Question of the Week: What's one of the biggest challenges you've faced in your research?

Question

What is one of the greatest challenges you have faced in your genealogical research?

Tell us about it with an answer below! You could also use the question image to share your answer with friends and family on social media.

Answer 1

Biggest challenge: sorting out fact from fiction. Lots of "cowboy trails" on Ancestry family trees, leading to the wrong ancestor.

Comments

. . . but Ancestry is the best for DNA. Wikitree and Ancestry together are a powerful tool

Answer 2

My grandmother died when I was 6yrs old so I had memories of her and where she was from (Dalhousie, New Brunswick Ca.). I've spent about 20yrs solving most of her facts but stumbled upon that her father and mother were not who she reported being. Through the "Drouin Records", I first discovered her true age, and with the help of a cousin from British Columbia, who I met online we sleuthed out many facts from the records and some of the family histories that he knew. The facts I discovered were: the real birth date was 1878, her real mother died age 20 when she was 6 mos. old, raised by her grandparents, She had a child that was raised by an uncle, left Ca. after her grandfather died, used an alias when my uncles were born in Boston.

Through DNA I have well over 500 matches to a Surname in Canada and have developed a family tree that I can feel certain of the GG-Grandparents, but not the unknown great-grandfather. I can make the supposition of who he might be but need a good match with a decent tree. I have several large matches but they have unknown fathers.

Waiting for the BIG Match

Answer 3

The biggest challenge I faced was constructing my father's side of the tree (most of it's still marked 'uncertain') when I only knew a name and date of birth, however I don't have much to say about it and so I will pick another that I think gets very little attention.

That challenge is slum enumeration. In a nice country village where the well-known vicar enumerates his parishioners, the chances are most of the population is recorded. In an inner city slum enumerated by someone who is local only by distance, I found once only eight out of at least fifty dwellings were enumerated and at least one was only partly enumerated. The particular slum I referenced was Arthur Mews in Paddington (1891) is the worst example that I've seen but there are other problems too such as unreported people and mistakes caused by illiteracy or misunderstanding. 

If it weren't for the Marylebone Mercury just loving to sell the stories of "Life in the Slums" huge parts of the lives of some of my ancestors would be either missing or misinterpreted. So here's your reminder that a census is only as reliable as the person (or people) that contributed to filling it in.

Answer 4

I have several challenges in my family tree that I have not been able to solve.
One of them is a direct paternal ancestor of my wife, Hinrich Petersen.
Hinrich Petersen was a bird catcher on Gut Drült near Kappeln in the Duchy of Schleswig, he must have been born around 1706.
On 29 Sep 1749 he bought a part of a dissolved ducal outwork in Bahrenhof near Segeberg in the Duchy of Holstein and farmed there. This farm is still in the hands of one of his direct descendants, a family Petersen.
So far I can not identify his birth, nor his 1st marriage and the birth of his eldest son.
The corresponding church records in the parish responsible for Gut Drült do not contain the names. Also a search in the surrounding parishes was so far unsuccessful.

In the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, where old estate records are normally kept, there are no records of the Drült estate.

Now I want to write to the manor, whether they possibly still have an old archive and whether I may see corresponding documents. Maybe I will get further - who knows.

Answer 5

There are several brickwalls in my parents trees, some will may never be resolved but remain hopefully, but my older brother started to dig into my father's paternal line back in the late 70's trying to figure out the origins of the Isleman name it took him over 20 years to find the extent of all the name changes with our surname, my great grandfather, John Henry Isleman was born a Iceman had changed the name to Isleman his father , John Iceman was born a Eisaman , so as the line goes back there is various spellings, Eisanman, Eiseman, Isenman, Eisamann, Eisenmann, etc.. The original immigrant, Hans Peter (Eisenmann) Eisenman came to America, in 1749 they were German/French Lutherans, The part of the region they came from is now part of France but they were considered Germans from what I can tell , they settled in Westmoreland county PA, USA , my branch migrated to Ohio, still learning more about their origins . My hope is that either my brother or me will find their origins before they became Lutherans that maybe a dream on my part

Answer 6

My probably Illegitimate 2x great grand father. His father listed on records has litterally the most common name in scotland, and is impossible to find. But also DNA points to a different possiblity for who his father might be. Just wish I could have a chat with his mother.

Comments

You are right to suspect an illegitimate birth in your ancestry. This is an example of how DNA can "tunnel" under genealogical brick walls. It can confirm or rule out, but only if you have sufficient data for comparison.

