Dead Ends

They're more often referred to as "brick walls", because there certainly were ancestors on the other side - you just can't get through the roadblock to find out who they were.

If you keep working collateral relatives, you may get lucky. (I still haven't worked my way past a Smith-Murphy roadblock on my mother's side, but have filled in a lot of detail on collaterals.)

Hi Simon

Is this your brick wall?

Isaac Gimpel Schindler

I can suggest

- fill in details & documents as much as you can. It is actually amazing how much information can be gleaned from a simple (and perhaps erroneous) census report

- geography, occupations, historic events, religion, affiliations ... There's a method called FAN (family, associates, neighbors)

- build out the collateral lines as completely as possible

- general historic trends (time & place). Analogies start to build a picture, particularly for emigrant generations

Hope this helps as a start.

Thanks for the help. I've tried all of these methods...i have put in all of the information I could possibly find at the moment. its really unbelievable

You have a precise death date. Based on what record? You have a marriage & wife, where & when? You have the children - you know them how? Does your family know what his occupation was? What was his personality? That's what I mean by filling in the details. The more you do that, the more doors will open. Also, it's more fun.

His precise date of death is there. Based off of the record I found of his head stone. My grandmother, OBM, was one of their children. Her brother died some time ago, and her sister is still alive, but not all there, from what I gather. (We live on different continents.) No one really remembers him, even though he died in 1987, because of the distance physically and that they just werent that close.

So you should have the record of his tombstone in the profile, and the story of the family distance, because there's a reason for that. What was his occupation?

We have a "Brick Wall" Project - it is a tool where perhaps you can find collaboration of minds, where others may have similar brick wall ancestors, or can help there too.

No tombstone. waiting for someone to get me a picture (its in england, im in NY) I dont know his occupation, no one remembers.

I am going to look at that brickwall project tonight

I'll also see if there's anything to be scared up on English records.

Erica Howton is the best! :)

No promises! I'm just learning how to find English census reports & marriage records. Was Harry Jewish? German origin perhaps?

I am in the same boat as erica.. Us sources I can do ok with as long as they don't cost a arm and leg... U.k and ireland is where my research is taking me and that's a area out of my league but learn worthy

Erica Howton IS THE BEST!!! Harry was Jewish. He was of German origin. but i dont know how far back?

Can't be "all" that far back because there were no Jews allowed in Britain between 1290 and about 1753.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_of_the_Jews_in_England

This is usually where I start - trying to get an idea of who else was in that time & place, why, what they were doing, who they married ....

You can look here for marriage & death, there were only a few synagogues

http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Greta Kallmann married Isaac Schindler in 1923.