Another problem caused by searching too short of a time period is finding the wrong immigrant. We may not realize how common our ancestor's name is. When we find a person with the right name, we stop. However, further searches in the records may locate another immigrant with the same name, who may actually fit our information better. An immigrant's marriage record may actually be two or three years before the first known child (rather than the one year often assumed). This is often the case if the first child or two died young and are not known to family researchers. On the other hand, sometimes the marriage did not take place until after the first child was born, or just before the birth. Limiting a marriage search to a year prior to the first child's birth may cause you to miss the marriage record altogether, or assume they married in a different place, and of course you wouldn't find them in that other place either!