“I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Thomas Jefferson.
This Jeffersonian truism applies to your genealogy as much as it does to any work. A difficult lineage takes a lost of work–a lot of reading, a lot of looking at documents, a lot of combing through early indexes. A lot of study: jurisdictions, boundary lines, dates of legal changes, and place names. A lot of examining several persons of the same names living in the same localities. A lot of careful detail work.
Perhaps the most difficult part, still, is unavailability of records. And I thought I had encountered all of the possible obstacles in the way of actually viewing the pertinent documents. After all, I specialize in Southern research, I know that a lot of documents are needed. And, a lot of documents have already been lost! I was wrong–this is the first pandemic of my lifetime that closed down all of the libraries and archives.
I live near book stores, universities, historical societies, branch libraries, the famous Family History Library operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have access to the internet with about every website of genealogy significance at my fingertips! I have memberships for important websites that are not free to use–yet. And I have my own genealogy collection and the amazing Conner-Bishop Collection of books and periodicals in my possession.
And it is not enough.
Each pedigree is unique enough, that it requires specific documents, too often not shared by other pedigrees from the same jurisdictions. Imagine, for a minute, what kind of searching capabilities genealogy requires. And why the challenge is so engaging! There is hardly any other pursuit to equal it. Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://arleneeakle.com
PS I’m still at work. Books I could not find easily online, I am in the process of ordering for my own collection. As they arrive, I stop everything and search them. At least I have something to look forward to each and every day. And when the libraries and archives open–I will be on my way to use their treasures!