How to Use Hints Without Making a Mess

Now and then I develop family trees on Ancestry so I can collaborate with their owner. For my own tree, I do all the work in Family Tree Maker on my computer. I synchronize my work with my tree on Ancestry each day to benefit anyone who shares some of my roots.

When working on Ancestry, I take advantage of hints for one reason. They save keystrokes. I would never accept a hint without a thorough investigation. However, if I find the evidence I need, and I see a hint that matches what I found, I'll use it. It's a time-saver.

For my own tree, I don't even look at the hints. Most of my tree's facts come from Italian vital records that are sitting on my computer. If I were to find one of these documents in a hint, there's a strong chance it'd be the document image from my own tree. (People borrow them from me all the time. I want them to!)

You can use family tree hints, but they are hints, not verified facts. Do the genealogy research to find the facts and documents.

While looking at my tree overview on Ancestry, I noticed I had a total of 26,154 hints. That's a lot of things to ignore! I decided to take a look at the document hints, also called stories, since there are only 34 of that type.

Find an Interesting Hint

The first hint I opened was an image of a New York City death certificate for a man named Giuseppe from my family tree. I can see it's the same Giuseppe because his date of birth and his parents' names are a match. The only documentation I have for him is his Italian birth record. The great thing about this hint is the new information it provides:

• Giuseppe's occupation was art embroiderer. That's a first in my family tree.
• He died in Queens, New York, on 8 Oct 1918 of broncho pneumonia.
• He married a woman named Alfonsina.
• He spent 15 years in New York City before he died.

If I were the type of person to accept a hint, it would say nothing but Ancestry Family Trees. That's no good at all. The posted document image is a photocopy. I can see the staple holding the pages together. I went to Giuseppe's profile in this family tree and saw they had cited the death index record found on Ancestry. I can do better than that. I can get a clean PDF version from the website of the New York City Municipal Archives. I can cite that website as my source and attach the pristine document image.

And speaking of hints:

• 3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good
• Spinning a Hint into Genealogy Gold
• 3 Ways to Best Use Family Tree Hints
• How to Tell if a Hint is Any Good

Never accept a hint and move on. Use the information to find the actual document and cite that source. No mess, no assumptions, no compounding of someone else's mistakes. I followed the hint to the source instead of accepting it.

Push to Learn More

Now this hint opens up new research opportunities:

• Can I find Giuseppe's arrival in New York in about 1903?
• Can I find him in the census in 1905, 1910, and 1915?
• Who is his wife Alfonsina?
• What other documents are available for him?

To help answer these questions, I looked at Giuseppe's profile page in the hinter's family tree. Four facts had sources attached, linking to Ancestry records. I opened them all.

One. A link to a marriage index helped me use the NYC Municipal Archives site again. I downloaded his marriage certificate. Now I know his wife's full name and date of birth (that's a big bonus), and her parents' full names.

Two. A link to the 1915 New York State Census is promising, but needs verification. If it's the right one, Alfonsina is using the name Frances, and her mother Gaetana is using the name Aida. It's possible.

Three. A link to Giuseppe's World War I draft registration card has the name and address of the company where he worked. It says he did "art needle work". His home address is the same as the one on his death certificate.

Four. A link to a 1906 immigration record appears to be Giuseppe. (He's from the right town, he's the right age, and he lists a brother named Giovanni.) The 1906 date doesn't agree with his death certificate saying he was in New York for 15 years. What more can I find?

Records on Ancestry often show related results in a side column. There I found Giuseppe's 1914 Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. It has his correct date of birth even though it leaves out his hometown. It confirms the 1906 ship manifest! It says he arrived aboard the Cretic on 29 Jul 1906. Now I can add the immigration record to my tree with confidence.

Reap the Harvest

In the end, I added eight document images to Giuseppe in my tree and detailed source citations. I hope my tree will provide hints to my hinter. He has a great portrait of Giuseppe, but not his Italian birth record or his declaration of intention. (Note: If I borrow a photo from someone's tree, I make it private in my tree so it does not get uploaded to Ancestry.)

