4 Reasons to Digitize All Your Genealogy Work

The Ellis Island website was my first stop when I became interested in genealogy. After I found my grandfathers' ship manifests, I looked for people with my closest ancestors' last names. I recorded everything I found in a notebook.

Then a friend turned me on to Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com. From that point on, I stopped filling notebooks and filled my Family Tree Maker file instead. Each discovery, document, and photograph needs to be in your family tree. Unless you're keeping a 100% paper family tree, that means you need to digitize everything.

Are you looking for a compelling reason to digitize all your genealogy holdings? Here are 4 of them, with a cute acronym—PEAS.

Go fully digital to protect your family tree and reap the benefits.

1. Protection

I have so few paper genealogy documents they fit in one file folder. They include hard copies of some of my ancestors' U.S. vital records. I keep them in a metal safe.

By keeping all your genealogy work in digital format, you can better protect it from harm or loss. I build my tree in Family Tree Maker, attaching important documents to the tree. Each day when I'm finished working on my tree, I:

• export a GEDCOM file
• create a smaller backup with no media files attached
• create a large backup file with all media files attached
• copy these files, the Family Tree Maker file, and its automatic backup file to the cloud.

All these files become part of my weekly backup plan so they're kept on two external hard drives as well as the cloud.

I store my tons of document images on OneDrive. These include vital records, censuses, ship manifests, naturalization documents, and much more. Whenever I add a new document image, I capture it in my weekly backup routine.

My genealogy work can survive any catastrophe that might happen to my computer.

2. Efficiency

I've seen people debate the best type of binders to use for their genealogy research. Binders? My family tree has 83,000 people and will continue to grow. Saving my work as paper printouts in binders is crazy. I'd need a second house to hold them all, and a ton of money for the materials.

I did fill one accordion folder with large printouts of my closest ancestors' papers long ago. I thought I'd bring it to family gatherings. That only happened once. I run a 98% paper-free office. No clutter allowed.

Efficiency means it's easy to take all my work with me.

3. Access

When I visit my mother, she always has some random question about the family. "Where did Uncle Silvio live when he went to high school?" That's not something I know off the top of my head. But I have my iPhone, and I can find his 1940 census page on OneDrive. She's always asking me when someone's birthday is, or how old they'd be if they were alive. I can pull up my tree on Ancestry.com to answer those questions.

At home, I work on my family tree using a tower computer, not a laptop. I keep a laptop to take with me when I travel. It's fantastic to be able to access every bit of my work from that computer using OneDrive. On one trip, I renamed downloaded vital records to make them searchable. Since the files are on OneDrive, the changes I made synchronized to my tower computer when I got home.

4. Searchability

As I mentioned above, I rename downloaded files to make them searchable on my computer. I have huge collections of Italian vital record images from my ancestral hometowns. Because I've renamed them, I can find what I need in a second. I use a Windows-based program called Everything to show me every result.

Name your genealogy files in a way that improves your search results.

Let's say I've added the 1814 marriage of Pietro Mazzone and Vita Nicola Tosto to my family tree. Now I want to find and add all their children. Because of the naming style I use, I can search for all their children at once.

In the Everything program, I type "Mazzone di Pietro to find:

• his 6 children's births
• 3 of their deaths
• 7 of their marriages

Each result is clickable, opening the document image.

This is possible because I renamed the files with the person's name and their father's name. (I use the Italian word di, meaning of, before the father's name as a shorthand.)

With consistent file naming, you can search for and find whatever you need.

Let's Get Digital

Now here's your challenge. Come up with a concrete timetable that works for you, and:

• Scan or digitally photograph all your paper documents and photographs. Then name and store the files using a logical system that makes sense to you.
• Rename and organize all your downloaded genealogy document images. Depending on your preference, you can store the files by file type of document or by family name.
• Use HandwritingOCR to capture text from handwritten or printed pages. Save them as text files. You can save the text of newspaper articles in an individual's notes section in your family tree. If you have handwritten notes, capture their text to make it more usable.
• Follow a weekly plan to keep digital backups in more than one location. If you don't work on your family tree each week, you can follow a monthly backup plan. Use external hard drives and cloud storage to help ensure the safety of your data.
• Export a GEDCOM file from your family tree each time you work on it. Keep this file safe and make it part of your regular backup plan.

