Sometimes we may be tempted to “start over” on a genealogical problem. It’s hard to really start over with a fresh approach. You can’t unlearn what you think you have discovered and you can’t just forget the information that’s confused you–or at least the conclusions you came to from that information.
What you can do is go back and double-check each fact or piece of data to see if you made a mistake. You can read documents again, focusing on every term you do not understand and researching every name mentioned in the document. You can determine the source of each piece of data you have involving the difficult problem (creating a citation for each piece of data while you do it). You can reanalyze something to see you made an incorrect conclusion or inference. You can make a list of your assumptions. You can learn more about the time period, location, culture, applicable laws, etc. You can ask someone else unfamiliar with your specific problem to review your information.
Don’t stress out about going back to “square one.” Start using something besides squares and work from where you are.
One response
Thank you! This reminded me to look at the Will of my 3x g grandfather to check out the witnesses. Perhaps they are kin?