Commit to This One Genealogy Project

No time for a genealogy marathon? Commit to one family tree project and tackle it in sprints.

As I hope you noticed, I haven't publish a new genealogy article for the last two weeks. I had to travel to help my parents move, and after that was Christmas. But the visit gave seven of us COVID-19, so there was no Christmas.

Did I put the brakes on my family tree progress during that time? Well, helping my parents move was beyond exhausting, so I had no time for genealogy. But COVID has only slowed me down a bit. As sick as I am, I've spent at least a half-day every day adding people and source citations to my family tree. It helps keep my mind off my symptoms.

My overwhelming project in 2024 has been to create thousands of source citations I'd left out. I used Family Tree Analyzer to create a spreadsheet of everyone in my family tree who had no citations at all. My tree has 83,000 people, and I still have 62,000 people with no citations. That's embarrassing.

But I know why I skipped them in the past. I have easy access to the vital records for my Italian nationals. I knew I could go back at any time and create the source citations. But yikes! I went too far.

Because this project seems as if it'll take a few years, I need to liven things up sometimes. Instead of working my way down the list, I jump on opportunities.

When a man contacted me on Ancestry about his ancestors in my family tree, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I added missing source citations to his people and crossed them off my citation to-do list.

I haven't found a cousin connection for the two of us, but his people are from my 2nd great grandmother's hometown. Long ago I downloaded all the available vital records for the town to my computer. (These mass-downloads are no longer easy to do. Websites block any attempts.) Then I renamed each of the more than 12,000 documents to make them easy to search on my computer.

I built out all my closest families from the town, and I completed their source citations. But I have a lot more families to build. With a bit of luck, I may find my connection to the man who contacted me.

Channel Your Energy into One Important Project

I know you aren't all as lucky as I am—able to spend several hours a day knee-deep in genealogy. But if you focus on one project that's important to you, you can make progress in smaller amounts of time.

If you had to choose one genealogy project that's important to you, what would it be? Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• creating source citations
• finding more vital records
• gathering military documents
• downloading missing census records
• searching for newspaper articles
• finding a very important missing branch
• organizing your documents
• scanning your family photos
• creating a Book of Life

Imagine you've chosen that one project, and you're committed to spending a little bit of time on it every day you can. After a short time you can make measurable progress! In my half-days last week, I added more than 100 new people with source citations, and made new family connections.

What's your top-priority genealogy project for 2025? Now, is it time for another dose of medicine yet?

3 Family Tree Tasks Need Your Attention

3 simple, worthwhile family tree tasks set you up for a new year of genealogy discoveries.

It can be hard to find time for genealogy with the holiday season looming. But I'm sure you can find a moment here and there. And when you do, these 3 tasks are the perfect thing to accomplish before the year is through. Knock them off, and you'll be all set for bigger and better family tree achievements in the coming year.

1. See What's Missing

Review yourself and your direct ancestors (up through your second great grandparents) to see what's missing. Since these are some of the first people you entered into your family tree, it may be a long time since you've given them any attention.

• Have you found every available census record for them?
• Are there birth, marriage, or death records available that you couldn't find before? What about obituaries?
• Have you gathered the draft registration cards or military records for your men?
• If anyone from this group was an immigrant, have you found their ship manifest and naturalization papers?

A funny thing happened to me recently. I wanted to use the new LiveMemory™ feature from MyHeritage, but I had to do it through the phone app. (I had bad results, by the way. I still need to find a perfectly-lit, crisp photo to try. When I tried it on people I know very well, I hated the results.)

While I was using the app, I saw an unexpected hint for my Grandma Lucy's 1954 obituary. I couldn't access this particular Ohio newspaper with my free subscription, but I found it on Google News. There, for the first time, I saw Grandma Lucy's obituary, and I found her mother's obituary! I couldn't get her father's obit because that publication date was missing.

This proves how important it is to re-investigate your closest relatives.

2. Fix Errors Hiding in Plain Sight

Export a GEDCOM file from your family tree and open it in Family Tree Analyzer. This free program points out errors you can fix, including a mother who's too old to have that baby, someone who died before they got married, and "siblings" who were born too close together.

With your GEDCOM open in FTA, click the Errors/Fixes tab. Along the top of the window you'll see 32 types of errors, each with a checkbox. You can click the Select All button and then below that, click the little button with the downward arrow at the top of the Error Type column. Choose Sort A to Z. You may find that some of these errors should be excluded.

• Couples with same surnames. My people come from small towns where everybody shares a small number of surnames. This happens a lot. Removing this type of error brings my error total from 988 down to 584. (My family tree has 82,072 people!)
• Possible Duplicate Fact. My family tree has mostly Italian marriages where there are two recorded sets of marriage banns. That's not an error even if it looks like one. But I'm not going to uncheck this type of error because I see a few duplicate marriage facts. These must have happened when I realized I could merge people, and I overlooked the extra marriage fact. In other places I have duplicate residence facts. When I look at them in my family tree, one fact has a source citation, and the duplicate does not. These may be leftovers from a bad Ancestry sync I had a couple of years ago. I'm going to check these all out. If I did uncheck Possible Duplicate Fact, my error total would drop from 584 down to 59!