Now's the time. Reduce your reliance on paper and safeguard your assets. Make your genealogy research thoroughly modern.

5 Reasons to Add Sources to Your Family Tree

My family tree has grown past 83,000 people. Last year I began a full-time campaign to add all the missing source citations to my family tree. I've forgotten the original numbers, but I have 5,142 cousins and 52,358 other people in need of sources. I work my way through an average of 100 people a day.

Why would anyone work this hard on source citations? I'm glad you asked (LOL). Here are 5 good reasons to make source citations a high priority in your family tree research.

Show everyone the value of your family tree by bringing the receipts.

1. Sources Make Your Family Tree Believable

Imagine you find a family tree online that contains your grandmother's first cousin. The tree has lots of details and ancestors you don't have. Then you look closer and find that tree has no source citations at all. How can you believe any of it?

Now imagine everyone in that family tree has source citations. They have links you can follow to see the original documents for yourself. Wouldn't that be fantastic?

If you're doing quality work on your family tree, don't you want others to find it believable? Maybe their tree has errors and yours is right. Your source citations are what makes your work reliable.

2. Sources Help Put Others on the Right Track

It's common for people to accept hints or borrow names and dates from other trees—leading to big mistakes. Then others find their tree and perpetuate the same mistakes.

Let your well-sourced family tree be the beacon that shows them the way. The next person who see hints from incorrect trees, and your sourced tree, can recognize the truth. Only you brought the receipts!

3. Sources Give Distant Cousins an Incredible Gift

I love when people contact me because they found their ancestors in my family tree. Often they're unaware that the Italian vital records are online. They're wondering how on earth I found all these names and dates.

That's when I point them to my source citations so they can see the vital record images for themselves. And I give them the link to my Antenati instructions, if they're interested.

I've busted down brick walls for lots of people with roots in my ancestral hometowns.

4. Sources Help You Fix Errors in Your Family Tree

Hunting down records online to get the source citations gives you a chance to review your facts. I've found errors that might have stayed there forever if not for this second look. I've discovered:

• Typos that resulted in a wrong address.
• People I need to merge into one.
• Duplicate people, one with the wrong birth year and one with the right one.
• Missing baptism dates.
• Missing middle names because only their first name is in the birth record column. Their middle names are in the body of the record, and I overlooked them.

I'm always surprised to find these errors, but so happy to fix them.

5. Sources Create a Glorious Legacy

For all the reasons above, a well-sourced family tree is far more valuable than an unsourced tree. If many of your sources are "Ancestry Family Tree" or something else generic, that's not good enough. You can do better. You need to get to the original sources. (See Trade Up to Better Family History Sources.)

The mission of this blog is to help you create a one-of-a-kind legacy—your family tree. Consistency, source citations, and a lack of errors are key to making your family tree your legacy.

I fell down on the job with my Italian vital record source citations. I was all excited to connect everyone from my ancestral hometowns. And I did that on a grand scale. But it's no good to other people without those source citations. That's why I'm driven to whittle down my list of sourceless people every day.

How You Can Get Started

You can generate a list of people in your family tree missing source citations in a few steps.

Use Family Tree Analyzer to show who has no source citations in your family tree.

• Export a GEDCOM file from your family tree, wherever you keep it.
• Open that GEDCOM with Family Tree Analyzer. (Also see How to Find Errors in Your Family Tree.)
• Go to the Main List tab.
• Click the Export menu and choose Individuals to Excel. This will prompt you to save a CSV file to your computer. You can open a CSV file with any brand of spreadsheet software.
• For ease of use, I find it's best to delete every column except:
  • Forenames
  • Surname
  • BirthDate
  • RelationToRoot, and
  • SourcesCount (the last column)
• Use your spreadsheet software to sort the SourcesCount column from A to Z so the zeroes are at the top.

