When Everything Else Fails, Drop Back and Punt: A Lesson in Genealogy Research

I am not all that interested in football. However, during my exchange year in Kansas, I played in the marching band and sat through enough football games to learn a few expressions. One of them has stayed with me: “When everything else fails, drop back and punt.”

In American football, a punt means kicking the ball downfield rather than continuing an attack that is going nowhere. You give up possession, but you may improve your position for the next play.

I have come to think that genealogy research sometimes calls for the same decision.

We all encounter ancestors who refuse to cooperate. We search the parish registers, examine census records, check marriage entries, and look for probate documents. We try spelling variations and extend the date range. We search again, hoping the answer will appear this time.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes we spend hours repeating the same searches without making any progress.

When that happens, it may be time to drop back and punt.

The problem may not be that we haven’t searched enough. It may be that we are asking the wrong question, following an untested assumption, or looking in the wrong place.

When a genealogy brick wall is really a problem with the question

A genealogy brick wall can be frustrating because we often begin with an idea of what the answer should look like. We expect an ancestor to appear in a particular parish register, within a particular period, under a particular name.

When the record does not appear, we naturally try harder.

But consider what happens when our starting point is wrong. Searching the same records more thoroughly will not necessarily help. We may be looking for the right person in the wrong parish, using an incorrect birth year, or following the wrong family altogether.

Imagine that you are trying to find the baptism of Lars Olsen, believed to have been born around 1820 in a particular Norwegian parish.

You search the baptismal registers for several years on either side of 1820. You try different spellings. You examine the available indexes and browse the original pages. You find several boys named Lars Olsen, but none fits the other information you have about your ancestor.

What should you do next?

Before searching again, stop and ask a more important question: What evidence tells me that Lars was born in this parish around 1820?

Perhaps his birth year comes from a census taken decades later. Perhaps his birthplace appears in a family tree compiled by another researcher. Perhaps you have a marriage record that identifies his residence but says nothing about where he was born.

Each possibility calls for a different research strategy.

The first step towards solving a genealogy brick wall is to distinguish what the records actually tell you from what you have inferred from them.

Separate the evidence from the assumptions

Open your research notes and divide your findings into three categories.

Established facts: Information supported by identifiable records. For example, a marriage entry records that Lars Olsen married Karen Pedersdatter in 1846.

Reasonable conclusions: Interpretations supported by several pieces of evidence. For example, two records may identify Lars by the same name, occupation, residence, and wife, making it likely that they refer to the same person.

Unproven assumptions: Ideas that may be correct but have not been adequately tested. For example, Lars was born in 1820 because a census gives that year, or he must have been baptised in the parish where he later married.

This distinction matters because assumptions have a habit of becoming facts in our minds. Once we have entered a date into our family tree, we may begin to treat it as certain, even when its original source was only an estimate.

Return to the earliest reliable record you have for the person. What does it actually establish? Which details come from someone who knew the person, and which were supplied many years later? Could the informant have been mistaken?

Norwegian census records are useful, but ages and birth years need to be evaluated alongside other evidence. My guide to Norwegian census records explains how these records can help place an ancestor in a household and provide clues for further research.

Do not discard a record simply because one detail disagrees with your expectations. Instead, investigate the disagreement. A difference in age might be harmless, or it might indicate that you have found the wrong person. The other evidence must help you decide.

Change the question, not just the search terms

Once you have reviewed your assumptions, try formulating a different research question.

Instead of asking, “Where is Lars’s baptismal entry?”, ask questions that can be answered independently:

• Where was Lars living when he first appeared in a reliable record?
• What does his marriage record tell me about his residence, occupation, and age?
• Were there other people with the same name in the area?
• Could he have been born in a neighbouring parish?
• Do records for his possible siblings provide clues about his parents?
• Is there evidence that he moved between parishes?

Each question points towards a different set of records.

This is particularly important in Norwegian genealogy. A person’s place of residence, place of birth, and place of baptism may be different. Parish boundaries changed over time, and people did not always attend the church closest to their home.

If you restrict your search to the local parish where an ancestor lived, you may miss a record in another part of the same parish district. I explored this problem in Where Did They Go to Church?, using Veøy parish in Møre og Romsdal as an example.

Changing the question does not mean searching everywhere. It means identifying a plausible alternative and looking for evidence that can confirm or reject it.

Follow the family, not just the ancestor

When an individual disappears from the records, the people around them may provide the best clues.

