Breaking Through #1 Mexico Family Genealogy Research Challenge - Frustration

[Jack Blair]

What are the leading five challenges that prevent people from finding
someone in Mexico or starting their Mexican family genealogy research?
The most common challenge that I have come across in my research is
frustration. People may feel as though there may be no hope in finding
the person they are looking for.
Maybe they are frustrated because they don't know or speak the Spanish
language. This can be especially upsetting for people who are doing
their Mexican family genealogy and researching to find a mother or
father living in Mexico.
Some of our clients have said their biggest problem is they do not
speak Spanish or have never been to Mexico and have no idea where to
start looking. Some tell us they have names and some information, but
have not had any luck at all finding anybody. They may be ready to
stop their Mexico family genealogy research because they feel
overwhelmed, confused or even depressed. They are possibly frustrated
because they may have spent hours on the Internet and have come up
with nothing.
Let's talk about that for a minute. There's a good reason why a person
doing family genealogy research for someone in Mexico has not found
any information. Let's start with the Internet. For most people, the
Internet is an easy way to find people. Let's face it, if you are
trying to find someone in the United States, all you need to do is put
in their name, city, state, and maybe their zip code.
There are many online search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or the
Internet White Pages. If a person has done something that got them
listed on the Internet such as: owning a web site; have published
articles; been in a newspaper; or even just have a residential listing
that is online, they can easily be found through an online search just
by plugging their information into a search engine. There is a lot of
personal information on people living in the United States and there
are several ways to search for them and it is very easy to find them--
if they are living in the United States.
So naturally, when most people think about finding someone in Mexico,
whether or not they are doing family genealogy research, they turn to
the Internet. However, the problem with trying to find someone in
Mexico by using the Internet is that very little of the information on
individuals who are living in Mexico is digitized. Herein lays the
problem. The information is not on the Internet including free family
genealogy web sites. If you did an Internet search for Mexico, you
would receive a lot of results, but a closer look at the results
reveals that most of them have to do with New Mexico or Mexico,
Missouri. The results you get from these online searches are almost
always about people living in the United States and are not focused on
the Country of Mexico which is where you want to get information.
Marie Daly, director of the Research Library at the New England
Historic Genealogical Society gave this comment about family genealogy
research on the Internet, "I'd say perhaps only 10 percent of the
genealogical information out there is on the Web. But when people do
genealogy research, they think that's 100 percent, and they make a big
error that way. Not everything is on the Web. And some of the things
that are on the Web are erroneous." - How to be a Self-Sufficient
Researcher by Margaret Moen
Even though you may spend a lot of time looking for this information
and have visited some of the family genealogy research web sites, it
may be in the wrong direction. So rest your fingers for a minute if
you have already spent an hour or more looking on the Internet. Why
would I say this? Because most people have used up their own ideas of
where and how to search online after an hour. There is a science to
searching online. After an hour most people have used up all of their
resources and ideas of how to look for information. After that a lot
of people are just spending time surfing the net, bouncing from site
to site, looking and hoping for some new information.
People may feel that if they keep searching, they will find that one
family genealogy research web site that has the information they are
looking for. There is no one magic web site that will give you a
simple answer to locate someone living in Mexico. It is just not out
there and this includes free family genealogy sites.
If you are frustrated because you have spent a lot of time looking for
someone, have tried free family genealogy web sites and nothing you
have done has worked, you are finally in the right place. In the next
few articles, I am going to share with you information on what to do
and how to do it. So don't give up.

Search Millions of Public Records: http://www.pubrecs.tk/