A Clear Map to Your Unsolved DNA Matches

Last week I showed how to limit your AncestryDNA match list to those with common ancestors. Seeing who these shared ancestors are can make it much easier to solve a new DNA match.

I mentioned that these DNA matches can also be seen on Ancestry ThruLines^®. That visualization can be quite helpful. So let's look at how you can see where a match belongs in your family tree, even before you build their branch.

My maternal grandmother's ancestors have a big old brick wall. Their hometown didn't keep vital records before 1861, so I'm stuck. I often wonder if a distant cousin knows something about these undocumented ancestors.

See Where Your DNA Matches Are Hiding

I'll start by going to ThruLines in Ancestry's DNA menu and choosing the horizontal view. This shows my direct ancestors and me, all the way through my great grandparents. I'll expand this view by clicking my great grandmother's name. She's my maternal grandmother's mother, Maria Rosa.

I couldn't place these DNA matches when I saw them in my match list. Here's where to look to solve your best matches.

A little icon tells me that Maria Rosa's grandfather is the shared ancestor of 10 DNA matches. I'll click that icon to see who they are. This provides a new view of an expanded family tree. There are six people descended from my 2nd great grandmother Vittoria. They include my mother and me, my first cousin, and four other DNA matches I've solved before.

But ThruLines also shows DNA matches descended from two of Vittoria's siblings. Descending from her brother Gaetano are three DNA matches. I've figured out two of them (they're siblings), but the third one is new to me. We share only 9 cM. She's the daughter of one of the siblings, so I can place her in my family tree. She's my 4th cousin once removed.

Descending from Vittoria's sister Paolina is one DNA match. Her Scottish last name and 4th cousin connection would have placed her low on my priority list. But thanks to ThruLines, I see exactly how and where she should fit. All I need to do is research her mother and grandfather who are not in my family tree yet. ThruLines tells me their names, dates, and where they fit.

Start Doing Some Guided Research

This branch begins with my first cousin three times removed, Antonio Zuccaro. I have a copy of Antonio's 1881 birth record from the family's hometown of Santa Paolina, Italy. I also have a copy of his 1904 marriage record from that town. He married a Santa Paolina girl named Gioconda Maria Rosa deSpirito. What I didn't know is who Antonio's children were or if he and his wife came to America.

This view of ThruLines tells me exactly what searches I need to conduct. The evidence says Antonio and Gioconda had a son born in West Hoboken, New Jersey. So I'll start by searching for Antonio Zuccaro in America. I found:

• Antonio and Gioconda's 1904 ship manifest. One month after their marriage, they were on their way to join the rest of his family. His parents and brothers had settled in West Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1893.
• Antonio's World War I draft registration card. This card has the same birth date as his Italian birth record. It puts him in West Hoboken, New Jersey, on 12 Sep 1918. And it has a slight misspelling of his wife's uncommon first name of Gioconda.

I'm quite impressed by this young immigrant, Antonio. After a lot of digging in a 1918 New York City directory, I found the company where he was an "agent" in 1918. It was the Lint, Butscher & Ross Realty & Construction Company in Manhattan. A 1929 Union City, New Jersey, directory shows what happened next. Antonio is the president of the A E Zuccaro Development Corporation. Some of his children work for him. That sounds like the American Dream.

Work Your Way to Your DNA Match

One of those children is the next person in the ThruLines tree: Ernesto. To connect to my DNA match with the Scottish last name, I need to document Ernesto and his daughter. I found:

• Ernesto's World War II draft registration card. He was living across the street from where I found the family in the 1929 city directory. His mother Gioconda lives with him.
• A few census records I can use to name Ernesto's siblings.
• His daughter's marriage license and obituary, confirming the dates seen in ThruLines. Now I know her husband's name. I'll bet my DNA match is using her Scottish husband's last name.

Yes! I found my DNA match. I noticed that the family moved from New Jersey to California, and I sure do love the California birth index. It tells you the mother's maiden name. As ThruLines says, this woman is my 4th cousin. Our common ancestors are our 3rd great grandparents Simblicio Conzolazio and Rufina Zullo.

Sometimes ThruLines won't give you all the names to connect the generations. When it does, it's such a powerful tool for solving a DNA match.

And speaking of ThruLines:

• How to Use Ancestry ThruLines for Research Leads
• Using Ancestry's ThruLines to Find DNA Matches
• Attracting a New DNA Match

This Filter Makes DNA Matches Easier to Place

September is half over, and it's time I tackled this month's task from my 2026 Genealogy Calendar. It's a simple goal: Solve more DNA matches.

