And the walls came tumbling down!

Every family historian will relate to the image above, in relation to one or more ancestor. 

We all come up against brick walls. Sometimes we chip away at them for years to find that one tiny bit of information that will undermine the structure and bring down bricks and mortar, and sometimes, they crumble at the first touch. 

When you encounter a brick wall, sometimes it is best to take a vacation, or a few day trips away from it, and concentrate on another area of your research. It saves you getting really frustrated and fed up, and also, if you look at it with fresh eyes, the barriers can break. 

It only takes a new transcription of a hitherto unseen parish register, or a fellow researcher posting a link you haven't seen to crack the wall, enough for you to pull it down. 

Think outside the box, look for single name studies and see what other people have posted, I found some fascinating social history about a line of my family I previously had no personal knowledge about just this week. 

Just a word about future family historians, why not write a journal or get a pack of information (or scrapbook) together about your life, and add anything you can remember about your recent ancestors or descendants? That way, it can be passed down to a new family historian, or if nobody in your family is interested in it, you can file copies with the local records office or local family history society. If you think about what you would have liked to have known about your ancestors, it should guide you to know what sort of information to put in your journal.