My 5 Favorite Genealogy Tricks

Get into a family tree research groove with these 5 time-saving, value-added genealogy tricks.

I've been working on a big genealogy project with such efficiency it's amazing. When I built a newfound cousin's family tree back several generations in one evening, I wondered what makes me so fast. A lot of it comes down to my 5 favorite genealogy tricks. Are you taking advantage of these tricks like I am?

1. Adding Details to Document Images

Building detailed information right into document images increases their value. Your entries in the image's title and comments fields stay with the image. That info is there with the image on your computer, and it's there when you put the image in your family tree software. You can view any image's property details by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

Use an image's title field to keep document images in chronological order in your family tree. Begin the title with the year, such as “1930 census for John White and family.” This practice:

• Helps you locate the document you need easily
• Provides a clear timeline of events, and
• Points out any gaps in a person's records.

An image's comments field also carries over into your family tree software. Include a detailed source citation and line numbers for the people of interest. Line numbers help when you're revisiting a document and can't find your person right away. For a closer look at this process, see step 4 in "7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement."

When I synchronize my Family Tree Maker file with my Ancestry tree, each image displays the title I wrote. The comments field of the image in my family tree shows up as the description of the image on Ancestry. That lets future researchers or family members see exactly where the image came from.

Are you making sure your saved document images speak for themselves?

2. Using a Document "Holding Pen"

Since I work on my family tree every day, I set aside time each Sunday morning to make a complete backup of all my files. Significant changes can happen to my tree in one week! The best way to make sure I don't overlook anything at backup time is to use a "holding pen" for my new document finds.

My family tree is huge. For the moment, I'm avoiding adding more document images to my tree, but I have 11,688 images in there. If I go on a spree and add a bunch of document images to my tree, it'd be easy to overlook some of them during my weekly backup.

To make sure no documents slip through the cracks, I have a "holding pen" for new images added during the week. I have one folder on my computer called certificates. Any new vital record images wait right there until Sunday morning backup time. Each Sunday I know I have to look there.

Within the certificates folder is a sub-folder called DON'T FORGET TO BACK UP THESE. That's where I keep censuses, ship manifests, draft cards, and anything else that isn't a vital record. I have another sub-folder within certificates called working. That's where I keep anything I haven't processed yet. Let's say I downloaded a record from the New York City Municipal Archives, but haven't gotten to it yet. I'll keep it in the working folder so I don't forget about it.

A holding pen ensures that any new treasures get backed up and filed as needed. What steps are you taking to prevent documents from getting lost? To get a better look at the process, see "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree."

3. Sharing My Family Tree Online

It's fantastic when a distant cousin finds their ancestors in my family tree and writes to me. That's often the only way I can find out what became of my ancestor's cousins from Italy.

When I hear from someone, I go into research mode and figure out our connection. How crazy is it to be writing to a 5th cousin you never knew existed? Then I follow their ancestors to America, in most cases, and discover all I can about their family.

I like to provide new cousins with everything I can about their ancestors in Italy. That's the purpose of my enormous family tree. I want my quality research to be there for every distant cousin or paesan who finds my tree.

I keep my family tree up-to-date on Ancestry to help out people who've taken a DNA test. I also upload my tree to Geneanet to help European relatives. (See "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem.") And I took the advice of one blog reader who said I can upload my tree to FamilySearch in such a way that no one can edit it. On my personal website, www.forthecousins.com:

• I list my ancestral towns and my primary last names from those towns.
• I publish my complete indexes of the vital records available for those towns.

Are you building your family tree in a vacuum? Don't you think a distant cousin's personal knowledge of their family could help you?

Make family-tree building easier, and genealogy source citations more consistent and valuable with a simple template.

4. Using Source Citation Templates

Lately I've been adding source citations for the thousands of Italian vital records I didn't cite. Shame on me! Since the documents are on my computer, I skipped citations in favor of building families.

But what happens when a distant cousin finds his grandparents in my online family tree? How can he be sure my facts are correct? Unfortunately, he can't be sure unless I provide links to the documents. When there's a link, he can see the facts for himself on the original document.