I want to focus on blood relatives first, and people with no sources at all. So I sorted my spreadsheet by these columns, in this order:

• SourcesCount
• RelationToRoot
• Surname
• Forenames

I deleted all the rows with one or more existing sources, leaving only the massive amount of zeroes. When they're all gone, I'll chase down other individual facts with no sources.

Most of my source citations are Italian vital records from the Antenati website. There's plenty I can do to increase my productivity:

• Work on one town at a time. I use a template for each type of citation (birth, marriage, death). Then I change the numbers and links as needed.
• Work on one full set of siblings at a time. I have all my towns' vital records on my computer, renamed for easy searching. (The file names include document numbers and the person's father's first name.) I can search for all the children of one man, see their record numbers, and find the documents on Antenati. The less I have to move around within my Family Tree Maker file, the faster I can go.

Even if this sounds like too much work to you, take a look at your SourceCount in Family Tree Analyzer. Celebrate your accomplishments or steel yourself for the important work ahead.

3 Reasons to Build Your Family Tree Offline

You can find my massive family tree on Ancestry.com and on the free website Geneanet.org. But I don't build my tree online. Family Tree Maker is the only desktop genealogy program I've ever used, and I'm a devoted fan.

Building a tree on Ancestry can be fun, and I've done it for other people. It has some nice features, but when you're creating your legacy, you want to do your best work.

Here are 3 reasons it's better to build your family tree offline and then share your work online.

Be proud to be a family tree control freak.

1. Full Control

Call me a control freak, but I want things done right. Using desktop software, I can see a list of all my existing:

• Sources. You can look for duplicates, sources with no citations, and source titles that need an edit. Collections on Ancestry.com will have a title change if they contain more years than they did before.
• Places. It's easy to see which ones aren't recognized by the software, and make global edits as needed.
• Media. In one place, make sure each media item has a category, spot the ones you should crop, and see who's attached to what.
• People. You can see a full list of all your people sorted by last name, first name, birth date, death date, or marriage date. Check the bottom of the list while it's sorted by birth date to see who you entered without a birth date.

I can add a color-code to one person and it will repeat that color for all their ancestors and descendants, if I choose. I've used color to make certain people recognizable instantly:

• My 4 grandparents each have a unique color, and it's displayed for all their direct ancestors. This makes it clear which branch I'm viewing. It also shows where my paternal grandparents' lines cross (they were third cousins).
• I have quite a few unrelated people in my tree. I added them to a Family Tree Maker filter so each one displays a red color-code. It's always a victory when a new discovery removes someone from the unrelated filter.
• My maternal aunt's husband's line shares DNA with my father. Interesting! So I added my uncle's direct ancestors to a filter and gave them an orange color-code. I'm always on the lookout for anyone displaying orange and another color.
• I placed all my DNA matches into a filter and they display a purple color-code. If new information makes a DNA match a cousin, I want to know right away.

Family Tree Maker gives a more complete view of everything in your family tree.

This Family Tree Maker feature can uncover surprises.

2. Fewer Mishaps

I can't count how many times I've seen online family trees displaying duplicate people. You may be looking into one person of interest to see what you can learn about her. You notice this tree has a second husband for her while you only have one. Then you click to see the second husband and find he's an accidental duplicate of the first husband. This happens too easily when you're building online. It's a big risk if you aren't very careful how you accept hints.

Let's say you're entering a new person into your Family Tree Maker file. He's the husband of a woman in your tree. You enter his name, then his birth date. But wait a second. Family Tree Maker sends you an alert. You already have a man with that exact birth date and the same or very similar name. It asks if you want to merge them.

This safeguard prevents errors before they happen.

3. Consistency

Having a consistent style in your work leads to a better product. Think of it as quality control for your family tree. The date format in my family tree is always the same. It's 18 Mar 2025—a two-digit day, three-letter month, four-digit year. My tree's description fields use the same wording to explain certain things. For instance:

• Let's say a couple in your family tree has two babies with the exact same name. It's a safe assumption that baby #1 died before baby #2 was born. But there's no death record available for proof. My routine is to use a stock phrase beneath baby #1's approximate death date. Her sister of the same name was born on this date.
• Sometimes I know a couple married on a certain date because it's written on their birth records. The marriage record itself isn't available. My routine for documenting the marriage date is to use one of these stock phrases:
  • From her birth record.
  • From his birth record.
  • From both their birth records.

