How to Build a Genealogy Research Plan for a Brick Wall | Roots Adventure
brick walls and research planning
How to Build a Genealogy Research Plan for a Brick Wall
A brick wall often feels like a dead end because the question is too broad. A research plan turns the problem into smaller, testable steps.
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A brick wall is usually too many questions at once
“Who were Clara Bennett’s parents?” may be the right emotional question, but it is often too broad as a first research step. A strong plan turns the problem into a narrower question:
Who was the mother of Clara Bennett, who married James Cole in Marion County, Indiana, in 1884?
That version names the person, event, place, date, and relationship being tested. It gives the research somewhere to begin.
Write the research question
Use this format:
What specific relationship, identity, event, or place am I trying to prove or disprove?
Good questions include boundaries:
person
approximate date
place
known event
relationship
uncertainty
Avoid questions such as “Find everything about Clara.” They are useful as a project goal, but not as a research plan.
Inventory what is already known
Before searching again, list the evidence already gathered:
records found
family stories
photographs
DNA notes, if relevant
previous searches
conflicting facts
assumptions
source citations
This step is not busywork. Many brick walls survive because the existing evidence has never been put in one place.
Separate facts, clues, and assumptions
Create three columns.
Facts:
Clara Bennett married James Cole in Marion County in 1884.
Clues:
A witness named Ruth Lane appears on the marriage record.
A Bennett household lived nearby in 1880.
Assumptions:
Ruth Lane may be a relative.
The nearby Bennett household may connect to Clara.
This keeps the plan from building on guesses as if they were proven facts.
Identify the missing evidence
Ask what kind of evidence would answer the question:
marriage license or application
church marriage register
death certificate
obituary
probate file
guardianship record
census household
land record
tax record
newspaper notice
cemetery record
sibling record
Then ask where those records might exist. Some may be online. Others may require archives, libraries, county offices, historical societies, or offline repositories.
Plan searches in order
A plan should be short enough to actually use. Choose five to ten searches, not fifty.
For each search, record:
source or repository
exact names and variants
place
date range
purpose
result
next step
Example:
Search Marion County marriage records for Bennett women, 1875-1890, to identify possible sisters or relatives near Clara’s marriage event.
This is better than “search marriage records” because it explains why the search matters.
Include negative searches
If a search finds nothing, record it. A negative search can narrow the problem when it was targeted and well described.
Poor note:
Nothing found.
Better note:
Searched Marion County probate index for Bennett surname, 1870-1895, including Bennet and Bennitt variants; no likely entry for Clara or possible parents found; search completed August 7, 2026.
The second note protects your future self from repeating the same work blindly.
Decide when to pause
Research plans need stopping points. Decide what counts as done for this round:
three repositories searched
all known sibling leads checked
all local marriage records reviewed
one new hypothesis written
no new searches until sources are cited
Stopping is not failure. It makes the work sustainable.
Summarize the outcome
At the end, write a short conclusion:
This round did not identify Clara Bennett’s parents. It did identify Ruth Lane as a repeated associate and found a Bennett household near the marriage location. Next step: research Ruth Lane and the nearby Bennett household before expanding to neighboring counties.
That summary turns a stuck place into a path.
Keep a research log beside the plan
A plan says what you intend to do. A log records what happened. Keep them together.
For each search, write:
date searched
repository or website
collection title
name variants used
place searched
date range searched
result
citation or source note
next action
This does not need to be elaborate. A few careful lines are enough to stop the project from looping. Brick walls often feel worse when you cannot remember whether you already searched a source or only meant to search it.
Choose one next question
When a plan produces several new clues, resist the urge to chase all of them at once. Choose the next question that has the best chance of moving the main problem forward.
For Clara Bennett, the best next question might be:
Who was Ruth Lane, the witness on Clara’s marriage record?
That question is smaller than “Who were Clara’s parents?” but it may lead to the answer. Brick-wall research often advances sideways before it advances directly.
Keep the plan visible in the archive
A research plan should not live in a forgotten notebook while records pile up somewhere else. Keep the question, sources searched, negative searches, working hypotheses, and next steps beside the person or family group they concern.
That visibility matters when you return weeks later. It also helps another relative understand why you are looking at a witness, neighbor, or sibling instead of the direct ancestor. The plan explains the route through the evidence.
Protect yourself from source-hopping
Brick walls invite source-hopping: a census search, then a newspaper search, then a DNA note, then a family tree hint, then a different county entirely. Sometimes that wandering finds something useful. More often, it leaves you tired and unsure what was actually checked.
Use the plan as a boundary. If a new clue appears, park it in a “later” list unless it directly answers the current question. That way the research can stay curious without becoming chaotic.
Decide what would change your mind
Before searching, ask what evidence would be strong enough to change the working hypothesis. Would you need a probate record naming Clara? A church register with parents? A sibling’s obituary? A cluster of indirect records?
Naming that standard ahead of time helps prevent wishful thinking. It also helps you recognize progress even when the final answer is not yet found.
The Roots Adventure approach
Roots Adventure treats brick walls as research structures, not personal defeats. A clear plan keeps the question, evidence, searches, conflicts, and next steps together so the archive can move forward without pretending the answer is already known.
Evidence statements
Interpretation · supported
A focused research question makes a genealogy brick wall easier to test than a broad request to find everything about a person.
Citations: ngs-guidelines
Sources and citations
National Genealogical Society, Genealogy Standards and Guidelines, Free resources and guidelines · Open source
Conflicting records are normal in genealogy. The work is not to erase the conflict, but to describe it clearly and decide what the evidence can and cannot support.
One census record gives a snapshot. Comparing records across time can reveal migration, changing households, missing people, and new research questions.
