Banging my head on a Brick Wall

There are so many brick walls when you get into genealogy. Sometimes you have to pound away till you break through and other times you have to chip away, or approach from a different angle. My husband is always saying I'll never finish because I am always chasing away down other lines. Well...

1. FAMILY HISTORY DOESN'T FINISH - there is always more to do, more people to find and then find out about;

2. Chasing down other lines, or collateral lines as they are known, can lead to another way around a problem or uncover another clue about a brick wall. It can also take you to the most interesting places.

Ideally I would love to break all my brick walls, but the main ones that nag me at the moment are Anne Allen, mother of Anne Groves Leonard, and Elizabeth Groves, paternal grandmother of same. I have some clues for Anne Allen. She and her husband, George Valentine Leonard, had a penchant for using family names for their children's middle names. Their first daughter was Lucy Pearsall Leonard, and I suspect that Pearsall is Anne Allen's mother's maiden name, so I have to get the Taunton St. Mary Magdalen Parish Records. Their first son was Frederick Allen Leonard - well, that's Anne's maiden name, which I know from her marriage record. Alfred's middle name was George, for his father. I don't know the middle names, if any, of the other sons, George, Charles and John. Anne Groves Leonard gave me her paternal grandmother's maiden name, and then the next daughter is Emma Alderman Leonard, so maybe that is another clue for Anne Allen, or it could be a clue for Elizabeth Groves. Records, records, I need to see records.

All I know about Elizabeth Groves is that her father was Valentine Groves, a seedsman and gardner in Evesham, Worcestershire. But who was her mother?

I need to get serious about ordering films from the Family History Library.