I generated a huge list of everyone in my family tree who has zero source citations. I did this in Family Tree Analyzer and exported a spreadsheet. The list contained more than 68,000 people, more than 14,000 of whom were actual cousins to me. Now I spend my days chipping away at that list.

A few tricks help me cross the most people off that list in the least amount of time:

• I sort the spreadsheet by (1) relationship to me, (2) last name, and (3) first name. That let's me focus on blood relatives before in-laws. And it keeps siblings close to each other in the list.
• I create source citations for one person from the list, and then I handle all their siblings. Reducing how much I need to move around within my family tree and within the spreadsheet saves time.
• I work one town at a time. I keep the Antenati web page open with all the available records from that town. Then I can quickly go to the register book I need and open it in a new tab. Sticking to one town reduces the typing needed for the citation.
• The vast majority of facts in my family tree come from Italian vital records. I use a source citation template so it's easy to capture all the important facts with consistency. When I'm making citations for a bunch of siblings, only a few details need to change. I turn into a copy-and-paste speed demon! Here's the basic Italian vital record source citation format I use:
  From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR DOCUMENT-TYPE, TOWN, document #, image # of # at URL

Are your source citations in decent shape? Templates and time-saving tricks can help whip your family tree into professional shape. Not sure templates are for you? Take a look at #2 in "How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert."

5. Making Document Collections Searchable

Consistency can be such a help to you, particularly if you can't work on your family tree every day. Shortly after I began building my family tree, I knew I needed to use a consistent file-naming process. Within a FamilyTree folder, I created a sub-folder for each type of genealogy document:

• census
• certificates (meaning vital records)
• draft cards
• immigration
• and so on.

Within each folder, the file names follow a consistent format:

• Censuses: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of household)
• Certificates: LastnameFirstnameDocument-TypeYear—2 names if it's a marriage. Examples:
  • AgostinelliFrancescoAntonioBirth1789
  • AgostinelliFrancescantonioCapuanoAngelamariaMarriage1828
  • AgostinelliTommasoDeath1800
• Draft cards: LastnameFirstnameWW1 (or WW2)
• Immigration: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of the family if it's a group)

Because I use a consistent format, it's easy to search my computer for a particular document. For more detail, see "3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents."

But the best thing I ever did for my family tree is rename downloaded vital records that aren't even in my tree. Years ago I downloaded entire collections of Italian vital records using third-party software. But websites don't like when you do that, so they throw up roadblocks against such software. (What can you do? See "Semi-Automated Process for Downloading Antenati Images.")

With those images on my computer, I began to view and rename them all. I made them easy to search for on my computer. If someone asks me about their branch in my tree, it's no problem at all to:

• search for more records
• build out their branch more completely, and
• share it with them.

For these documents, I use a different, more readable format. It contains the document number and the full name of the subject(s) of the birth, marriage, or death record. If it's a marriage record it includes both the groom and bride's names. If it's a birth or death record, it also includes the first name of the person's father. This is a tremendous help in finding the right record or putting together families. Here are some examples:

• Birth record: 1 Giovanni Luigi Stanziale di Antonio
• Death record: 16 Guglielmo Ciampi di Andrea
• Marriage record: marriage 7 Angelo Carpenito & Giuseppa Fioretto
• Marriage banns: banns 2 1st Francesco diFreda & Petronilla Panza

While a computer search may find what you're looking for, I want more power. I use a search program for Windows called Everything. (Find out how well it works in "My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives.") It's so good at finding a particular record, and this helps a lot with my source citation project. I can find the document I need to cite, see its document number, and go right to it online to capture details.

Can you find any genealogy document on your computer in an instant? Consistent file-naming formats and a good search tool may be exactly what you need.

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A lack of efficient genealogy research methods can be a big source of frustration for you. Think about what you can change to work smarter, not harder—and make constant progress.

Apply Your Genealogy Superpower to Other Families

Use your genealogy superpower in unexpected ways. I built a celebrity's family tree and discovered he fits into my tree!

Genealogy skills are a superpower. Researching your own family history teaches you how to go back another generation. Sometimes it's a lot of fun to flex your genealogy muscles on someone else's family tree. Inspiration for this type of project can come from anywhere.

