Every family has a gap where the paper simply stops: the burned census year, the surname spelled three ways, the cousin who sailed and never wrote. When our genealogists hit that wall, they reach for three tools before anything exotic.
Neighbours first, names second
People moved in clusters. When a Kinlore vanishes from one register, we read the neighbours’ entries — witnesses, godparents, fellow passengers. That is how the “two Jennys” confusion of 2019 was cleared: two households, one shared midwife, and a single misread initial.
Cite everything, even the dead ends
A checked box that failed still saves the next researcher a week. Every dead end in this archive carries a note, a date, and a name — so nobody pays twice for the same empty drawer.