I suspect that my great grandfather, Theodore Ceruti, was either an adopted child or a descendant from one. He may not even have known about this if the adoption occurred several generations back. This could explain why there is not one single surname of "Ceruti" among our male Y-DNA named relatives. However, the names "Field" and "Fields" are listed in droves.

I agree with you that Scottish ancestry presents a challenge because of the extensive reuse of names. This is why I have trouble going any further back than the generation that left Scotland to come to the Caribbean.

Answer 7

My biggest challenge has been to discover my father's paternal line. Luck was on my side with the mother of my 2x gt grandmother when I found her settlement examination at the Southampton Archives. Managed to get as far as her grandparents on her mother's side.

Thomas Richards the bigamist soldier and Stephen Buckle mariner are proving more difficult to confirm.

Answer 8

Access to information.

Answer 9

I have 2 and they're both Irish.  

Michael Shaughnessy my 3 x GGF, (theoretically should be easier to find than the other one) his son Patrick my 2 x GGF born 1846 was from Galway, Ireland, that information is on the 1911 England Census.

I have a baptism record for Patrick that makes sense.

I have Michael's name on Patrick's, 23 Jan 1867, Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffordshire, England marriage record. Michael is described as labourer, sometimes marriage records from that time in addition to giving the father's name say deceased, it wasn't a requirement so if it doesn't say deceased the father could be dead or alive.

There are 7 baptism records that may be correct for Michael Shaughnessy in Galway between 1794 and 1817, it has not been possible to connect any of these records to this Michael Shaughnessy. His oldest child was born 1834.

The family or perhaps just Patrick would probably have arrived at Liverpool after leaving Ireland. There several records for deaths of people named Michael Shaughnessy in the Liverpool area including the workhouse between 1847 and 1860. He could have died in Ireland, there are records for the death of many Michael Shaughnessys in Ireland during this time period. I can't make any of them connect to Patrick's father, there just isn't enough information.

There are several 1851,1861,1871 census records for Michael Shaughnessys in the Liverpool area, and in Staffordshire. If he went to England he may have remarried in England as none of these records have a wife named Mary as shown on the baptism record.

I have records for Patrick including his 1846 baptism, England censuses from 1861-1911, marriage, death, burial, all his kids names and other records, but nothing that helps find Michael.

Edit: clarification

Answer 10

My mother's family was Polish prior to the mid-eighteenth century and, when I started doing genealogy almost 50 years ago, it was nigh on impossible to find to find information on that part of the world, particularly in a form that someone that didn't speak Polish could understand (even if you lived near a major university library).

Answer 11

Doing research on the Giroux side of the family has been a big challenge. Multiple marriages due to death of spoues and many children

Answer 12

My grandmother gave me a family tree that appeared to be accurate, showing us as descendants of the Mayflower. But it turned out the tree was inaccurate. However, most of my cousins had a copy of it and they wanted to cling on to the tree given to them by their grandmother, rather than accept the disturbing news that it was inaccurate.

Jim (James) [Vincent-5170] Vincent

Comments

Thank you for sharing this, Jim. The moral of the story is that we need to be as careful as possible to report the accuracy of the information we find, and to indicate our level of confidence in the data and how we came to know what we have found. If something is ambiguous, we need to explain why. Sometimes if we can point out what is inaccurate and why, we stand a better chance of convincing our cousins.

I ran into a similar situation with the Ceruti side of my family. The rumor was that we were descended from the famous violin makers in Cremona, Italy. I managed to explode this myth by researching the lineage of the known violin makers and actually going to Cremona, where no evidence was found to support the myth and evidence was found to refute it. At this stage of the game, I think that none of our cousins believes that we descended from the violin makers, especially now that we have two instances of DNA evidence that point in an entirely different direction.

Answer 13

75% of my line, haha. Three Brazilian grandparents from humble backgrounds in rural states that did not experience mass immigration from Europe, plus a very slow development in indexing records availability makes my work move like molasses. In my English grandfather's history I've been able to research all lines through 1800, and a large part past 1750, but after three years I'm still struggling to find birth records for all but one of my Brazilian great-grandparents. Records can be very helpful when you find them because they can list a lot more information than English records did, but that's not always the case; and without indexed records or an available index or registry, it's a complete shot in the dark where someone may have been registered or when. And without censuses to help fill in blanks, yikes!