I manage 4 AncestryDNA tests for my parents, my husband, and myself. Looking at Ancestry, I realized there's a DNA match filter I haven't been using. I can filter the list of matches for any of these tests to include only those with a common ancestor.

The common ancestor label means the match and the test-taker share the same ancestor. That's such a time-saver!

Filter Your List

To start, I went to my mom's list of DNA matches and filtered it to show only those with a common ancestor. As I scrolled through the list of nearly 100 people, I could see I've figured out many of them. I always add a note to a DNA match when I've solve their identity, and those notes are visible in this list.

The first match I see without a note is a potential half 3rd cousin or a 3rd cousin twice removed. The common ancestors are Emanuele Ricciardelli and Giovanna Consolazio. They are my 5th great grandparents (mom's 6th).

It's interesting that Emanuele and Giovanna aren't in this match's family tree. Ancestry must be figuring out the connection using other means. On her Italian side, this DNA match's tree ends at her grandfather. And his last name is not in my family tree.

Looking at this one type of DNA match led to a huge branch of my family tree.

Look for a Connection

Using this DNA match's family tree as a launch pad, I searched for records for this man with the Italian last name. (Note: My ancestors are 100% Italian, so I need to follow an Italian branch.)

I found his 1917 New York City marriage certificate. I'm so grateful for the online records of the New York City Municipal Archives. And guess what? His mother Carolina, whose last name is familiar, is in my family tree! Thanks to her son's marriage record, I now know who Carolina married. And this document tells me she gave birth to a son in Orange, New Jersey.

I checked my tree to see that Carolina's great grandparents are—can you guess?—Emanuele Ricciardelli and Giovanna Consolazio. Then I turned to my handy relationship calculator spreadsheet. To find my relationship to Carolina, I went to column "I" (my 5th great grandparents) row 8 (Carolina's great grandparents). She is my 2nd cousin 4 times removed. This DNA match is 3 generations down from Carolina, so I went down 3 rows in the relationship calculator. That shows this DNA match is my 5th cousin once removed, and my mom's 5th cousin.

Here's what's curious. AncestryDNA says this match and mom share 33 cMs. It predicts the relationship is in the 3rd cousin range. But I went to the Shared cM Project Tool found on the DNA Painter website. I entered 33 as the total number of cMs shared. The result? This tool found a 53% chance mom and her match were no closer than 5th cousins.

In this case, it pays to use all the tools available to you.

I added a note to this DNA match. I marked her as mom's 5C through Emanuele Ricciardelli and Giovanna Consolazio. Now I've got more research to do! I learned who my cousin Carolina married, but he isn't from her town in Italy. I discovered their 1881 marriage record in Italy and found birth records for four of their children. One of those children appears to be the groom from the NYC marriage certificate. The NYC certificate says he was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1893, but I have his 1893 birth record from Santa Paolina, Italy. I'll keep searching, but so far the 1910 census confirms that the groom was born in Italy.

I'm so lucky to have a ton of Italian vital records available online through the Antenati portal. Without them, my family tree would end at the great grandparent level. How disappointing that would be! Still, the Italian records create many dead ends. Using DNA matches, I can discover who came emigrated and continue documenting branches.

Try Another Avenue

I'll bet some of you are saying, "Why not use Ancestry's ThruLines® to find this relationship?" That did occur to me, and this solved DNA match is there. But the amount of digging it took to find her was ridiculous. I had to keep consulting my family tree. First I worked my way up to Emanuele Ricciardelli and Giovanna Consolazio. Then I had to look at my tree to see that I want the descendants of their son Samuele. And then I want the descendants of his daughter Anna. Once I followed those branches, I did find this DNA match as well as her brother. I didn't even know her brother was in my or mom's DNA match list.

Now that I have drilled down to this level in ThruLines, I see many more DNA matches I need to explore. I should have started doing this earlier in the month!

Have you tried Ancestry's common ancestor filter before? I'm always happy to see "common ancestor" in the match list, but somehow I never realized it was a filter until today.

How to Find Your Ancestor's Place of Origin

"How can I build my family tree when I don't know where my ancestor came from?" It's a common problem for many people when they become interested in genealogy.

My roots in America aren't that deep, so my ancestors told us where they came from. That made it easy for me to dive into vital record collections from their hometowns in Italy. But for those of you with deep roots, your immigrant ancestor's origin may be lost.

In 2021 I offered to research my daughter-in-law's family tree. She had no idea where her last name came from. Was it Italian? It ends in an o. I discovered that her roots in Pennsylvania—where she still lives—go back 12 generations. Because the family was so well established in the area, I found plenty of documentation on them.