In the past, I was inspired by memorials in my grandfathers' hometowns or questions posted in Facebook genealogy groups. TV has played an inspiring role, too.

An Old Movie Triggers a Question

I watched a 1952 Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis movie on TCM called "Sailor Beware." I knew James Dean was in one scene, and I spotted him before I had remembered to look for him. But I also noticed one sailor who was in a lot of scenes but may not have said a word. It was actor Vince Edwards in his second-ever movie role. Vince was in a TV show called "Ben Casey" when I was too young to remember watching.

I started to wonder about Vince, with my first thought being, "He looks so Italian. How can his name be Edwards?" So I looked him up and discovered he was the son of Italian immigrants living in Brooklyn, New York. With a little more digging, I found his real last name was Zoino.

Bells went off immediately. I know that name from a couple of Italian towns that were home to my maternal grandmother's ancestors. Today you can find that name in the city of Benevento.

To begin, I went to the 1930 census to find Vince as a two year old. Then I search Ancestry records for Vince's father Vincenzo Zoino. I had his birth date and place narrowed down to two men: one from Avellino and one from Benevento. A set of naturalization papers ruled out the man from Avellino.

I went to the Antenati portal to find the right Vincenzo's 1887 birth record from the city of Benevento. With a bit more digging, I found Vince's mother's Benevento birth record, too. Both her parents had last names I've seen often in my own research.

I texted my mom to tell her that "Ben Casey" was our paesan. Not a relative, but a close countryman.

"Finding Your Roots" Strikes a Chord

A couple of years ago an episode of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s "Finding Your Roots" featured Tony Danza. The moment the show began, I wondered if his name used to be Iadanza—a name I know from my own research.

Sure enough, Tony Danza's grandfather was Antonio Iadanza. He came from exactly the town I thought he should: Pietrelcina. This town neighbors my great grandmother's town of Pesco Sannita in Benevento.

I went up to my TV and took a photo when they showed Tony's family tree. Now I knew who to search for. I'd already downloaded all the Pietrelcina vital records from the Antenati website. I knew the town had plenty of intermarriage with Pesco Sannita and I'd need those records sooner or later. Having them on my computer made it easier to piece together Tony's ancestors.

I got as far back as two pairs of Tony's 6th great grandparents born in the early 1700s.

A genealogy hunch became reality with good old-fashioned research. Now this celebrity's family tree fits within mine.

The fun part of this research is that Tony and his ancestors fit into my family tree. Are Tony and I cousins? No. But his grandmother, Giovanna Zarro, has 22 different connections to my family tree. Each one ties back to my ancestors from neighboring Pesco Sannita.

I think it's fun to have Tony Danza in my family tree. And he could very well share some "Identical By State" DNA with me. (For insight into "Identical By State" DNA, see "This Spreadsheet Sorts DNA Matches By Branch.")

Use Your Superpower for Good

Keep your eyes open for a genealogy challenge that means something to you. Anyone with Benevento or Avellino roots is going to grab my attention.

Does someone have a last name from your family? My Girardi ancestors led me to research Joe Girardi, former manager of the New York Yankees. It turns out his family is from Northern Italy, so there's no relation. I have a 3rd cousin I never met who was a child actor. When he was a regular on a TV show, I saw his last name and had to wonder—is he one of ours? Now I know he is!

Is there someone you admire whose roots make you curious? See what you can learn about them. You may need to find an article to learn their parents' or grandparents' names. Then use the census, ship manifests, draft cards, naturalization papers and more to dig deeper. Prove to yourself how accomplished you are at this genealogy hobby!

How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert

A production line mentality is 1 of 4 concepts to make you a family tree efficiency expert.

I started this blog because my business approach to genealogy was somewhat unique. I build my family tree using as much discipline and efficiency as I used on the job. That approach made me more productive than my work colleagues. Now it's the reason why I make so much progress on my tree each day.

Family tree-building efficiency boils down to these 4 concepts.

