52 Ancestors Week 14: Brick Wall

Question

Ready for Week 14 of the 52 Ancestors challenge?

Please share with us a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches the week's theme. This week's sharing prompt:

Brick Wall

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Brick wall is a phrase that strikes fear in the heart of many a genealogist. Who is a brick wall ancestor for you? Who is one that you broke through a brick wall to find? How did you do it? You could also interpret this more literally, like with a family photo of a brick house or an ancestor who was a bricklayer.

 

Share below!

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Comments

Hi;

First, thank you! Our Lemuel died in 1819 and we have proof of this so this is the wrong Lemuel. Lots of people add this misinformation all over the place. I appreciate that you responded.

Tamber

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Have you tried profile woodworth-381 on here. It shows William as father and Sarah Blackmer as mother if they have their info correct

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I know I commented before on this but I came to a realization the other day. My great-grandmother, Anna Matthis was born in 1888. She and her father would have been in the 1890 U.S. Census but the census burned up!! Argh!  

Terri Clawson -1056

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Yes, that is what we suspect but we have no documented proof connecting our Lemuel with William and Sarah. The other possibility is that Lemuel, son of William and Sarah had a son named Lemuel who may have been the father of our Lemuel. When we look at dates Lemuel would have been 51 when our documented relative was born - time to have had children and then grandchildren.

Thank you for helping. Tamber

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My brick wall is as follows: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Julie-37

My grandfather was the result of an affair and his real father's name was never mentioned. Is there any possible way or technique to try work around such a dilemma? All of this took place in Port-Louis, Mauritius and my family are of French, Creole and British decent.

His mother's name was "Louise Cécile Laure Geffroy" born 20 SEP 1920 • Grande Riviere, Mauritius (my great grandmother) and her first marriage was to "Joseph Louis Julie" born 10 AUG 1910 • Mauritius. She then married common law to a "Cassam Sulliman" and finally her last marriage was to a "Joseph Charles Philippe Ducasse."She passed away 18 MAY 2012 • Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.

She had an affair with an unknown man while married to "Joseph Louis Julie" around 1938 and as a result "Joseph Maurice Julie," my grandfather, was born. He was registered as "Julie" and "Joseph Louis Julie" was added as his father on his birth certificate but this is not true. How do I find out who this secret lover is, who my real great grandfather is?

We know that the man which "Louise Cécile Laure Geffroy" eloped with while married to "Joseph Louis Julie" might very well be of Creole decent but how on earth do we find out and where do we begin?

Maybe somebody here finds interest and will be willing to assist. Any advice is welcomed!

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I think that your best bet might be dna. When I took my DNA test I found that I have many matches in both my mother and father's side. I have many cousins now!  You might find family from your biological side and be able to figure out who he was through them and their research.

Terri

Clawson-1056

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Thanks very much for your reply! I have taken the advice and I will be ordering a DNA test. Could you maybe update me on what to buy? I have no clue how DNA works and which test to get? Are there different types or is it a standard test? Appreciate your assistance and advice!

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I have to assume that you are make because of your first name, if you are nit, forgive me. I

Ancestry.com and 123and me (and others) offer inexpensive autosomal DNA tests and then show your DNA matches. I've found cousins on vanity my mother's and my Father's sides after I bought an ancestry.com autosomal kit.

Another kit that's available through the same companies is a Ydna kit. This would show relatives in your make line because you got your Y gene from your father. I think this would be a good way to go for you.

I am not a DNA expert so if anyone out there wants to correct me, I would appreciate the help.

Good luck with this!

Terri

Clawson -1056

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Filling in some gaps in my 52 ancestor challenge

I have three brick walls on my watch list that I am researching. 

John Glenn

Ellen Langridge

Unknown Simmons

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One of my brick walls is Gueatt_2 he just disappears. I do have a supposed father who I do share dna with but I don’t have any records on him. One day I hope to figure it out.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gueautt-2

Answer 1

The eternal brickwall, Cyrus Tanksley: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tanksley-68

He somehow escaped any records I can find until his marriage in 1859, when he was already in his mid-thirties. I have decided he must've changed his name to be so elusive. He can't decide where he was born; one census says Alabama, another Mississippi, yet another "Don't Know". As far as I can tell, he did not serve in the Civil War. He died in Mississippi, a state that didn't keep death records until 1912. I've got no other leads.

