Coming Up Against a Brick Wall

It sometimes happens that you just can't get back any further because there's no record at all of a person's father or mother - a brick wall! One trick which sometimes works is to search for the surname in the town where the person was born, between 18 and 40 years before the person's birth date - this gives a number of possible fathers. Then check each one in turn until you find the one who had a child of the correct name. Time consuming, but sometimes the only way!