1. Stay in One Place

I had a great time last month following "6 Steps to Finding Your Living Cousins." But there were times when I felt overwhelmed and had to take a break. I got bogged down in processing all the different types of documents, facts, and citations. If I started with one man born in Italy, and tried to find his living descendants, I had to find:

• His immigration record, extract the facts, and add the source citations.
• His census records, add new family members, addresses, dates, jobs, and give everyone their source citations.
• Vital records for each family member and add facts and source citations.
• Obituaries, search for any new names, gather more facts, and add source citations.

It could take all day to do this for one immigrant in my family tree. Having so many types of documents to find felt exhausting.

But, if you choose one type of resource, you'll spend less time moving around. You won't have to think as much because you're repeating the same few steps over and over.

Here's an example. What if you had a book filled with information that applies to certain people in your family tree. Instead of finding every document for those people, work through the book. You'll fall into an efficient pattern of work.

I own one such book (see "Imagine a Register of Your Entire Ancestral Hometown"). It's a detailed description of more than 500 households in my grandfather's hometown. As I worked through the households, it became easy to follow the same steps:

• Locate the right family.
• Go to the head of household and copy the book's description of his assets and family members to his notes.
• Create the source citation and copy it to each member of the household.
• Move on to the next household.

It's more efficient to cite one source for the whole family, than to find every document for the whole family. You'll get to them later.

Here's an example my fellow Italian genealogy researchers can relate to. I've gone back to my unfinished project of creating my missing source citations. (See "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). The majority of these citations are for Italian vital records. I've been skipping the citations because the documents are on my computer, and I can find them in a snap.

But I want my online family tree to be a resource for anyone with roots in the same ancestral hometowns as mine. So I have to find the documents online (on the Antenati website) to get the URL and image number to add to my citation.

The most time-consuming part of the process was locating pre-1809* birth and death records. You can only find these documents in the priceless matrimoni processetti. (See "The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'").

*Italian civil records may exist as early as 1805, but for all my Italian towns, the records begin in mid-1809. One exception is a town that didn't start civil record keeping until 1861.

The only problem is, there are a lot of pages in each year's processetti, and they can be in no particular order. Finding the page I need to cite can take a while. I needed a way to simplify this process.

Here's what I did to save all that search time. This works well for me because every person in the town is in my family tree. I'm going through each page of a given year's processetti one-by-one. For every pre-1809 birth or death, I check the person in my tree to see if I need the citation. If yes, I create it immediately. If no, I move on.

Working through this one resource, eliminating the tedious searches, saves a lot of time. And on top of that, I save more time by using the next concept.

2. Reduce Keystrokes

In 1985 I worked for a printing company. I generated templates on a computer, printed them on a plotter, and cut and folded them to look like the finished product—a direct mail piece. These templates were a guideline for creating the piece's text and artwork.

Words can be a template, too. I keep a handful of source citation templates handy so my citations are consistent. They also reduce the amount of typing you have to do. Anything that reduces keystrokes can save time and avoid errors.

Here are 3 source citation templates I keep handy. For each one, I add the right numbers and replace CAPITALIZED words to keep a consistent format.

1. For New York City Municipal Archives vital records: New York City Municipal Archives; NYC Department of Records & Information Services; YEAR BOROUGH TYPE certificate #xx; URL
2. For a resource of fallen soldiers from the Benevento province of Italy: From the Benevento State Archives, military records, fallen soldiers; register #xx, record #xx, class #xx; page URL, PDF URL
3. For any vital record from Antenati: From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR TYPE, TOWN, document xx, image xx of xx at bookURL; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/TARGET/full/full/0/default.jpg

3. Form a Production Line

Factories use production lines to save time, increase efficiency, and ensure quality. To get through so many searches for living relatives, I used a production line mentality.

I knew I had to search for several documents:

• ship manifests
• naturalization papers
• censuses
• draft registration cards
• vital records
• obituaries.

Keeping one person as my focus, I went through each stop on the production line. I searched for each document. I added the facts to my tree, made the source citation, and copied facts and citations as needed.

I kept my eye on the production line to produce a complete, accurate, quality product each time. But you can bet production line workers get bored, so on to concept 4.

4. Keep Yourself Happy

Boredom can keep you from getting the job done. If you get bored with one task, pick a logical stopping point, and jump to another task that suits your mood.

