Whilst re-watching the epic film Titanic this weekend, it struck me how the life of the central character, Rose DeWitt Bukater, is a good example of how a genealogical "brick wall" can come about.
Rose boards the Titanic with her mother Ruth, finance Cal Hockley, and their servants. She would have been recorded on the shipping records as Rose DeWitt Bukater. She falls out with her finance during the voyage, and meets Jack Dawson. Once the ship has sunk, she chooses to give her name to the authorities as Rose Dawson: thus there is no Rose DeWitt Bukater recorded on the surviving passenger records.
Although this is a fictional story, the fact that Rose changed her name and effectively re-invented herself after moving to America is a scenario that happened time and time again. Rose would simply have claimed that she lost everything on board, and giving herself a new name would have been simple. Her family were in England, so who was there to know about her old life?
Anyone researching a real Rose could easily come up against a "brick wall" when a change of name occurred. In reality however, names were often changed to something familiar, such as a mother's maiden name. In this case, Rose takes Jack's surname, even though he dies at the time of the sinking.
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