Suppose you cannot find Lars’s baptism. You know the name of his wife and have identified two possible children. Instead of continuing to search for Lars, investigate the children’s records and look for other possible members of the family.

A sibling’s marriage entry might identify a parent or provide a residence. A confirmation record might establish a birthplace. A probate record could name surviving relatives and connect people who otherwise appear unrelated.

Witnesses and godparents can also be useful in Norwegian records. They may be relatives, neighbours, or members of the same local community. Their names can suggest which families deserve further investigation, although they do not prove a relationship by themselves.

The same principle applies to farms and local communities. If several people with the same patronymic lived on neighbouring farms, examine the relationships between their households before deciding that they belonged to the same family.

The aim is not to collect more names. It is to find evidence that helps distinguish between competing explanations.

Choose records that can test your theory

Once you have a new lead, think carefully about which record is most likely to help.

If you suspect that Lars was born in a neighbouring parish, searching that parish’s baptismal register may be sensible. But if the suspected problem is an incorrect birth year, a confirmation record or marriage entry containing more reliable age information may be a better starting point.

If you suspect that two men named Lars Olsen have been confused, look for records that distinguish them. Their occupations, residences, wives, children, and movements may be more useful than their names alone.

For Norwegian research, the Digitalarkivet provides access to digitised and searchable historical records. The Norwegian National Archives offers further guidance on archival sources.

Historical maps and land records may also help when a place name is uncertain or a family appears to have moved between farms. You can explore Kartverket’s historical maps when you need to investigate how a place was represented in earlier periods.

Before beginning another search, write down what you expect the record to show and what finding it would mean. Also consider what result would weaken your theory.

This last step is important. If every possible result is interpreted as support for your favourite explanation, you are no longer testing the theory.

You are defending it.

A worked example: three possible explanations

Let us return to Lars Olsen. Assume that you have a marriage record from 1846, a census entry giving an approximate birth year of 1820, and no convincing baptismal entry in the expected parish.

You now have three possible explanations.

Hypothesis A: The birth year is wrong. Lars may have been born several years earlier or later than the census suggests. You decide to check whether other records provide more precise information about his age.

Hypothesis B: The birthplace is wrong. Lars may have been born in a neighbouring parish. You examine the marriage entry, residence information, and historical parish boundaries to identify the most plausible alternatives.

Hypothesis C: You are following the wrong Lars Olsen. Several men may share the same name. You compare their wives, occupations, residences, and known family members to determine which one fits the evidence.

These hypotheses lead to different searches. More importantly, they can be tested against evidence.

Suppose you find a confirmation record in a neighbouring parish that gives a birth date and names parents whose residence fits other records associated with your Lars. This would be a promising lead, but it would not settle the question automatically. You would still need to compare the dates, family relationships, and later records to establish whether the people match.

If the evidence conflicts, you should keep the question open.

This is a hypothetical example rather than a documented case, but the method applies to real research. You identify the uncertainty, formulate alternative explanations, and seek evidence that can distinguish between them.

That is how you turn a vague search into a focused investigation.

Know when to stop and return later

Sometimes the records really are missing. A parish register may have been lost, a relevant document may never have survived, or the available evidence may be too limited to identify an individual with confidence.

No amount of searching can recover a document that no longer exists.

Before setting a problem aside, record the sources you have searched, the results you obtained, the assumptions you tested, and the alternatives you considered. Write down the next steps you would take if new evidence became available.

You can also make use of a genealogy research planner and brick wall checklist to organise the investigation and keep track of what remains unresolved.

There is no shame in leaving a question unanswered. A carefully documented conclusion that the available evidence is insufficient is better than a confident identification based on a series of guesses.

Nor does putting the problem aside mean abandoning it forever. A new record, a discovery in another branch of the family, or a more detailed understanding of the local community may eventually provide the missing connection.

When everything else fails, drop back and punt

I may never become a devoted football fan, but that expression from my exchange year in Kansas has proved useful far beyond the football field.

Genealogy rewards persistence, but persistence is not the same as repeating the same search indefinitely. Sometimes we need to step back, examine our assumptions, and reconsider what we are trying to establish.

When you hit a genealogy brick wall, try asking yourself three questions before opening another record:

1. What do I actually know, and which sources support it?
2. Which assumption, if wrong, would explain why my search has failed?
3. What evidence could help me test a different explanation?

Those questions will not solve every problem. They can, however, help you decide what to do next and avoid spending another afternoon looking for the same answer in the same place.

So when everything else fails, drop back and punt.

You may not have found your ancestor yet. But you may have found a better way to look.