Then I can use the birth record's source citation for the marriage date.

Family Tree Maker's predictive typing capability makes it easy to stay consistent. I begin typing the stock phrase, such as from her bi, from his bi, or from bo. Then I choose the correct phrase from the list of matching phrases found in my tree.

This also applies to addresses, and it's a huge help when entering a long address. Yes, Ancestry.com also shows you the similar addresses already in your tree. But it doesn't let you see all your addresses at once. There's no easy way to make corrections and overwrite incorrect versions.

My family tree has tens of thousands of baptism and marriage facts. They all include the name and full address of the church. I'd hate to have to type out "Chiesa di San Leonardo Abate, Via Roma, 6, Baselice, Benevento, Campania, Italy" over and over again. But I don't have to. All I have to type is chiesa di san l and the full address appears.

If you're serious about creating a valuable family tree, build it on your computer. Then you can export a GEDCOM file and share it online wherever you please. As an Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker customer, I can synchronize my offline work with my online tree. I do this daily because I add so much to my tree each day. Then I upload my GEDCOM file to Geneanet.org, replacing my previous file with the latest and greatest.

Unsure about which family tree building software to use? Do a comparison using free trials or free software. I found that "Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener".

To learn more about why I love Family Tree Maker, see:

• Exploring a New Feature You Didn't Know You Need
• 6 Powerful Features of Family Tree Maker
• How to Add or Delete Custom Facts in Your Family Tree
• How to Handle Foreign Words in Your Family Tree

3 Types of Bonus Details on Italian Vital Records

I've written in depth about how to understand Italian vital records. But I haven't told you about these important bonus details. Let's take a look at 3 easy-to-miss types of information on Italian vital records.

Don't overlook these 3 types of bonus details on vital records.

1. Margin Notes

Always check Italian birth records for handwritten paragraphs in the margins. You may find valuable details about the person's life that you won't find anywhere else. These include:

• Who they married, on what date, and sometimes in which town.
• A correction to one of the names written on the document. For example, the clerk who wrote the document may have written the wrong last name for the baby's mother. A margin note provides the correction.
• Recognition of a baby born out of wedlock. If a man and woman have a baby before they marry, a margin note can tell you their names and when they married. If a woman reports her baby's birth, and doesn't name the father, a margin note may have it. This happens when a man steps up to claim the child as his own.
• Death date. This margin note is more common in 1900s birth records when the baby died very young.
• "Born dead". Nato morto (born dead) or senza vita (without life) in the margin or after the baby's name tell you this was a stillbirth.
• Confirmed later. Sometimes a margin note says vista (viewed) or verificato (verified), along with a date and the mayor's name. This tells you the mayor confirmed the birth after the writing of the document. It can also mean a clerk reviewed the document when asked to confirm the birth for the person's marriage.
• Father died in the war. World War I caused an enormous amount of Italian casualties. Look for a margin note on birth records during la Guerra Nazionale to see if this baby's father died in the war.
• Father's death date. Sometimes a baby's birth happens after their father has died. When this happens, look at the handwritten paragraph beneath the baby's name. It may contain the father's date of death.

2. Diversi (Various)

Don't overlook the documents filed under the category Diversi. There is usually a very small number of these documents for any given year. They are most common in the years before 1866. They can include:

