Who you going to call? Brick Wall Busters! [View All]

[CBHagman]

I've only really gotten into genealogy the last four years or so; before that, I was just collecting facts and occasional family trees/anecdotes/essays from family members. Now I'm one of those nutcases who finds microfilm of city directories endlessly fascinating and has clocked the response times of various vital records offices (Current loser: New Jersey, in terms of length from inquiry to response).

A couple years ago I heard of the concept of the brick wall, a situation in which the genealogist reaches what appears to be a dead end concerning a particular figure: written records appear not to exist, or the path to the right set appears to be blocked.

How do you approach this problem? Do you have any success stories/conundrums you'd care to share? Weigh in here!