The New York City death certificate piqued my interest in this hint, but Giuseppe isn't my cousin. What is his relationship to me? He is the nephew of the wife of the first great uncle of my Aunt Stella's husband. So what is he to Aunt Stella's kids, my first cousins? He is the nephew of the wife of their half second great uncle. And that, my friends, is why you do genealogy until the day you die.

Adding GPS Coordinates to Your Family Tree

Entering an address into Google Maps and Bing Maps can show you two very different locations. In most of these cases, Google can't find the place and shows the same-named street in another city.

In a past article I explained why I prefer to use Bing Maps to locate streets in my ancestors' Italian towns. The other day I was looking at one town with a very dense cluster of buildings. I knew there had to be alleys running between all the buildings. How else would someone walk around? Google Maps showed no street or alley names in the cluster. Bing Maps showed a ton.

But I love using Google Street View to see what it looks like to stand where my ancestors stood. It's rare that Bing Maps lets me click to see the view from the street. This is why I often search both map sites side by side.

Why Latitude and Longitude Coordinates Matter

Here's what made me want to add coordinates to my family tree. There are too many cases where I look at a location in the Places tab of Family Tree Maker, and it's wrong. The map isn't showing the address I entered. It's doing what Google Maps sometimes does—showing me a similar street name in another town. Which is weird because Family Tree Maker uses Bing Maps as its database.

Seek out the missing and incorrect GPS coordinates in your family tree with this free tool.

I want to return to my ancestral hometowns in Italy. There are places I still want to see—and a couple of hometowns I've never visited. When I get there, it would be fantastic to pull out my iPhone and know exactly where to go. I don't want to risk getting there and finding an error in the FTM map.

See What You Have and What You're Missing

My family tree has been growing again as I work through missing source citations and add more facts. My tree now has 86,188 people, and the vast majority are from small towns in Italy. My tree includes 10,269 places. Family Tree Analyzer shows you the places in your tree that have latitude and longitude coordinates.

To see which locations in your tree have coordinates and which ones need them:

• Open your GEDCOM file in Family Tree Analyzer.
• Click the Locations tab. This puts you on the Tree View tab in the second row of tabs.
• Click the Places tab that's on the same level as Tree View. It's the last one on the right.

You will see different icons:

• A blue question mark means you need more information. I have soldiers who died in Ethiopia and Armenia. The map in Family Tree Maker is showing the right place, but Family Tree Analyzer marks them as Not Searched. I will add GPS coordinates in Family Tree Maker so they'll be in my next GEDCOM export.
• A green check mark means the place is on the map and shouldn't need any attention. In the Locations/Countries tab, you'll see the coordinates and a Geocode Status of Google Matched.
• A white check mark inside a green circle means GPS coordinates are in place. You should see the coordinates there in the table.

You will have places showing a blue question mark that don't need anything from you. Why? Because they don't have any facts attached to them. For instance, a man in my family tree was born in Coleman, Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada. I have GPS coordinates for Coleman. But Crowsnest Pass and Alberta have no facts, so they need no coordinates.

There may be other blue question marks you can't resolve. In my tree, an Italian soldier died in Kosovo, and I know the name of the town. But Serbia doesn't recognize the independence of the Republic of Kosovo. So the map in Family Tree Maker doesn't know what to do with it. That's above my pay-grade, so I'll leave it alone. I have another type of problem with a soldier who died in Libya. I have a town name, but I can't locate the town or its state on the map for certain.

Work Through the Project

In Family Tree Analyzer, click the Export menu at the top of the window and select Locations to Excel. Then sort the spreadsheet by the Geocoded column. Doing this, I see:

• 1,374 locations with latitude and longitude coordinates (way more than I expected).
• 774 Google Matched locations that show coordinates in Family Tree Analyzer. I plan to check a bunch of them to make sure Family Tree Maker is showing the right place. If not, I'll add the coordinates.
• 8,198 locations with no coordinates. They say they are Not Searched. The first one I checked looks correct in Family Tree Maker, so I'm hoping most of them are fine. I'm an optimist.
• 121 locations marked as Partial Match. There are different kinds of partial matches:
  • 73 Partial Match (Google)
  • 30 Partial Match (Levels)
  • 18 Partial Match (Ord Surv)

I didn't find a definition of the three types of Partial Match, but I checked a few against Google Maps. They seem fine. In a few cases, the address no longer exists. For instance, my parents' first home is now the site of a sports arena, so the best I can do is estimate the spot. (I found a map from the right year, but it ends a short distance before the sport arena.) If I add coordinates to Family Tree Maker, I should be able to clear up all the partial matches.