• Stillbirths. These records often do not give a name to the stillborn baby. You will learn the parents' names and the sex of the baby, as well as on which date the stillbirth happened.
• Out-of-town deaths. If a citizen of an Italian town dies in another place, that place must notify their hometown. These notifications often contain a great deal of detail.
• Corrections. If a birth record has a margin note about a correction, the diversi record provides all the details. Let's say Giuseppe is preparing to get married and must provide a copy of his birth record. But they discover an error on the original record. The clerk said Giuseppe was a female named Giuseppa. Uh oh! The clerk must file a correction to the name and sex before Giuseppe can marry.
• Abandoned or out-of-wedlock babies. There seem to be a few babies found on doorsteps or born to unnamed fathers each year. You may find their births with all the other births, or in the diversi documents. If you find a record for an abandoned baby, look for the word projetto (for a boy) or projetta (for a girl). The mayor, clerk, or midwife will make up a name for the child. This document may tell you:
  • Who found the baby.
  • Where and when they found the baby.
  • How many days old the baby appears to be.
  • Any identifying items found with the baby. These can include a blanket, clothing, or a religious token that only the parents can identify. They can use this detail to claim the baby later. An identifying item is a segno—a mark or a sign. If you see senza segno, there was nothing to use for later identification.
• Recognition of a baby born out of wedlock. You may find this in a margin note on a birth record, but check the diversi documents for more detail. I found a document for an abandoned baby adopted by a couple who lost their own two babies in infancy.

From marriage dates to abandoned babies to very late birth records, know where to look for these details.

3. Different Parts and Series

Most Italian record books you'll find online contain an image of the book cover and a cover page. The cover page tells you what you're looking at. For example, Registro degli Atti di Matrimonio—register of marriage certificates.

Have you ever found a second or third cover page toward the end of a register? These cover pages are for different document categories. They have labels such as Parte II, Serie A (Part 2, Series A), Parte II, Serie B (Part 2, Series B), or Parte II, Serie C (Part 2, Series C).

In one of my ancestral hometowns, the 1930s Parte I (Part 1) marriage section is always empty. The bulk of the marriages are in Parte II, Serie A. I never gave it much thought before.

Let's look at these different parts. Understanding these distinctions can be very important to your family tree research.

Marriage records (How to Read Italian Marriage Records):

• Part 1 marriage records are for couples married in the town hall by the mayor or another official. You may see a margin note telling you when the couple married in the church.
• Part 2, Series A marriage records are for couples married by a priest or other religious official.
• Part 2, Series B contains out-of-town marriages. If a man and woman came from different towns, they almost always married in her town. So Part 2, Series B records are often for a man from your town who married a woman from another town.
• Part 2, Series C is for special circumstances. They are completely handwritten because they vary too much for a pre-printed form. It could be a marriage-by-proxy, where the groom is in another country at the time. It could be a marriage of two townspeople who married someplace else.

Birth records (How to Read an Italian Birth Record):

• Part 1 is the most straightforward. These are births that happened in this town.
• Part 2, Series A birth records tell us when a townswoman gave birth in another town. She may have been visiting relatives or traveling, but her baby would live in her hometown.
• Part 2, Series B records are completely handwritten. They are for:
  • babies born to townspeople either out-of-town or out-of-country
  • births reported late. By law, fathers had to report their child's birth right away or face a penalty. But some birth reports were very late.

My great aunt's husband and his brother were born in New York City to Italian immigrants. But the family went back to Italy. I found handwritten copies of their 1905 and 1907 Bronx birth records in the 1909 Part 2, Series A birth records in their parents' Italian hometown.

My great grandfather Giovanni Sarracino's father didn't report his birth until Giovanni needed proof of his birth to get married. I found his 1876 birth record in Parte II, Serie B of the 1898 birth register. My Sarracino clan may have been rebellious because they reported a bunch of births late.

Death records (How to Read an Italian Death Record):

• Part 1 is the most straightforward. These are deaths that happened in this town.
• Part 2, Series A records are for townspeople who died in another place.
• Part 2, Series B records are also out-of-town deaths. But these notifications come from places like:
  • the military (for a soldier who died)
  • a prison (for a prisoner who died in custody)
  • a hospital (for a patient who died)
• Part 2, Series C records are out-of-country death notifications from the Italian Consulate. Many of these records will lead you to find a death certificate in your country.

Many Part 2 documents can open up new research options for you. If a marriage record says a bride or groom is from another town, you can search for their original birth record. When a death record tells you a person died in a hospital in Naples, you can see if it still exists and record the address.

While I knew there were different parts and series, I never documented the reasons before. And I have been wondering about all the empty marriage Part 1's in my towns.

