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Your Top Genealogy Challenges & Frustrations

Introduction: Mary Harrell-Sesniak is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background. In this blog post, Mary shares some of the responses her social media friends gave when she asked the question: “Just what frustrates everyone about genealogy?”

Earlier this year, the GenealogyBank blog published my article “Why Do You Love Genealogy?” The responses were engaging and it was clear that there is a world of genealogy addicts out there. So I decided to query my social media friends again: Just what frustrates everyone about genealogy?

The responses were enlightening and immediate—over 200 responses about the ups and downs of genealogy. Surprisingly, there weren’t as many frustrations about barking up the wrong tree as I imagined. Most were about brick walls, dead-ends, missing information, and how people share or misreport genealogy.

I couldn’t include them all, so have picked some of the more enlightening answers to share. They are grouped by topic and the initials indicate the name of the respondent.

Enter Last Name










Brick Walls & Dead Ends

Locations & Websites That Stymie Researchers

Ancestors’ Names

Other Genealogy Frustrations

Records (Census)

Records (Deciphering)

Records & Family Trees (errors, missing and otherwise)

Relatives & Researchers

Sources (or lack thereof!)

Time & Money (not enough hours in the day)

Wishing They’d Asked…

A Few Last Remarks!

Got any more genealogy challenges or frustrations to add? Share them with us in the comments.

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