04 December 2012

The Other Side of the Brick

ugh Sargent, of Courteenhall, Northamptonshire and his descendants in England, Aaron Sargent, Somerville, Mass. (1895)--obtained digitally on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org) on 3 December 2012
Your "brick wall" may be someone else's as well, just from the opposite side. The compiler of this 1895 Sargent genealogy only knew the name of one of Clark Sargent's children. Unfortunately, I (for a long time) only knew the name of my ancestor, Ira Sargent--no sibling information was known.

Of course, Ira turned out to be 1128--that son that the compiler was unable to locate. The Sargent genealogy only traced male lines so there wouldn't have been much to say about Ira anyway as he had three daughters.

There are several reasons Clark was a brick wall for all parties concerned:

  • Clark died young.
  • His wife died young, but after Clark.
  • His wife's second husband raised the children and they used his last name in several records.
  • The family settled where they had no near relatives, making communication of information with other family members difficult and reducing the children's knowledge of their heritage.