Answer 2

This one was easy to write a blog on. More like a fortress that a brick wall, but well worth the journey! I wrote about my adventure here (it's also posted on my Facebook timeline and my Twitter account):

https://trcounce.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/2019-challenge-52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-14-brick-wall/

on the walls that started with my maternal grandmother:

Maria "Mary" J D Andres

Answer 3

I have two, one in each of my parent's lines.

David Hall Davis, my paternal 2nd great grandfather, born about 1812 in Delaware. Moved to North Carolina before the 1840 census. My cousin and I traveled to Delaware to search for information about him last year and came up empty.

Emma Beatrice Mosgrove, my fraternal great grandmother, born about 1858 maybe in Arkansas. Married Richard Franklin Breedlove on 20 Dec 1885 in Garland, Arkansas. Family history says she married a Ferguson later on.

Answer 4

My brick wall is my gggrandfather, Joseph Coulson (later Colson), possibly born in Longford Ireland September 1781. His wife was Anna Moffatt. They later moved to New Brunswick, Canada and Maine USA after that. I cannot confirm where Joseph was born, nor can I find anything about his parents. Perhaps his D.O.B. is such that the records aren't obtainable.

Answer 5

There are many brick walls, but one of them, my great-grandmother [[Oldag-8|Anna Oldag]] I managed to break down just last week, with the help of a person who happened to find a profile of my great-grandfather on WikiTree. (I do not think he ever signed up, so his reaching out was just a fluke.)

He asked about a letter that was written to his great-grandfather by his sister, and he thought that from the tone of his letter she might have been employed by my great-grandfather more than 100 years ago. The letter got us to think a bit about the household, we put together some of the memoirs of my great-uncle, we involved a third person and the archives of a religious group back in the "old country", and we established that the employee was actually my great-grandmother's aunt, which finally allowed us to push back two more generations into the past. It also gave me a third cousin (once removed) I never knew existed.

Answer 6

One of my brick walls is finding the parents of Daniel Thomas Wissinger, born 27 Mar 1811 or 1812 in Charles Town, Jefferson, Virginia or possibly Harpers Ferry, Jefferson, Virginia. Both have been cited in various books. Plenty is know about this man and his family except for his parents. This area was a heavy battle area during the US Civil War and I have assumed any church records were destroyed. Any help of ideas would be appreciated.

Answer 7

My brick-wall ancestor is my great grandfather John  Straughan. You would think with an uncommon last name it would be easy to find, but actually the area in Northumberland, England we are from is the world epicentre  of Straughans. I found his marriage record so I know his father's name but cannot find a birth record which is close to the approximate date (1862-1866) suggested by various census records. The birth place on the census either just says Northumberland or lists places i cannot find records of even existing.

Answer 8

My Brick wall is William Cooper abt.1740 and Elizabeth unknown who had a son John Cooper born on 21 July 1771 shipston on stour ,worcester he died in 1841 he married an Elizabeth Grimmet and had a son William born 1800 in Wootton- rivers ,Wiltshire .he married a Lucy Pitt.

Answer 9

Among my several brick walls there are three that continually are in my research attempts.

My great-great grandfather Henry Butter was born in England in 1816 and came to America about 1845 and settled in central Louisiana. There is good evidence that his father was John Butters born in Scotland, served in the British military and settled in Kent. Cannot get any farther back.

Second is my husband's great-great grandfather William Field(s) born in Ireland and stated that his parents were John Field and Mary Moore of Dublin. William came to Louisiana in the 1820's, married an Acadian - Theotiste Dugas. They had three sons. William left in 1837 to visit his mother in Ireland. He died while there. His family is a brick wall.

Third is Levicy Smith probably born in or close to Henry County Georgia in 1811. She married Willliam Sadler Fears in 1828 and they had three children before Levicy died in 1833. This is all recorded in William's Bible. I have not been able to connect Levicy to a birth family.

Answer 10

Ross-7726. Lots of people have been on this case for a long time. Still no definitive evidence for who his parents were. I’ll flesh out this profile with a few more sources when I have the time.

Answer 11

My brick wall ancestor is my 3rd great grandfather, Henry A. Crawford. He was born about 1822 in NY or PA (1850 US Census says NY, 1860 & 1870 US Census says PA) and he died in Iowa in 1875. During the early/mid 1800's, birth, marriage and death records are hard to come by, especially in rural towns far from New England. I have no clue who Henry's parents are and have searched (online) for years. Some day I will visit Lyoming and Tioga counties in PA, where the family lived during the 1850 and 1860 US Census, to search for clues. Until then, I'll keep searching any new online records added for those areas.

