52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025: Week 5 – Challenge

NOTE: I accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge headed by fellow genealogy blogger Amy Johnson Crow. The idea behind this challenge is that you will receive email prompts, a word or phrase, every week, and you find something about your research or family history to write about.  Click HERE to read my first 52 Ancestors blog post in 2019.

There are so many kinds of challenges when it comes to family history research. Challenges include documents not being available due to a fire, hence the 1890 US Census, misspelling of names or the use of nicknames or initials, county boundary changes, and research enslaved people just to name a few. All researchers have experienced some sort of challenge during their research at one time or another.

I have and still face many challenges when it comes to my family history research. You name it, and I have probably experienced it. But other than researching my enslaved ancestors, the challenge I face most is researching the women in my family. Researching women can be difficult because until recent decades, women in the United States were considered second class citizens to men. For centuries women could not vote, own property, and many times women can have numerous name changes due to multiple marriages.

So how have combatted some of these challenges in my own research, I have researched the men in their lives (father, husband, son, brother in-law, and father in-law). Social organizations and church records have been helpful in finding out personal information about the women in my family. I have also used school records and yearbooks for more information about the women in my family during the 20th century. I was surprised to learn how many women in my family finished high school and attended college during the first half of the first half century.

Tell me about some of your challenges researching the women in your family, and what research strategies helped you find more information.