Revisit your Sources

It is important to continue to revisit your sources – especially online databases.  As your research progresses you will find new facts to your ancestors that you can add to your search criteria. This should give you search results that did not show up in previous searches. Another reason to revisit sources is that websites are adding new records on a regular basis and the new records added may be for your ancestors or their siblings.

An example of this was when I found a 1935 biography of the brother of an ancestor. This had been added to an online family tree in the previous year. The biography included references to the name of the Catholic Church the family attended and when I called the church I found the marriage record for the ancestor. This record listed where the bride and groom were baptized in Poland and I was again able to extend the family back three more generations.

Also try using a different method when you revisit an old source. Sometimes, I use only the family surname when I return to search previous databases. One example of my success using this technique led to the names of brothers and sisters of one ancestor. I then researched the marriage records for these siblings and I was able to identify their birthplace in Poland. When I searched the Polish records, I was able to extend the family back three more generations.

 These are only a few examples where I was able to find information to breakdown some of my brickwalls.