OK, I know. You’re most likely very discouraged at this point. You’ve done your absolute best and have turned over every stone with no success. Why would you want to start over?

Basically, we are going back to step one – review your information. The reason for this is that you are now older and wiser and have also probably found new clues and records. You need to go back to your files and update your timeline. Make sure that all of your new puzzle pieces have been entered. Look for things that you may have overlooked the first time, and the second. Even if you have already searched for a record with no success you may now know of a new place to search. Genealogy is just another type of puzzle. If the pieces don’t fit one way, then try another. It is true that all of the answers may never be found, but I am sure there is something out there you have yet to discover.

Since you are probably in need of a little encouragement at this point, let me tell you that this very last step is how I finally found Henrietta. Remember that my search for Henrietta has been going on for many years. I was looking for her maiden name so where would you have looked first? A marriage record, of course! And so, I did. I searched for a marriage record for Henrietta and Mack in Edgecombe, Wilson and Pitt counties with no success. Going back to my research log, however, I realized that I requested the search for these records via mail through the NC State Archives. The searches all came back “no record found,” so I assumed that a formal record had never been created (marriages were not yet required to be registered in the state of NC in 1897). Remember, however, that at the time I made those marriage search requests I was still under the assumption that Henrietta’s maiden name was “something like MARIN.” I was also much younger and not as savvy about providing alternate spellings in my search requests. My recent determination that MARIN was probably not Henrietta’s maiden name prompted me to try the search again. Traci, the wonderful genealogy librarian in the Edgecombe County Memorial Library, searched the marriage index for me and located Henneretta MEARS, age 19, married to M. M. CRISP, age 35, on January 6, 1897. The dates matched almost perfectly! A little more digging on my part uncovered Henrietta, age 4, with her parents Charley and Lucy MEARES in the 1880 Federal Census for Edgecombe county (in a neighboring township to the one in which Henrietta and Mack later lived).

Remember that paper towel? Well, if you take another look, you will see that it listed Henrietta’s father as ‘Charlie.’ And my great-grandmother, Mammy Pattie, daughter of Henrietta? Her middle name was ‘Lucy.’ Not yet conclusive evidence that my Henrietta was the daughter of Charley & Lucy MEARES (I need to do additional research), but I know in my heart it is true. Henrietta has finally come back to tell her story.
 

For more information:

Brick Walls – How to Get Through Them
More tips and resources for tackling and locating your brick wall ancestors.
 

References:

The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, Edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs & Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, Ancestry, 1997.

Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places, by Laura Szucs Pfeiffer, Ancestry, 2000.

The Handybook for Genealogists, Ninth Edition, Everton Publishers, 1999.

The Sleuth Book for Genealogists : Strategies for More Successful Family History Research, by Emily Ann Croom, Betterway Publishing, Reprint Edition (March 2000).