Copy and Paste the Coordinates

To copy and paste the coordinates into your family tree:

• Pinpoint the location you want in Google Maps or Bing Maps.
• Right-click at that location to reveal numbers that look something like this: 30.56951350255699, 49.039306549833455.
• Click those numbers to copy them. You can paste them in the Location field found on the Places tab in Family Tree Maker. See what the best spot is for these numbers in your family tree software.

When I don't have a specific address, I do the best I can. I put my mouse in the approximate center of the town, state, or country and right-click for coordinates.

Important! GPS coordinates in the Places/Location field are not available outside of Family Tree Maker. You can't get to them from your tree on Ancestry or in the Ancestry app.

You can make your GPS coordinates accessible from your smartphone with a feature of Family Tree Analyzer. Do this after you've entered all the coordinates you want. Here's how:

• From the Maps menu, choose Export to Google MyMaps. This will save a *.kml file to your computer.
• Go to Google Maps and click the Saved tab, then the Maps tab.
• At the bottom of the window, click CREATE MAP.
• Click Create.
• Click Untitled map to give your map name and description.
• Click Import and upload your *.kml file.

With this custom Google Map, you can use your smartphone to navigate to any location in your family tree! Open the Google Maps app and tap You at the bottom of the screen. Scroll way down and tap Maps (it's next to Timeline). Your new custom map will be there, ready to use.

Fix These Genealogy Errors Before They Multiply

If you've tried the new in-browser family tree analysis programs, you know your tree has some errors to fix. I've written about GEDminer and TreeLab. Now the ever-popular Family Tree Analyzer has an in-browser version. It limits the size of the GEDCOM file you can analyze, but I recommend taking a look at it.

Every once in a while, you should check your family tree for certain errors. If you don't, you may wind up with quite a headache from trying to sort out a complicated mess. Errors can pile on top of one another, messing up a whole family.

Here are 5 of my favorite and most important family tree clean-up projects.

Don't let overlooked errors wreak havoc in your family tree. Any of these 5 genealogy clean-up projects can set things right.

1. Your Family Tree Checkup/Tune-up List

Follow these instructions to check for these types of errors in your family tree:

• dates
• places
• media
• sources
• names

If you've ever found a ton of information to add to your tree, there's a chance you made errors due to your excitement.

2. Another Way to Find Errors in Your Family Tree

Use the available error reports in your family tree software or Family Tree Analyzer. This exercise may uncover errors you thought you'd fixed or errors you never knew you made.

3. 2 Ways to Give Your Family Tree a Checkup

If you're working on your family tree pretty often, consider doing this checkup about once a month. You may find that you made a typo on a birth year that threw all that person's ancestors out of whack. You can do this checkup with Family Tree Analyzer or your family tree software program.

4. 3 Little Fixes for Your Family Tree

Sometimes I spot an error in a person's fact description. I know there's a good chance I made the same mistake other times in my tree. It might be a typo that gets repeated or a poor choice of words. Here are 3 different corrections you'll want to make in your family tree.

5. An End-of-Year Tune Up for Your Family Tree

We're only human, so we do make mistakes in our family tree. (Not everyone can FEEL themselves making a typo the way I do.) Here are a few data errors you may not have been looking for, but you'll be happy to find and fix them.

Dive into any of these 5 articles and your family tree's quality will improve.

5 Rules to Use When Family Tree Details Are Missing

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every vital record you needed for your family tree was available to you? My tree passed 86,000 people the other day because so many records are available online. But I'm still left without many key facts.

It's so important to have an estimated year of birth when you don't have a documented birth date. Without that estimate, you might attach 20th-century babies to 18th century parents!

When I first began building my tree, I wasn't sure how to handle these missing facts. What should I type into these fields? I couldn't leave a name field blank, or a birth year blank. I needed to develop some rules to cover key facts that were missing.

