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Chipping Away at Brick Walls: A One-Name Study on the Pickell/Pickle Surname in Ontario

If you've ever done family history research, you've probably encountered the dreaded **brick wall**—a stubborn ancestor who seems to vanish into thin air, leaving no paper trail behind. I've been banging my head against a few of those lately, especially while tracing branches of the **Pickell/Pickle** family in Ontario.

To help break through, I’m thinking about launching a **one-name study** focused on the **Pickell/Pickle** surname (and its spelling variations) across Ontario. But what *is* a one-name study—and why take on such a big project?

A one-name study is a research project that looks at all occurrences of a surname, not just those directly connected to your own family line. It’s about casting a wide net—gathering birth, marriage, death, census, land, and other records for *everyone* with the surname in a given region or time period.

Why bother? Because sometimes our own ancestors hide in plain sight—misrecorded, misfiled, or misunderstood. By studying the surname as a whole, patterns often emerge: clusters of families in certain towns, naming traditions, or unexpected connections between branches. It can help untangle related lines and even uncover new relatives.

So why **Pickell/Pickle**? It’s a name that appears in several parts of Ontario, and I’m curious how all the pieces fit together. By mapping out the data—names, places, dates—I hope to shine a little light on some of the mysteries in my own tree and maybe help other Pickle/Pickell researchers along the way.

If you've got Pickles in your past (the surname kind!), or if you're curious about this approach to family history, stay tuned! I’ll be sharing discoveries, maps, and methods as the project takes shape.