As it turns out, she has ancestors from France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. She has a direct connection to William Rittenhouse—a famous name in Philadelphia. Rittenhouse Square is a public park on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

But what if no one has documented your deep-rooted family? How can you find their place of origin?

Discovering your ancestor's town of origin opens up endless family tree research possibilities.

Trace One Line

Start your search by choosing one last name from your ancestry. It may be your last name or any one ancestor's last name.

Trace that family line as far back as the records in your home country allow. Follow the family through census records and other documents. See if the spelling of the name ever changed. Look for documents that say where a person or their parents were born. A census record might tell you where your ancestor and their parents were born.

When you reach a generation born in another country, try a more specific search. Look for immigration or naturalization records. A World War I draft registration card gave me the birth place of my grandmother's uncle. (No one else in the family was born in his town, but it was a critical clue.)

If you can't get a solid lead on a town of origin, here's a good trick to try. Go to your favorite family tree website, such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, etc. Do a search for the last name you're tracing. Keep the details minimal. If you've discovered the country of origin, include that in your search. If your people arrived in a particular decade, look for others coming at about the same time.

Go through your search results to see if any town names come up again and again. This is a hot lead for you to pursue. This is exactly how I discovered the hometown of my great grandmother. She spoke of her town, but her accent made it hard to understand. When I saw other people with her last name coming from a town that sounded like what she said, I had my breakthrough.

Check Your DNA

Take a DNA test to see which countries are in your makeup. If a good amount of your DNA is from an unexpected area, that may be your first clue. Take a look at your matches for people who share similar origins. One of your matches may have the clues you need.

Lots More Places to Look

Finding that hometown is so crucial to your research that I've written about it many times. Here are 5 articles you should scan for more research tips:

• "Where Did Grandpa Come From?" cites examples from my research. I found town names on ship manifests, naturalization papers, passport applications, draft cards, and more.
• "4 Key Places to Discover Your Ancestor's Hometown" shows how I used a minimal search to find my great grandmother's hometown.
• "6 Places to Discover Your Ancestor's Town of Birth" adds birth, baptism, marriage, and military records to the list of places to look.
• "6 Ways to Find Your Ancestor's Hometown" goes into the value of tracing an ancestor's siblings. If you can't find your ancestor's records, their siblings' records may have the details you need.
• "This Expanded Resource Provided an Elusive Maiden Name" covers the female problem. What was her maiden name? This name can get lost over time, and it's your key to finding her ancestors' place of origin. See how I used one resource to discover my 2nd great grandmother's maiden name and trace her ancestry.

I know it can be difficult to break through this particular brick wall. But don't give up until you've tried all these research tips. The answer may be waiting for you to take a look!

How to Handle Inexplicable Genealogy Documents

I'm still spending hours a day creating the missing source citations for my huge family tree. I use efficiency techniques, such as working through one ancestral hometown at a time.

That's why I noticed a repeating error in one of my hometowns in Italy that is inexplicable. How can this keep happening again and again?

Here's what's happening—and how I'm handling it in my family tree. One of the greatest things about Italian vital records is the "matrimoni processetti". (That translates to pre-marriage inquiries, according to Google Translate.) These are the documents required before a man and woman can marry. All in one place, you can find the evidence to take a family back three generations! These documents include:

• the groom's birth record
• the groom's father's death record, if he's dead
• the groom's father's father's death record, if he's dead (which can include the groom's great grandparents' names)
• the groom's mother's death record, if she's dead
• the groom's previous wife's death record, if there was a previous wife
• the bride's birth record
• the bride's father's death record, if he's dead
• the bride's father's father's death record, if he's dead (which can include the bride's great grandparents' names)
• the bride's mother's death record, if she's dead
• the bride's previous husband's death record, if there was a previous husband

Jackpot, right? Civil record-keeping began around 1809 in Italy, so these documents are priceless.

Where Did This Come From?

As I work on the town of Circello, Italy, I'm finding handwritten copies of vital records that do not exist!

His marriage documents include a handwritten copy of his birth record. Only problem? It does not exist!

Here's an example. A document says Domenico Cerrone was born on 25 Mar 1812 to Giovanni Cerrone and Arcangela diTello, and it's record #45. But when I go to the town's 1812 birth records, record #45 has the same date, but all different people. It's the birth record of Domenico Fiscarelli, born on 25 Mar 1812 to Pietro Fiscarelli and Carmina Iacobacci. Now, I'm the lunatic who indexed every available vital record for this town. So I know there is no civil birth record for Domenico Cerrone, son of Giovanni and Arcangela.

