph and Margaret Ilg's marriage record (the same couple mentioned above) and one of the witnesses was an Emil Helfrich. Hey, there is a connection! Finally my first tangible piece of evidence that there is a Helfrich attached to my family. So I decided to trace Emil to see where he led. I documented this trail in another blog post: My Helfrich Connection. Long story short, through this marriage record and tracing his line, I was able to reasonably deduct which Helfrich family I was connected to. That brick wall was finally solved.

Nicholas Buer
Ah... the elusive Nicholas Buer. One of my biggest brick walls. I've had this wall since I started my research in 2012. What I did have was very little. I had no birth date nor death date. I had estimates based on Census records. Little by little over the years I have chipped away a few bricks from his wall, but not much. I have not done a completely exhaustive search on him yet. This will take me going to some libraries and historical societies in Jefferson County, Missouri. Maybe one day, I will break through and find him. I know he came from France, but no clue where in France. I can't even begin to trace back there yet until I find everything I can in the US. One day.... I have hope, one day....

Maggie Molten
My biggest and longest brick wall (next to Nicholas Buer), my 3rd great grandma, Maggie Molten. Like Nicholas, I haven't been able to trace her back any farther. But what makes it even more frustrating is she was born in the US. It's not like she came from another

country. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee. And what also makes it frustrating is the fact information was purposefully hidden or lied about. Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to trace you if you aren't going to give me the truth? Well, I've had to glean each record I came across for any hints or leads to help me trace her. Slowly (and painfully) I've been pulling the bricks down, one by one. I still can't find her parents, but I've been filling in gaps from her life, trying to make sense of things. One day, grandma. I will trace you. I've wrote a few blog posts about my journey trying to trace her. Check them out here:
Found it! The Marriage Record for Jacob & Maggie
The Search for Maggie Molten continues...

As you can see, some brick walls have come crumbling down while others still stand tall. Maybe weakened somewhat, but still standing. I'm not giving up. I have hope. One day I will be able to blow these suckers up!

Share some of your own brick walls below. Have you broken them down? Are they being stubborn and not falling? What techniques have you used? I'd love to hear about them.