Answer 12

My Brick wall anchestor is my Fith great grandfather Jans-1455 (Hermannes Jans), I know when he was married and with whom, but otherwise I know nothing about him where and when he was born or baptized, or when he died,

Answer 13

Where did he come from? Daniel Henry MAES appears in Cardiff, gets married, changes his name and appears to live happily ever after. I’ve been unable to find him in passenger lists or German records. On the census records he very clearly states born in Kiel of British parents, but his father (on his marriage certificate) sound very Germanic.

Answer 14

I have a few brick walls. Every name study that I control I also list them out there in the hopes that fellow researchers of that name can help out and put that final pin in the person.

First brick wall. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wright-22543 Amos S Wright. His father is either Samuel Wright 1743-1799 or Benjamin Wright no dates nailed down. Can't find anything on them to confirm or deny.

A solved brick wall is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ager-152 Elijah Ager. He was a tough cookie but we got him where he needed to be. I searched the other childrens records to find him. That's my way if I can hunt them down I can usually make fact or fiction on folks.

I also have a list of military members from the Civil War that I keep adding to that has no family links. I've created their profiles and others are searching for them as we speak. One of them I found a record listing of their stone in the data base of index cards and it actually had his death date on it so I got to update FAG as well to at least pinpoint the death date now we just need the birth date.

I also consider the founder of the Campbell line in Pine Creek Valley, PA a brick wall as many have linked to him a family but there are no other records that prove he is from that line. Many researchers bring it up to me and honestly they have beef that they can't approve the link based on lack of details. I'm right there with them on it. I can prove that he is related to the Duke of Argyll, Scotland through a DNA database and can confirm that my son's dna has markers that they are related but other than that he and his father are ghosts before they came to america.

Answer 15

My great-grandpares on my father's side are my brick walls. His whole life, my grandfather told people he didn't know who his parents were because he grew up in an orphanage. But I found his marriage license from the 1990's, and he lists his parents names. I cannot go any farther though:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bonner-1859

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Lee-26279

Answer 16

I joined Wiki Tree March 25th of this year.  I hope not to make to many mistakes in this wonderful site.

My Brick Wall is my grandmother Mary (Sanger) Woodul.  If her mother's name was mentioned by my family I can't remember and there is no one now, that I know of that could tell me.  On her death certificate, the space for her mother says "unknown" and only her father's name is on the certificate. The informant was her son, my Uncle Bill, if he didn't know, she must have died very young.  This is Mary Woodul's profile.This is Mary Woodul's profile

Answer 17

One of my 4xggfathers was a bricklayer.

Answer 18

Richard Sears (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sears-65) "The Pilgrim" is our brick wall.  He is first seen in Plymouth Colony records in the tax list of 25 Mar 1633, when he was 44, in a list of 86 persons assessed 9 shillings in corn, at 6 shillings per bushel, upon one poll. He does not appear in the 1634 tax list or the 1633 list of freemen.  He was in Marblehead (then part of Salem) in 1637, and in 1639 is in Yarmouth as one its founders. In 1643 he is shown in the list of Yarmouth citizens "liable to bear arms".  He lives out his life in Yarmouth.

There has been some speculation  that he is from Essex, England- many of the New England migrants were from that part of England.  We have seven Sears men in the US who have done Y-DNA testing so all we need now is an Englishman named Sears or Sayers or Sares in East Anglia with matching Y chromosome markers and we could really make some progress? !  It is also interesting that a main river in Essex England is the Yar River-  there is still a town there which i visited many years ago called Great Yarmouth  (at the mouth of the Yar river)

Answer 19

My most frustrating brick wall is my biological father. Thanks to Familysearch and ancestry I believe he was born in California, and came up to Yakima, before moving to Tri-Cities and later dying in the Seattle area in 1996. I have not been able to find his birth. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Thompson-33584

Comments

Hi Brian, your father's profile is private. However, most people born in California between 1905-1995 have their births on the California Birth Index, which can be viewed for free. If you can't find him there, my first thought would be perhaps he was adopted by a stepfather and took his surname.

Answer 20

My brick wall is James Reed (Reed 16223) born 1756 in Burlington, New Jersey.  He married Elizabeth Peacock, daughter of Adonijah Peacock in 1778.  I can only find their wedding documented, but no parents are listed so it is a brick wall.  I know their son Adonijah is a 3rd g grandfather but no clue as to the parents of James.

My other brick wall are the grandparents of Mary Elizabeth Currey (Currey 136) . I know her parents James Currey and Mary Jane Baldwin are from Scotland, although they lived in Down County Ireland in the 1770s.