Comments

Did you check to see if the records are available, just not maybe Indexed in FamilySearch? They have tons of uninfected records that the images are still searchable just that there are so many records lots of years needed for volunteer Indexers to get that done. There are YouTube videos available to have to view these records.

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I am aware of the FamilySearch record images! They've helped me get as far as I have. There are some significant gaps, as well as people would register their births as adults and not necessarily in cities where they resided (and therefore almost impossible to track at the moment), and the record index itself (not FamilySearch, but the actual registry books) are very incomplete. I did some significant work this past summer while I was on break from school, and in between, I index records myself to push that process forward. The work I've done now has pushed forward enough that I'll need to primarily rely on religious baptisms, which FamilySearch has not published for my primary state of interest. The other two state I look at either hasn't had my towns of interest published, or hasn't published any content at all!

I'm planning on going in Feb/Mar for a wedding and to work on my thesis so hopefully I can make significant strides then.

Answer 14

The roadblock I encounter as to the parents of John Lloyd b. 1768 in Pennsylvania, moved to Virginia circa 1771, and well documented once he settled in Niagara County, NY circa 1800. I have the family bible, his life is written of for pages by his daughter but as to one generation back, there is nothing. Does anyone encounter illegitimacy or some sort of family scandal that make them suspect that records were purged or not recorded? If so how did you find those roadblocks? I know there were definitely many Lloyd families very early in Pennsylvania, but can’t find documentation of the direct parentage. Bible states he was specifically born March 4, 1768 “Pennsylvania “, moved to Virginia “at age of 3”, “attended the body of G Washington to the grave”. (Richmond VA, 1799) and then off to “build the military road” to Fort Niagara. He built a cabin there in 1801. So much detail and yet such a roadblock.

Comments

Roadblocks associated with family Bibles seem to come up more often than one would expect. Most of the time the information in the family Bible is accurate and complete, but when it contradicts the U.S. Federal Census records, it makes you wonder why the records in the Bible are incomplete, especially when several children are recorded, even if they lived for only one day. Mostly records in Bibles are correct, as the data were recorded as events happened and the dates are known, but when family members are omitted, one must ask was this intentional?

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Yes that does make things “suspicious “. I have found a Lloyd family story that “fits” the mystery except the dates are different. Young mother, older father, mother dies. Also a Richmond VA reference (John Harper) raising his grandson (s), his daughter was married to a Lloyd, an he disapproved of the marriage. George Washington’s Masonic Lodge in Richmond “attended the body to the grave” in 1799, when my John Lloyd would have been 21. Afterwards he set off for the Niagara frontier and settled.

Story fits, time period fits, just dates don’t quite fit.

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It seems to me that if someone wanted to cover up something, they would preserve as many elements of truth as possible, such as the story and the time period, changing only the critical part that shed light on something that would be inconvenient if revealed. Your Lloyd family story fits this description. Deception can occur when parents disapprove of a marriage. Then there is the possibility that the story teller just made a mistake.

All mysteries aside, my experience with dates has been that if a date were transcribed and then found to be wrong, it helps to go back to the original handwriting. Sometimes a 4 can look like a 9, or a 7 can look like the way some people write a 1. A few mysteries have been solved this way.

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I will look carefully at the Bible again. I’m wondering if the dates are changed. I have visited his gravestone and the dates are the same as the Bible, but who knows.

On another subject, I was contacted by a man recently whose family “story” was that his great grandmother’s husband was not actually the father of his grandmother. He had a name of the rumored true father. He did dna test and  he was related to my great great grandfather, so the family scandal rumor had been true all along. I’m sure it happened more than we know…

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Thank you, Virginia, for your thoughtful replies. In general, I assume that data from family Bibles are accurate as written, unless there is a known handwriting ambiguity. However, omissions, if proven, can indicate almost as much information by their absence, in cases where outside information sheds new light. You are right about the DNA evidence. This can be used to prove (or refute) scandals and rumors. Too bad we did not have this valuable tool 100 years ago!

Answer 15

My paternal line came to America from Denmark in the late 1800s. The on-line Danish records are very good if you know what part of Denmark your family lived in. I also have found (using DNA) close relatives in Denmark who are helping me with translations and local sources.

The challenge comes when trying to find their records in the USA. Because Denmark men use only a very small number of first names, which means few surnames because of patronymic naming, there are very many records that SOUND like they MIGHT be your relative, but are hard to prove. Because the Danes tended to settle in the same area, living and farming together, the records get very uncertain. On top of the vagaries of census spelling (I am convinced all the census takers were deaf), if the census taker was not Danish, they used SON instead of the Danish SEN for surnames and very creative spelling for all names.

