When you hit a brick wall in your research, new search strategies can help you move past it.

Get better search results

Sometimes, search results may not look especially relevant. When this happens, we recommend “playing around” with your search. Often, finding what works best is just a matter of repeating a search with a few tweaks. See Refining Your Search to Improve Results to find a smaller pool of more relevant results.

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Expand your search

Branch out from census and vital records and view different record types (like school directories and church histories). The Card catalogue is useful for searching specific types of records.
Revisit records you've already found, looking for missed details or connections.
Whenever possible, view original documents; transcription errors are common with old records.
https://zendesk.findagrave.com/hc/en-us/articles/53933324946067-Explore non-internet sources, like local history and genealogy centers, gravesites, books, and family Bibles (many of which contain information on families).
When you can’t locate information about someone, try searching for their siblings or other close family members instead. Records that include family members often include the person as well.
When looking for living people, try searching social media. Facebook, Instagram, X, and even LinkedIn can connect you with people who may be otherwise hard to find.
Try connecting with people who have overcome similar research issues to get clues for moving forward.
Talk to family members, especially people in older generations. Share the information you have and ask what they know.
Keep checking back for information you’ve already tried to find; new records are added to the site daily.

Search alternate spellings

Wild cards are special symbols used in place of unknown letters in a word. They can be used in searches when you don't know an exact spelling.

The two symbols used as wild cards are the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?). An asterisk (*) represents zero to five characters, and a question mark (?) represents one character.

For example, if you didn’t know whether a name were spelled “Nielson” or “Nielsen,” you could do a search for the name using a wild card where the unknown letter goes: “Niels?n.” For more information on searching alternate spellings, see Searching with Wild Cards.

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Common brick walls

Names

Maiden names: Most countries have national identification numbers. In the United States, they're called Social Security Numbers; in Mexico, they’re called Clave Única de Registro de Población (CURP); in Norway, they’re called Birth Numbers; in Canada, they're called Social Insurance Numbers. Most countries allow people to search application forms for national identification numbers after a certain amount of time has passed after a person’s death. These applications usually list the mother’s maiden name. Maiden names can also be found in court documents; divorce cases, property disputes, immigrant name changes, applications for guardianship of a child, and so forth all required a woman’s maiden name.
Middle names: Try searching by both first and middle names; many people in history went by their middle names.
Common last names: Focus your research on the person in the family with the most uncommon first name to increase your chances of finding the right family.
Short last names: Surname spellings often change over time, and many short surnames used to be longer. For example, names ending in double letters (like “Ball”) often used to have an “e” at the end (“Balle”). Research the history of a short surname and search by any alternate spellings.
Aliases: It wasn't uncommon for people to use aliases in historical records. Search for middle names as last names, maiden names as last names, and nicknames as first names.

Geography

Search by town: Try searching using a fact other than a name. If your ancestors lived in a small town, search by the town name in the appropriate date range. Scan records that appear for new relatives.
Street names change: When multiple towns combined to become a single city, there were often duplicate street names, resulting in street names that had to be changed. Don’t assume that the Church Street listed on your ancestor’s record is the same Church street in the same city today. To confirm street names, consult old maps from the region.
Local histories: Local histories usually centered around major events in a region. When droughts, floods, conflicts, diseases, or social influences caused migration, local histories often recorded where the people went.
Changing jurisdictions: Regional, county, state, provincial, and country lines change over time. When searching for old records, make sure you have the correct place name for the time period in question.
Towns and occupations: Historically, certain towns have been associated with particular industries. If the trail of an ancestor has gone cold, consider doing a bit of research on the history of the person’s town. If the town specialized in one industry, your ancestor may have been a part of that industry (and may have moved as the industry moved).

Free resources

Ancestry free index collections are Ancestry databases that can be searched free of charge.
Cyndi's List is a categorized and cross-referenced index containing large lists of online genealogy resources.
TheShipsList includes indexes of immigration reports, newspaper records, shipwreck information, ship pictures, ship descriptions, shipping-line fleet lists; as well as indexes to hundreds of passenger lists to Canada, https://internalancestrysupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/53933317260051-US-LIHP-A-B-/hc/en-us/articles/53933324412691-TestA, Australia and some for South Africa.
CanadaGenWeb Project contains information on national genealogy records and resources. Canada’s provincial and territorial GenWebs contain information specific to each province and territory.
WorldGenWeb Project is a website that provides genealogical resources, insights, and some historical records.
Library and Archives Canada is maintained by the Canadian government and houses millions of original and microfilmed records.
JewishGen Canada database is a multiple database search facility which combines nearly 250,000 entries for individuals living in Canada.
Local histories
Early Alberta Newspapers
CanGenealogy additional resources for Canada’s family history research
Links to other Canadian archives & genealogical societies