These rules became second nature to me. They're automatic. I don't have to leave these important fields blank or enter whatever occurs to me at the moment. Here are my 5 rules to use when you're missing critical information for any person in your family tree.

You don't have to leave those undocumented facts blank in your family tree. These 5 genealogy rules will help you avoid errors.

Key Fact #1: Missing Last Name

Use _____ (5 underscores) for the last name. Don't give a woman her husband's last name. That isn't her name, and your family tree shows who she married. Repeating her married name can cause confusion…is that her birth name or not?

Plus, using _____ puts all your missing last names at the top of your family tree's index list to nag at you. (Find me! Find me!)

Key Fact #2: Missing First Name

Use _____ (5 underscores) for the first name. Keep scouring other family members' documents. One of them may have the name you're missing.

Key Fact #3: Missing Year of Birth

Depending on the information you have, you can:

• Match their spouse's year of birth. If you can document their spouse's year of birth, you can assume they were born about the same year—as a placeholder.
• Subtract 25 from eldest known child's year of birth. I use 25 because that's the average age when most of my people became parents.

But ALWAYS prefix the year with Abt. (the common family tree software abbreviation for about) to show you aren't certain. For example, if their spouse's year of birth is 1850, you'd say they were born Abt. 1850.

Key Fact #4: Missing Year of Death

See if any of their descendants' documents refer to this person as being dead. I see tons of Italian vital records that mention a grandfather, and may say he is dead. For example, an 1868 Italian birth record for Angela can state that her father is Giovanni "fu" Antonio. That "fu" means Angela's father's father, Antonio, died before Angela's date of birth.

If you find this, you can state they died before (abbreviated in family tree software as Bef.) the date of the document that mentions them. You may find a census page where the person is missing and it says their spouse is a widow. Or you may find a vital record that says their parents are dead.

If the resulting date tells you they died before they turned 125 or so, don't bother to record it. It's too obvious. The purpose of a "died before" date is to narrow down your search when new documents become available to you. It will also keep you from adding a child to a dead person.

Key Fact #5: Missing Place of Birth

If you have no place of birth for someone, see where their siblings were born. Of course, if you did this with my immediate family, you'd assume I was born in Virginia like my siblings. You'd be wrong. But that's mid-20th-century, and my family moved a ridiculous number of times.

If you have a good amount of data pointing to a particular state or province, you can use that place for the time being. Add a note or let the lack of a specific location say that you need to find documentation.

If you don't feel comfortable committing to a state or province, at least use the family's country. Take a look at the era. Do some historical research on the country at that time. You may be able to assume the family didn't move around.

Let's say there's a family unit in my tree with 4 out of 5 children born in the same town. But I have no document to tell me the middle child's town of birth. I'd feel safe in assuming the middle child was born in the same town as their surrounding siblings. I wouldn't commit to the same street or house number, but the town? Yes, for sure.

It's very rare for a couple to have babies, leave home, have another baby, and then return home and have more babies. Although I have seen it once or twice, it's very unusual.

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What rules do you use to cover missing facts so you can continue building your family tree? Having these placeholders can help you prevent errors and may lead you to the document you need.

One Question Leads to Rich Family Tree History

In January I committed to working on 12 genealogy projects in 2026. Before this year, I put off these projects because my source citations project takes up all my time. But each one is something I want to work on; something I want to complete. Putting them on the calendar makes me commit a bit of time to each project. And I have finished some of them 100 percent.

This month's task is "Find new details in family photos". A year ago I used Microsoft Copilot to analyze a few old photos. AI can identify time and place using clothing style, automobiles, landmarks, and more.

Choose a Mysterious Photo

I looked through my Family Tree/photos folder. I found a portrait of my first cousin five times removed, Francesco Saverio Basile, born in 1832. I have his portrait because he was infamous. He was a brigand. Definition? A member of a gang that ambushes and robs people in forests and mountains.

See how you can take a mysterious photo from your family tree and turn it into a rich piece of history.

But he wasn't hiding beside the road robbing wealthy passersby like Robin Hood. He was part of a large group of Southern Italian men who used violence to oppose the 1861 unification of Italy.