Now for my biggest challenge, I am missing records on my paternal grandmother for the first 10-20 years after she came to America. She gave wildly varying dates in census records for immigration dates. Here, probably in Minnesota, she had one son (most certainly out of wedlock) so it is possible she used a different surname before marrying my grandfather. Uncle Henry never had children, so there are no DNA hints about his biological father. Lots of family stories but I have not been able to verify many of them.

Answer 16

What happened to my great-great-grandfather – Robert Allan, a brassfinsher who was born in 1851 in Edinburgh.

He’s listed in the census with his parents, then marries his wife, Jessie, and drops off the radar! He’s not with his family in the 1881 or 1891 censuses, but is still fathering children and signing all the birth certificates, so he was in the vicinity of Arbroath at least until 1886.

The family legend is that he made a lot of money from the pneumatic beer pump. There is a photo of him and James Keith (who grew his family’s small engineering firm into the huge Keith & Blackman’s) posing beside some kind of device and there’s lots of talk about Keith’s “liquid elevator” pump in the newspapers, but no mention of Robert at all.

The rumour is that Robert took his “fortune” and ran off to South Africa, abandoning his family. The implication is that he left as a wealthy man living the high life, but an additional possibility is that he went off to fight in the Boer War (1899-1902).

By 1901, Jessie is listing herself as a widow in the census. Robert’s death certificate hasn't been found yet, so it’s unclear if she *knew* he was dead or if she’d been left alone for so long that she was just assuming.

Answer 17

My great-grandfather Ransom Nichols went missing for decades. He is on the 1910 census as an 18 year old young man, but then doesn't show up again until the 1940 census. Now with a new name & family. He supposedly joined the Canadian Army (even tho he was American) for WW1 and served in the cavalry. We do have 2 photos of him in uniform and he became a Sergeant, but there are no records. No military records, no residence records, nothing between 1910 and 1940. And we have no idea why he changed his name. Very strange!

Answer 18

One of my biggest challenges is tracking down "Ursula" from a fascinating family story that has been passed down to me. As the story goes, my great grandfather's great Aunt Ursula was governess to the children of the Khadive of Egypt. During an uprising, she fled back to England with the children and family jewels. The ruler was so grateful he gave her a large sum of money and jewels, including a watch inscribed with the history of the event. That watch was given to the London Museum (but I have not been able to track it down). Aunt Ursula wrote to my great grandfather saying if he named his first girl Esmet, after the child she saved, that she would make sure the child was well taken care of in her will. However, my great grandfather was a proud new-American who said he didn't need any help from England and would name his children as he pleased (he named his first girl Alice).

My guess is "Ursula" may have been Ursula Beeden and I've found a few potential women from that time period where they lived in England that may have been her, but I've never been able to make a match because I have so little information about her. But I would love to finish the story some day by giving her the wikitree credit she deserves!

Comments

What an interesting ancestor story!

Answer 19

Determining who my mother's father was.

Answer 20

My mother-in-law's biggest desire in genealogy (when she learned I do it) was to learn the ancestry of her paternal grandfather, Cornelius Collins. Family history said he'd been born in Elizabeth, Kentucky in the 1850/60s to John and Mary Collins from Ireland, had left a wife for the maid in Kansas City sometime around 1900 and fled to California where he had his 2 sons.

When I first talked to her I thought to myself "John and Mary Collins" from Ireland sometime mid 1800s. That won't be hard to find at all.... (LOL). But I started 1st with her Grandfather himself, and while I haven't yet found any birth records for him, I did find a Cornelius Collins, at the right time, in Kansas City with a wife Dorothy, and one daughter Cordelia and a maid. I also found that my mother-in-law's grandmother's family lived one block this Cornelius in the 1900 census, tying the two together geographically.

I have collected an incredible amount of circumstantial evidence that make it highly credible that this is her grandfather. As one example, while my mother-in-law's grandparents were living in California and having their children and reporting that they were married on documents, their actual marriage date didn't happen until 1926, (almost 2 decades after going to California), and coincidentally, just a few months after the woman I believe to be his first wife died.

I have traced descendants of Cordelia and contacted them to try to get some DNA matching involved so that we can confirm his identity. Once, confirmed, I'll move on to be looking for Mary and John Collins from Ireland.