See what you can do to whittle down your error list. I know you'll be glad you did.

3. Check Locations

Use Family Tree Analyzer again to spot obvious typos in place names. Once you've opened your GEDCOM file in FTA, click the Main Lists tab to view the Individuals tab. Two columns in this list have place names: Birth Location and Death Location. One at a time, click the little button with a downward arrow beside the column name and choose Sort A to Z. Now all the place names are in alphabetical order. You may have lots of blanks at the top, as I do.

I must note that the Birth Location list will seem as if it's not entirely in alphabetical order. It turns out the locations are grouped by country, then state/province, then town, then street. So my United States locations are near the bottom of the list. My mother's Bronx New York, birth location is way, way down the list. Once you realize that, this task becomes easier.

Scan the list one screenful at a time and see what sticks out to you. If my list had 10 "Elmira, Chemung County, New York, United States" listings in a row, and then one "Elmyra, Chemung County, New York, United States", the mistaken "Elmyra" would stick out as being a typo. Make any necessary corrections to your family tree (wherever you build it), and then do the same with the Death Location list. First click that same little button with the downward arrow and choose Clear Sort, then sort the Death Location column A to Z.

Finally, switch from the Individuals tab to the Families tab. Scroll over to the Marriage Detail column which shows marriage dates and locations. Sort that column A to Z. This is a little less efficient, but still worth a look. The column is sorted by date, but the dates are treated like text. Because of that, my first non-blank rows are:

• 1 APR 1813 at Santa Paolina, Avellino, Campania Italy
• 1 APR 1824 at Chiesa del Santissimo Salvatore, Largo Chiesa Madre, 2, Pescolamazza, Benevento, Campania, Italy
• 1 APR 1824 at Chiesa di San Giorgio Martire, Via Gradoni San Giorgio, Colle Sannita, Benevento, Campania, Italy

This sorting method means that fewer of the same addresses will be grouped together. But it's the first time I'm seeing all my tree's marriage locations in one place, and that's still a good chance to proofread.

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When you've done what you can on these 3 tasks, be sure to synchronize or republish your updated and scrubbed family tree. Come January, you're on to bigger and better genealogy research!

See what other magic you can do with Family Tree Analyzer:

• Pluck the Stragglers Out of Your Family Tree
• Finding and Fixing an Awkward Typo in Your Family Tree
• Free Tool Finds Details You'll Want to Fix

Quick Note: I've never done this before, but there will be no new articles for the next two weeks. Hundreds of my past articles are always here for you.

Why Your Immigrant Ancestors Came Here 'Legally'

Learn the truth about your ancestors' immigration and citizenship process.

Years ago when women wore slips beneath their dresses and skirts, other women would tell them—very discreetly—if their slip was showing. They'd try to save the lady any further embarrassment. Well, if you're still bragging "My ancestors came here legally," I must tell you, your slip is showing.

Of course they came here legally. The process was incredibly easy for them. Basically, if your immigrant ancestors were not Asian, senile, or likely to become a public charge, all they had to do was show up. And here's why I say that.

United States Immigration Laws, 1790–1952

Let's look at the immigration laws that likely affected your ancestors. It's a long list, but it probably had zero impact on your immigrant ancestors unless they are most types of Asian.

• 1790. The first U.S. immigration law required you to be a free white person who'd been in the United States for 2 years, and in one state for 1 year.
• 1795. This law required residency of 5 years with a 3-year notice of intention.
• 1798. This law, repealed in 1802, required residency of 14 years with a 5-year notice of intention.
• 1824. This law reduced the waiting period after declaration of intention to 2 years.
• 1882. This law barred Chinese citizens.
• 1891. This law barred polygamists and people with a contagious disease.
• 1903. This law barred anarchists, beggars, and pimps.
• 1917. This law had 2 requirements: (1) do not be Asian (Filipinos and Japanese excluded), and (2) be able to read any single language if you're over age 16.
• 1921. Immigration quotas began. This law capped new immigrants at 3% of the number of their countrymen living in the United States per the 1910 census. For example, if the United States had 100,000 Belgians, only 3,000 people from Belgium (3% of 100,000) could enter per year. This cap did not apply to the Western Hemisphere. There was a total immigration cap of 350,000 people in a year. Asians were still barred.
• 1922. Before this year, women received citizenship through their husband. They didn't need to file for their own naturalization.
• 1924. This law reduced the cap from 3% to 2% of the current population from certain countries (based on 1890 census numbers). It also reduced the total immigration cap to 165,000 people in total. Asians were still barred.
• 1942. This law allowed the immigration of temporary agricultural workers from Mexico.
• 1943. This law once again focused on the Chinese. Chinese people already living in the United States could now apply for naturalization. A total of 105 (one hundred and five) new Chinese immigrants could enter the country.
• 1952. This law ended the exclusion of Asians. It slashed the immigration cap to one sixth of one percent (0.0016666666666667) of each nationality (based on 1920 census numbers). (This is why I have Italian-born cousins who went to Canada.) After 1952 people no longer needed to file a Declaration of Intention.