Copilot's Analysis

I dropped his portrait into Copilot and asked one question. "What can you tell me about this photo of Francesco Saverio Basile? He was born in Colle Sannita, Benevento, Italy in 1832. In 1861 he was killed by the Piedmontese Army as a brigand."

Whenever you use AI to learn about something, follow the sources. What you'll see is a helpful summary, but follow the sources to learn more.

Copilot confirmed this is a mid-19th-century Italian studio portrait. It pointed me to a website that talks about Francesco Saverio Basile. His nickname was Pilorusso because of his red hair. (I know that is true.) Based in a forest, he led guerilla actions against the new Italian authorities in 1861.

I knew about Pilorusso because a man from my grandfather's hometown wrote a book on the brigands in 2022. When I saw a post about Francesco by this author, Antonio Bianco, I used vital records to see if I have a connection to this man. And I do.

The best source Copilot showed me happens to be an essay written by Antonio Bianco. Reading the essay led me to ask Copilot several follow-up questions. Here's the gist of what I learned as background to this one photograph.

• I knew Napoleon's rule is the reason we have civil records for Italy from about 1809 to 1815. Now I've learned that Napoleon put his brother and then his brother-in-law on the throne in Naples. He must have been busy conquering elsewhere.
• After Napoleon's defeat, things changed. The House of Bourbon (aka the French) ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1816 to 1860. Italy at the time consisted of a few kingdoms, states, and duchies, many under foreign rule.
• This part's a real surprise. The Bourbons' investments made the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies prosperous before unification. I'm surprised because I know the south was not prosperous after unification.
• A pie chart shows that before the 1861 unification of Italy, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies held 66% of Italy's wealth. This explains why a band of rebels, or brigands, were so opposed to unification and loyal to the Bourbons.
• My cousin Francesco led a series of assaults on local institutions, based in his hideout in a forest.
• The governor of Benevento asked for help, and the military set out to destroy the brigands. By late 1861, my cousin is missing. Historians say the military captured and shot him.
• Another man, Michele Caruso, becomes the leader of the brigands after Francesco's death. His second in command, Antonio Secola, is also in my family tree. They captured and shot Caruso in 1863. Secola surrendered in June 1864.
• I can add to my family tree that Antonio Secola died in prison on the island of Elba in 21 Apr 1885. (I created a source citation for Antonio Bianco's essay and the website.) More research helped me find the prison. It's in what is now a beautiful resort town with stunning views of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

As a test, I tried the same exercise on three other AI platforms.

1. Claude AI

Claude AI impressed me. Here's what it did with the photo and a brief statement:

• It provided a summary of facts, citing another article by Antonio Bianco as its source.
• It led me to another source that says the military executed Francesco by a firing squad. This source contains photographs and paintings depicting the lives of the brigands.
• Claude pointed me to a Wikipedia page that says Francesco was a former officer of the Bourbon Army.

As a follow-up question, I asked for details about Antonio Secola. I learned his marriage date, which is great because it is not found in the 1856 marriages for his hometown. His marriage banns are available, but not the marriage. Antonio's story has some fascinating tidbits. For instance, he went to jail for theft, but since he had helped build the courthouse, he managed to escape. He went home for three years!

2. NotebookLM

Using NotebookLM, I uploaded the portrait and got a response before asking anything. The photo's metadata identifies him as Francesco Saverio Basile. NotebookLM provided a very detailed description of the man and his clothing. It dated the photo in the mid-to-late 19th century.

I added the note I have with Francesco in my family tree. It says: Francesco Saverio Basile was a "briganti" known as Pelorosso (Pilèrusscè in dialect) because he had red hair. At dawn on 10 August 1861, the Piedmontese Army broke up his band of brigands, consisting of about 1,000 men. He may have died on that date.

As a response, NotebookLM:

• went into even more detail about his facial hair
• said his clothing is consistent with the rural brigand style of the mid-19th century in the Italian south
• said, "His ability to lead a band of 1,000 men highlights his significant role during the period of social and political upheaval following the unification of Italy. This image serves as a rare visual record of a figure who participated in the intense resistance against the new Italian state."

It didn't cite any sources, which isn't helpful, but it suggested follow-up questions.

