I had the privilege of doing a brick wall consultation with Michael J.Hall, Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer at Family Search this afternoon as part of the Topeka Genealogical Society Conference!
I submitted my research for the parents of James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio and the associated same name issues as my brick wall.
The primary suggestion Mr. Hall had was to use “indirect evidence”. Other suggestions included
- Re-look at Revolutionary War pensions and read the affidavits
- Look at 1812 pensions
- Look at all Crawfords in the military records and collect evidence to eliminate them as potential fathers
- Check out the lineage programs of the Ohio Genealogical Society (1st Settlers of Ohio, etc.)
- Use the Family Search wiki
- On Family Search — use all categories of records for a county
- Locate church records – Quaker (also Presbyterian and Baptist)
- Try school records
- Check out the ‘Historical Collections’ on Family Search
- In the census records, record the names of the 10 households above and the 10 households below and try to identify them.
- Collaborate — contact any/all researching various Crawford lines
- Collaborate — contact Sellers DNA matches
- Visit archives
- National Archives in Washington DC
- Ohio State Archives
- John Heinz History Center (Western Pennsylvania Archives
And WRITE –
- Stop researching and write about findings
- Stop researching and write about thought process
- Stop researching and write out questions
- Just WRITE
Thank you Mr. Hall and Topeka Genealogical Society for this opportunity!