Before 1906 you could file for citizenship at any court—local, county, state, or federal. Very convenient. And before 27 Sep 1906, declaration of intention forms were as simple as:

• name
• country of birth
• date of application.

After that date they added:

• town of birth
• port and date of arrival
• physical description (plus a photo starting in 1929)
• names of wife and children.

That's not exactly a burden for anyone. The petition for naturalization form also asked for:

• residence and occupation
• prior citizenship
• when they began living here and for how long
• residence of wife and children.

Here's what everything above boils down to for most Americans' immigrant ancestors. Be white, somewhat self-sufficient, and file papers that barely ask any questions. That's all it took to immigrate to the United States legally and become a citizen.

The Immigration Process Today

Before you can apply for citizenship today, you must have "Permanent Resident" status. That means you must be eligible for a Green Card through one of several paths, including:

• being an immediate family member of a United States citizen
• having immigrant worker status which usually requires an excellent job
• being a religious worker, international broadcaster, or a NATO employee
• having asylum or refugee status for at least one year (each of which has its own hurdles to overcome)
• being a human trafficking or crime victim
• being the victim of battery or extreme cruelty
• having lived in the United States continuously since before 1 Jan 1972

If you meet any of those criteria, you may be eligible for Permanent Resident status. If you achieve that, you're ready to begin the citizenship process. To be eligible to apply for United States citizenship today, ALL of the following must be true:

1. You must be at least 18 years old.
2. You must be a Permanent Resident for at least 5 years (or 3–5 years IF you've been married to a citizen for at least the past 3 years AND they've been a citizen for at least the past 3 years AND you haven't been out of the United States for 18 months or more).
3. You must not have been out of the United States for 30 months of more (UNLESS you were serving on board a United States vessel OR you were under contract to the United States government OR you were performing ministerial or priestly functions for a United States-approved religious denomination).
4. You must not have taken a trip outside the United States that lasted a year or more (UNLESS you have an approved "Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes").
5. You must have lived in the district or state in which you're applying for citizenship for the last 3 months.
6. You must be able to read, write, and speak basic English (UNLESS you're over 50 and have been a Permanent Resident for at least 20 years OR you're over 55 and have been a Permanent Resident for at least 15 years OR you have a medical disability form signed by a doctor).
7. You must be knowledgeable about the fundamentals of United States history and the form and principles of the United States government (UNLESS you have a medical disability form signed by a doctor).
8. You must be a person of good moral character.
9. You must be a female OR a male registered with the Selective Service OR a male who didn't enter the United States before the age of 26 OR a male with a "Status Information Letter" from Selective Service explaining why you were in the United States between the ages of 18 and 26 but did not register OR a male between 18 and 26 who is in the United States as a lawful non-immigrant.
10. You must never have deserted from the United States Armed Forces.
11. You must be never have received an exemption or discharge from the United States Armed Forces on the grounds that you are an alien.
12. You must be willing to perform either military or civilian service for the United States if required by law.
13. You must be willing to support the Constitution of the United States.
14. You must understand and be willing to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

If you are eligible for United States citizenship based on the list above, you may now:

• collect the necessary documents to demonstrate your eligibility (these include a copy of your Permanent Resident Card AND payment for the $725 application fee and biometrics fee; this may also include proof of legal name change, marriage certificate, spouse's birth certificate and passport, divorce decree, tax returns, and a whole lot more)
• complete an application for naturalization (this includes 100 questions on American history and government that Americans learned in high school and have likely forgotten)
• have your biometrics taken if applicable (fingerprints, photograph, signature)
• complete an interview
• wait for a decision
• if approved, take the oath of allegiance.

The information about today's citizenship process outlined above comes from the website of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

As you can see, the immigration and citizenship process is much tougher today than it was for your ancestors decades or a century or more ago. My immigrant ancestors were not escaping gang warfare, a war-torn nation, or religious persecution. They were leaving a life of poverty to come to a land of opportunity. They had relatives who came before them and were doing well. The relatives they left behind in the old country survived. That's not the case for many of today's immigrants.

It was not an enormous challenge for your 1800s–1900s immigrant ancestor to come to the United States and become a citizen. They made it through a simple process with little or no education. And you have them to thank—your immigrants—for your citizenship. You were merely born where you were born.

You dishonor your immigrant ancestors by saying "my people came here legally". That's why I hate it when people say that like a brag. Of course they came here legally. But how would they fare today?

Find immigration and naturalization documents for your family tree:

• 8 Tips for Researching Your Immigrant Ancestor
• 6 Key Genealogy Facts on a Ship Manifest
• Overlooked Website Finds Immigrant Ancestors
• What to Find on Your Ancestor's Naturalization Papers
• Naturalization Papers Answer Many Genealogy Questions
• Tying Up Loose Ends with Naturalization Papers