So far this has happened 12 times, all in Circello. In a couple of cases, the copy in the matrimoni processetti contradicts the civil record. Everything's right but the date. What document was the clerk looking at when they made this copy? What do I do with this?

Cite the Source and Acknowledge the Problem

In each case, I created a source citation that points to this inexplicable document. But I went a step further. In "Leave Breadcrumbs for Future Genealogy Research", I explain how to use stock phrases in a fact's description field. For example, it used to be common to reuse a name if a baby died. The next baby of the same sex gets that same name, so you know the first baby had to have died. If there's no death record available, I note that the first baby died before the second baby's date of birth and write: "His brother [Her sister] of the same name was born on this date." Without an approximate date of death and that note, it would look like I made a careless mistake in my family tree again and again.

Stock phrases are the solution to the inexplicable documents problem, too. Each time the marriage papers include a copy that's not in the civil records, I add a phrase to the description field. "This record is not found in the [year] civil records; only in the [year] marriage documents."

When the copy shows a different date than the original civil record, I use the date from the original record. Then I add a note about it in the description field. "The copy of the birth record in the [year] marriage records has a different date of [date]." And I add a source citation for both versions of the birth record.

Why Cite an Error?

If you're wondering why create a source citation for two versions of the same fact, here are two good reasons:

• Citing both documents shows you've done your research.
• You may find another document that proves the inexplicable record was correct.

These stock phrases serve me well. See if the software or website you use for your family tree has predictive typing. It should. With predictive typing, I type "This record is not", and the software shows me the matching phrases I've typed before. I can choose one and change the years as needed. Each time I need to use "His brother of the same name was born on this date.", all I type is "his bro" and choose the correct phrase.

What types of inexplicable documents have you found in your genealogy research? How do you handle them?

Create Your Customized Genealogy Research Guide

I first wrote about using a genealogy Document Tracker in January 2017. It's an efficient way to track your progress and guide your research. At a glance, it shows which documents you have and which you're missing for each person. But I haven't mentioned it in a long time.

Why? It became impractical when my family tree got too big. Today my tree has 86,566 people. About 83,000 of those people lived and died in Italy. I'm lucky to have access to many of their birth, marriage, and death records, but I can't expect to get anything else.

Filter the List As Needed

If I can reduce that list to people were in the United States, I know there will be documents to gather. Here's how I can filter my list of people to show only those with a birth, marriage, or death in the United States.

• Each day I work on my family tree in Family Tree Maker, I export a GEDCOM file. I opened the latest GEDCOM in Family Tree Analyzer.
• I clicked the Export menu and chose Individuals to Excel. This created a spreadsheet I saved to my desktop.
• After converting the file from CSV format to Excel format, I deleted many of the columns, leaving only:
  • Surname
  • Forenames
  • BirthDate
  • BirthLocation
  • DeathLocation
  • MarriageLocation
• I went to the Data menu in Excel. I filtered the spreadsheet to show birth locations that included "United States". This hid all the other lines. I selected the visible rows and gave them a yellow color.
• I removed that filter and showed death locations that included "United States". Many of these lines were already yellow because the person was born in the U.S., but I made them all yellow.
• Once more, I removed that filter and made a new one. This one showed marriage locations that included "United States". I made them yellow and removed the filter.

Here's how you can create a genealogy research guide that's custom-made for your family tree.

When I sorted the spreadsheet to show only the yellow cells, I had a list of 3,034 people who had been in the United States. Yes, there will be some people that this process misses. I expect to discover them as I work to fill in in the spreadsheet.

Here are my past articles on the document tracker:

• Haven't I Seen You Before?
• Track Your Genealogy Finds and Your Searches
• How to Make Your Genealogy Research More Complete
• Why Use a Genealogy Document Tracker?
• Which Genealogy Documents Are You Missing?

Populate the New Document Tracker

To create my new, ready-to-use document tracker:

• I downloaded the master document tracker file I keep online to share with my readers. (Make yourself a copy of it. Don't request Edit permission as this is the master file. Make your own copy and edit that.)
• I deleted a couple of columns I don't want to track (baptism and burial).
• In my filtered spreadsheet, I sorted the results by last name, then first name. I displayed only the yellow cells.
• I copied the last name, first name, and birth date of these lines and pasted them into my new document tracker. The birth date is important because way too many people have the same name.

Salvage Past Efforts

I spent a ton of time on my old document tracker before abandoning it in late 2018. So I want to salvage the old file's contents. I opened the old and the new spreadsheets side by side. Now I can copy the pertinent tracking information from the old file to the new. Yikes. This is gonna take a while.

My passion project for the past two years has been creating my missing source citations. That's still my top priority. But when I do spend time working on people from my tree who lived in the U.S., I will consult and update my document tracker.