When I'm working through those big matrimoni processetti collections, it can get overwhelming. When I finish one year, I may dread starting the next year. Of course I always want to make progress, so what's the answer? Jump to another task.

After finishing one year's processetti, I went back to my list of people missing citations. (Find out how to generate your list in "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). Then I picked off people whose early birth records were already cited. All I had to do was track down their marriage and death records. That made me happy because the hard part was already done.

Reap the Benefits of Efficiency

If you're ever frustrated by your genealogy research, try adding these efficiency measures. Don't follow whims and bounce all around. It's inefficient! Focus on what you need to do to increase the value of your family tree. Always remember that your family tree is your legacy.

Pay attention to what you're doing and look for ways to save steps, reduce keystrokes, form a production line, and stay happy. Of course you're happy. You're doing genealogy! Best. Puzzle. Ever.

And speaking of efficiency:

• 4 Ways to Fit Genealogy into Your Busy Day
• This Genealogy Research Log Boosts Your Efficiency
• 4 Ways to Make Big Genealogy Progress When You Have Little Time

Time-Travel With Vintage Landmark Photos

Take a virtual trip back in time to see world-famous landmarks, cities, and your own hometown the way your ancestors saw them.

I was looking at an 1850 photo of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Then I looked at a similar photo I took in 2015. European landmarks don't change that much. If they survived wars, they're still there, looking as grand as ever.

America is different. It's all about change. We demolish our sports arenas every 30 years or so and rebuild. My mom's childhood home is long gone, replaced by a school sports field. Even our family churches are gone or repurposed.

I started my time travel adventure with a landmark church a few miles from my home. The Library of Congress website has a 1907 photo of Trinity Church. To compare that photo to more modern times, I used Google Street View and captured the same angle. The house next door and 3 tall monuments are the same. But the fence is gone, the large bell is new, and the telephone pole wires are really ugly.

Some of the more startling photos you'll find in this virtual time machine show famous landmarks with almost nothing around them. That's how they looked to your ancestors.

Here are six other websites where you can look at old photos of landmarks that mean something to you.

Redbook's "Vintage Photos of Cities Around the World"

This collection of 30 old photos covers many destinations you may have visited. Number 20, Québec City, looks exactly as it did when I visited in 2017. The end of town in the photo has a landmark hotel that, thankfully, still looks the same.

Condé Nast Traveler's "Vintage Photos of the World's Most Famous Landmarks"

Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge under construction looks like a modern-day disaster film. The photo of people hanging out of the Statue of Liberty's crown makes me dizzy. This collection has a lot of Italian landmarks I've visited. It's fun to see them pictured decades ago.

MSN's "Then and now: vintage photos"

This slide show let's you compare then and now. The before-and-after of Dubai is particularly jaw-dropping. The Times Square photos show what my immigrant ancestors saw when they arrived. The high-angle photos of the Arc de Triomphe point out one key change Paris made to this landmark.

BoredPanda's "31 Before-And-After Pics"

Several cities in this group changed so much, they've rewritten the book on city planning. The 1945 photo of Berlin is frightening because you can see so much destruction. But the "now" photo is from the 1990s. Some of the comments on this page are funny, too.

OldNYC

This interactive website lets you set a time range and zoom into the map. Pick any location with a dot to view photos. I found photos of The Dakota, where John and Yoko lived, with no other buildings around it in 1920. I'm not sure Central Park West was even paved. And I found a beautiful photo of New York's Plaza Hotel in 1908. It's more impressive than I remember.

One more.

Far & Wide's "Then and Now Pictures of Cities"

This page features a jam-packed photo of New York City in 1904 that I can't even imagine. Street cars, horses and wagons, early automobiles, and pedestrians, all on a collision course. It looks terrifying.

I've been tracking down DNA matches (see "How to Solve a DNA Match Using Shared Matches") and finding living relatives (see "6 Steps to Finding Your Living Cousins") for weeks. This week I'll get back to adding missing source citations (see "3 Important Tips for Great Genealogy Source Citations"). This then-and-now journey is both a nice break and a cool way to understand how your ancestors lived and what they saw.