Research often reaches a dead-end on a line simply because you are looking in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Never assume the place to be where you think it is," warns Julie Case, a researcher who lives in Virginia. "I wasted much time searching through Vermont records because family notes referred to events in Vermont. Finally, by accident, I noticed a little town named Vermont in Illinois. It is near where my families lived."
Researchers can be misled and confused by references such as Norway (Maine), Mexico (Missouri and Maine), Ontario (Ohio, Oregon, and California), Italy (Texas), Ohio (Indiana), Delaware (New Jersey), Kansas (Oklahoma), Dakota (Illinois), Wyoming (Iowa and Michigan), Virginia (Minnesota), and Switzerland (Indiana).