I hope you'll use these explanations to guide your research. Sometimes they're the only clue to lead you to another town.

See Your Ancient DNA Origins on MyHeritage

I've taken only one DNA test. In 2012 I tested with AncestryDNA and then convinced my parents and husband to test. Later I uploaded the 4 AncestryDNA tests to MyHeritage and other DNA websites.

Last week MyHeritage released a new feature. "Ancient Origins" sets them apart from the other major DNA websites. (You'll find it in the DNA menu on MyHeritage.) I've traced my ancestors as far back as the late 1690s using a paper trail. They lived in one small section of Southern Italy from at least that time. Let's go back further. Here's my Ancient Origins Breakdown.

Trace your DNA origins through ancient times on MyHeritage.

Bronze Age

In this most ancient time frame, MyHeritage says I'm:

• 50.4% Anatolian (3400 BC–1500 BC), which is modern-day Turkey.
• 29.2% European Farmer (6300 BC–2800 BC), which covers most of Europe. My highest concentration is in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary.
• 13.4% Western Steppe (3300 BC–2600 BC), north of the Black Sea with the highest concentration in Russia.
• 7% Canaanite (1800 BC–1100 BC), along the Eastern Mediterranean shore. My highest concentration is in Lebanon.

Iron Age

In this still-BC time frame, MyHeritage says I'm:

• 46.6% Anatolian (780 BC–30 BC), modern-day Turkey.
• 44.2% Italic and Etruscan (900 BC–200 BC), hurray! Here's where my Italian roots begin. The highest concentration a bit north of my ancestors' paper trail.
• 9.2% Phoenician (1000 BC–330 BC), with the highest concentration in Lebanon.

Roman Era

Now we're coming out of BC times into AD times. This is where it gets exciting for me. MyHeritage says I'm:

• 94.4% Roman Italy (20 BC–600 AD). This covers the entire Italian peninsula with the highest concentration around Rome.
• 5.6% Roman Sardinia (400–500 AD), still Italy, but off the western coast on the island of Sardinia.

This pleases me to no end.

Middle Ages

No surprise for me here, but a lovely confirmation of my ethnicity. MyHeritage says I'm:

• 100% Italian (650–1450 AD). I was a blonde-haired blue-eyed baby, so people never suspected I was Italian, but holy cow am I Italian! I do know that my rare maiden name of Iamarino existed in my grandfather's hometown in the 1400s. This new MyHeritage feature confirms the absolute depth of my Italian roots.

My parents' DNA tests show very similar Ancient Origins in each era. They each have trace origins I did not inherit—Germanic and Sub-Saharan African.

Make sure you watch the Ancient Origins video clips. Most genetic groups have an AI video clip of a person from this area talking about their homeland. Mine all looked a lot more Italian than I do. Although, if I ignore their coloring, I do see a similarity in facial structure.

My husband is a different story. His parents' families came from Japan. His first AncestryDNA result said he was 100% Japanese. He still is, but now his test shows 3% Southern Japanese Islands and 97% Japan.

But the earliest inhabitants of Japan had to come from somewhere else, right? So what does MyHeritage show for my husband's Ancient Origin Breakdown?

By the Middle Ages, Paul was:

• 84.4% Japanese, without touching the Japanese islands in the south.
• 14.8% Sinitic, which is Chinese and doesn't quite reach North Korea.
• 0.8% Southeast Asian. This covers an area that touches Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia, and Indonesia.

His breakdown was almost identical in the Roman Era, but going back to the Iron Age, China takes on a larger role.

• 60.4% Sinitic (Chinese).
• 20.4% Amur River, which is the part of China (and Russia) closest to northern Japan.
• 14.2% Jomon, which is Japan before they called it Japan.
• 5% Southeast Asian, covering the same territories I listed above.

In the Bronze Age, Paul's map looks much the same as it does in the every other era. But the concentrations are more specific.

• 52.6% Yellow River, which is an area of China west of Beijing.
• 15% Amur River, which is in his Iron Age breakdown in a somewhat higher percentage.
• 14.6% Liao River, which is the part of China west of North Korea.
• 14.4% Jomon. It seems some of his ancestors were always in Japan.
• 3.4% Southeast Asian, in a smaller percentage than he had in the Iron Age.