If you have access to a decent amount of records from your country, consider using a document tracker. With your document tracker, you can make your in-country research as complete as possible.

Why Did Your Immigrant Ancestors Leave Home?

In January I mapped out 12 small genealogy projects to add to this year's calendar. They're all projects I've wanted to complete, but I never seemed to make time for them. This plan has been worthwhile and productive, so I want to make sure I map out 12 projects every year.

My project for August was "Look into local social conditions". I wanted to find out what was happening in Italy when my immigrant ancestors left home forever.

Those precious vital records in your family tree can't tell you what your ancestor's life was like. This tool can.

I don't have a lot of immigrant ancestors since my roots in my home country are not very deep. I have:

• Two 2nd great grandparents who left Italy for New York in 1898.
• Four great grandparents who left Italy for New York in 1899, 1902, and 1906.
• Two grandfathers who left Italy for New York in 1920.

Based on these eight immigrants, I started a chat with Microsoft Copilot. After answering my questions, Copilot suggested follow-up questions that I pursued.

What Was Going On in 1920?

I asked, "What were the social conditions in the Benevento province of Italy when my grandfather emigrated to New York in November 1920?"

When I visited my ancestral hometowns, I fell in love with them. I wondered how my ancestors could ever want to leave. I've since learned that poverty in Southern Italy was a strong driving force. This chat (which cited its sources) told me about three dominant forces in the area at the time:

1. The political climate left Southern Italy with no opportunities for growth and modernization. These were farming communities, and only the wealthy owned land. That wasn't about to change. In 1919 and 1920 there was unrest over these conditions. There were strikes and social agitation that often ended in violence.
2. The economy in the south took a beating due to post-World War I inflation and unemployment. There were no opportunities for either of my grandfathers.
3. My grandfathers may have felt an obligation to provide for their families. They couldn't do that if they stayed home and worked the land.

It's also worth noting that the Spanish flu lasted from 1918–1920. This caused further hardship and increased the conditions of poverty.

What About Earlier Years?

Next I thought about my maternal great grandparents. I asked, "Were the social conditions any different in 1898 and 1899 in nearby Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, Benevento?"

The answer surprised me. Things were much worse at that time. In 1898 there was rioting over food insecurity. It was a nationwide crisis, but it hit much harder in Southern Italy. It started with a bad wheat harvest and skyrocketing grain prices. Protests in cities as close as Napoli ended with shootings and military intervention.

This was the year my 2nd great grandfather took his whole family to New York. Well, he did leave behind one daughter. She and my great grandfather followed in 1899 after marrying, having a baby, and losing that baby.

And In-Between Years?

My paternal great grandparents didn't meet until they came to America. I asked about my great grandmother's town when she left in 1906. "What was happening in Pescolamazza, Benevento, when my great grandmother emigrated in 1906, following several of her brothers?"

It seems that in 1906, as in 1898 and 1920, poverty was a major factor. Poor people like my ancestors didn't own the land they worked. Their situation sounds like that of the sharecroppers in the U.S. South. They never earned enough money to pay their debts and lived in a state of extreme poverty.

My great grandmother was the last of her siblings to come to New York. It's possible her parents were dead by 1906. Her brothers sent for her in upstate New York. Within four months, she married their friend and paesan, my great grandfather.

As suggested by Copilot, I asked about the daily routine of people in Pescolamazza in 1906. All my ancestors came from rural hill towns, located close together. So the description would fit them all.

Copilot gave me a detailed itinerary of a family's typical day. This includes what they ate, where they worked, and how they interacted with the community. It was a demanding life. I can appreciate how much easier it seemed to them once they came to America. They still worked hard, but they were able to thrive.

I copied the conversation into a Word document to save. I titled it "Southern Italian Social Conditions & Emigration". I'll follow up by chatting about living in a tenement building in the Bronx, New York, in the early 1900s.

What would you like to learn about your ancestors' lives and motivation?

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There was one month's project this year that was a bust—but I still plan to make it happen. I wanted to find more documents to digitize using HandwritingOCR, but I couldn't come up with any! I'd already digitized:

• my handwritten notebook of ship manifests
• a few books about my ancestral hometowns
• my brother's college paper documenting our family history.

I couldn't think of anything else.

Then I had an idea. What about my college thesis (a novel)? I can't seem to find it, but I have a few other items I'd love to turn into Word documents. There are my notebooks from when I was a college film student and two short novels I wrote after college. I'd love to recover these works through digitization.

Which projects have you had on the back burner for ages? What if you scheduled time for a couple of them? What's stopping you?