3. ChatGPT

The only other time I tried ChatGPT I hated it. It made up everything. This time I got more details about Francesco Saverio Basile's historical context. It mentions that brigands could be:

1. former soldiers of the Army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (which I now know is Francesco's case)
2. supporters of the deposed House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies
3. peasants resisting new taxes or conscription
4. local outlaws
5. people motivated by political, economic, and personal reasons.

Every analysis of his portrait mentions his tilted hat. It seems wearing it that way was typical of rural southern Italians at the time. That's an amazing little detail I wouldn't have suspected.

Your Turn

Time to go through your family tree photo collection. Which ones hold mysteries for you? Are there any where clothing styles or automobiles may help narrow down the time and place? You owe it to yourself to see what you can learn.

How to Find and Fix Family Tree Inconsistencies

As I continue adding the missing source citations to my family tree, there's a nice side-effect. I get to review how I've recorded people's facts.

There's one type of fact I want to fix, but I need to be able to see the big picture first. Most of the 85,000+ people in my family tree lived in Italy. Between about 1815 and 1865, their birth record can include their baptism details.

I always record the baptism when it's available. But I didn't always put in the name and address of the church. I didn't think of it until I visited some of those Italian churches. I need a way to find all the baptism facts in my tree that are missing the church's name and address.

How can you find everyone in your family tree with inconsistent details? It's easy!

Family Tree Analyzer makes it very easy to get the big picture I need. I opened my latest GEDCOM file in FTA and clicked the Facts tab. I selected only the Baptism fact and all the relationship types. Then I clicked the button with wording that seems confusing*, but it's the right one. It says, "Show only the selected Facts for Individuals who don't have any of the excluded Fact Types".

*The button's wording confused me because I wasn't excluding any Fact Types.

This opened a new window with the results. I have 24,910 people with a baptism fact in my family tree. Since that's such a long list, I exported the results to a spreadsheet. Then I sorted the spreadsheet by the Location column. Now it's easy to see the locations that are town names, not church names.

Here's an example of what I see. Ten people have a baptism location of Apice (Apice, Benevento, Campania, Italy). A few other people have the full address of the church of San Nicola in Apice. A ton more use the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Apice. I need to:

• revisit the birth records of those 10 people
• see if their baptism happened in San Nicola or Santa Maria Assunta
• fix the address.

Why You'd Want to Do This

This exercise is all about consistency and thoroughness. I've been preaching consistency ever since I began this blog in 2017. That's because doing a task with consistency adds quality to the results. And if your family tree is important to you, you'll want its quality level to be high.

Never overlook consistency:

• Make Consistency King in Your Family Tree
• How to Batch Process Your Genealogy Documents
• Organize Your Genealogy Research By Choosing Your Style

To begin, I'm deleting the spreadsheet lines with duplicate church addresses. Instead of 100 lines showing me the location of the church in Pietrelcina, Italy, I'll keep only one line. This will be my reference for any Pietrelcina baptisms that don't name the church. I have 12 of those, so I'll go to each of them in my family tree and make the correction.

With the duplicate church names removed, my spreadsheet has 6,484 lines. Several are references to remind me of the church name in that town. I see that a TON of lines are from four towns whose source citations I haven't added yet. I'll be working on them soon.

Like every other big project I do, I'll chip away at the smaller groups of people first. I'll pick off the 10 from Apice, the five from Alberona, the 13 from Pago Veiano, and so on.

The first town I addressed is the one whose source citations I completed on Friday. It's called Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, and it's a bit sprawled out. While the population is small, the town has a bunch of hamlets, each with its own church. The spreadsheet showed me that I didn't have a street address for two of the churches I've been entering. I used Google Maps to see exactly where they are and made all my updates.

Next I need to find all the marriages that are missing the name and address of the church!

Need Another Option?

If you don't want to use Family Tree Analyzer, you have a few software options. These include:

• Family Historian (this is the best alternative option)
• Gramps (I didn't find an export-to-spreadsheet option)
• RootsMagic (not the free version, as far as I can tell)
• Legacy Family Tree
• Reunion

Think about your family tree. Is there a type of fact you're better at recording now than you were at first? Wouldn't you like to get it right? Export a spreadsheet and tease out the inconsistencies you'd like to fix.