Taken altogether, Paul is overwhelmingly Japanese. But he does have ancient roots in China, and a few in Southeast Asia. He's almost as concentrated as I am.

MyHeritage Ancient Origins offers more than the Ancient Origin Breakdowns I've explored above. There's also a Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer Breakdown you may find interesting.

You can also explore the Sample Database to learn more about any of your genetic groups. For example, I looked into Phoenician, which came up on my map as Lebanon. It is in Lebanon, but also to a small extent in Sardinia, Italy. And Sardinia is in my Roman Era results.

The Genetic Distance Maps show where you are on a scatter plot of different DNA groups. My map is Southern Italian. But I have genetic similarity to Central Italians, Ashkenazi Jews, and Greeks. My parents' maps are almost identical to mine. Paul's map is Japanese with genetic similarity to Koreans, Chinese, and Tibetans.

Who else in the world has similar DNA to you?

I would love to see your Genetic Distance Map if you're much more of a mixture than we are. What type of cluster are you in if your four grandparents came from very different places?

Another Option

Yes, Ancient Origins sets MyHeritage apart from all the big DNA competitors. But there is another website for ancient results. I never wrote about it because I didn't know how trustworthy its results are. I uploaded my DNA tests to mytrueancestry.com a long time ago. Now I can compare the results to MyHeritage to see if they're reliable.

My True Ancestry says I'm:

• 25.1% Roman, with origins that match the Italic and Etruscan group from MyHeritage. It even says the Etruscans were from Anatolia…Turkey!
• 12.9% Hellenic Roman, which is Southern Italians who came from Greece. No doubt.
• 9.06% Carian, which is a subset of Anatolian…again, Turkey.
• 7.5% Ancient Greek.
• 6.88% Byzantine Empire. The sprawling Byzantine Empire included Italy, Turkey, the Middle East, and Greece. That tracks with the MyHeritage results.

The information on MyHeritage is more robust, but My True Ancestry is a good option. It's easy to upload DNA kits. You'll need to make a separate account for each DNA test using different email addresses.

Paul's results on My True Ancestry are:

• 35.8% Tokugawa Shogunate. That's Japan.
• 28.2% Licchavi Kingdom or today's Nepal. This is the one I had doubts about, but it isn't far off the areas shown on MyHeritage.
• 17.4% Han Dynasty, covering parts of China that mesh with Paul's MyHeritage results.
• 14.9% Three Kingdoms of Korea (the bottom of South Korea). The MyHeritage Genetic Distance Map does show his genetic similarity to Koreans.

The percentages are different between the websites. But I now have a higher opinion of My True Ancestry than I did before. With a free account, you can also see Modern Populations. I'm all Italian and Greek. Paul is very Japanese and bits of Chinese. There's even a genetic distance map.

I do prefer how MyHeritage breaks down the time periods with such precision.

Tell me what you think of your results on MyHeritage or My True Ancestry.

A 15% discount for readers of Fortify Your Family Tree!

And speaking of DNA tests:

• This Number is Crucial to Your DNA Match Research
• How to Use DNA Matches to Go Beyond Vital Records
• 4 Practical Methods for Identifying a DNA Match

Finally! A Great Tool to Transcribe Handwritten Documents

Note: You must follow any of the Handwriting OCR links in this article, create your free account, and if you do make a purchase, you'll get a discount in the form of additional document credits.

Last year I wrote about two different tools that extract text from document images. Ever since then I've been using OneNote to extract text from newspaper clippings—obituaries and announcements. It does a pretty good job, but I do have to clean up the text if the image isn't very clear.

In that article, I explained how Google Docs can pull text from handwritten documents. But the results were not what I'd hoped for at all.

Then I heard about a new tool called Handwriting OCR. Let me tell you, I'm astonished at the results. Not only can it read handwriting, it formats the text results so they make perfect sense. Google Docs' formatting is awful. It's all different text sizes and colors. It seems completely random. But Handwriting OCR matches the format of the written document in straightforward text. You're going to love this new tool.

At long last, a truly exceptional tool for transcribing handwritten documents.

Here are some of my results using Handwriting OCR:

• A 1925 employment card containing pre-printed and handwritten sections. The handwriting is clear, but a bit fancy. Handwriting OCR did a perfect job. It scored 100%. It even transcribed a word the writer had crossed out!
• A poor-quality image of a completely handwritten Italian birth record from 1866. Handwriting OCR scored about 95%. Yes! You can use this tool on non-English records and paste the clean text into Google Translate. My only word of caution is to double check the spelling of any proper names and years. A couple of times it did get the year wrong. But I am so very impressed.
• My own handwritten notebook page. I have an old notebook with my notes about a bunch of Ellis Island ship manifests. It's printed, not cursive, but I can get sloppy after writing for a while. Handwriting OCR scored 100%. I could scan the entire notebook to capture all this information!
• A 1917 U.S. death certificate. How many times have you found a death certificate and been unable to make out the cause of death? Let Handwriting OCR read it for you! I'll give this result a score of 95% for one reason. It turned the mother's maiden name of Iacobacci into Jacobi. Yes, the I looks like a J, but it ignored the ending of the name. Again, double check proper names.

Then there's the big test. While writing my article two weeks ago, I downloaded Johns Hopkins' 1870 will. It's 12 images of facing pages, handwritten on long sheets of paper. I tested this tool on page 1 of the document.

Not only did Handwriting OCR score 100%, but it obliterated the competition. I uploaded the same document image to Google Docs for a test. It did a terrible job of transcription. Terrible! Take a look at the results. Note: You can click each image to see it larger.

Figure 1. The handwritten document.

Figure 2. The unacceptable results from Google Docs.

Figure 3. The outstanding results from Handwriting OCR.

Now for some more good news. You can choose 5 documents to transcribe for free when you create a free account. If you're happy, and I'm sure you will be, they have a couple of very inexpensive price options. The first option may be perfect for you: to transcribe 100 document images for $12.

Plus, the company has given me a 20% coupon only for my readers. If you buy 100 image credits for $12, you'll actually get 120 image credits. Whichever amount of credits you buy, you'll get another 20% for free. I'll bet you can complete several big projects with that deal.

All you have to do to get the free 20% is follow this link: https://www.handwritingocr.com/?ref=FAMTREE. Create your free account, give it a try, and then decide how many credits you need to complete your project.

Use your first five credits wisely. For me, that 1870 will was the ultimate test. Before you start, some very important tips:

1. Upload each page at the highest possible resolution. Blurry documents won't do you any favors.
2. Instead of uploading book spreads (two pages side by side), separate them into individual pages. This is what I did with the 1870 will.
3. Before uploading, crop the images to show only the text/handwriting itself. If the page contains, say, a rubber stamp and official signatures that you don't need, crop them out.
4. Use your favorite photo editing software to enhance the contrast if the image is faded, and sharpen the clarity if the best image available is a bit fuzzy.

Let me know how well Handwriting OCR scores on your documents.

Finding the Chain of Immigrants that Led to You

The first time I visited my grandfather's hometown in Italy, I couldn't imagine why he left. Rolling hills surround his beautiful little town, and everyone knows one another. My great grandmother's town is so clean and pretty it practically shines.

How could they leave the serene Italian countryside for bustling American cities? To figure out why my people became immigrants, I had to find out what was happening at home when they left.

People have always left their homelands for the same basic reasons:

• To escape persecution, religious or otherwise.
• To escape extreme poverty, hunger, or famine.
• To escape the brutalization of war and armed aggression.
• To escape disease and a high death rate.

Which ancestor led the way for your family to follow to a better life?

In my family's case, their rural Southern Italian towns were, and still are, left behind. In the early 1900s, local transportation was difficult. This made it hard for people to get the food and other goods they needed. They had to raise their own crops and livestock. There was little to no industrialization in the south, which meant there were no jobs. Everyone was a farmer or practiced a trade. The vast majority of people were illiterate with no access to higher education.

That's why Southern Italians traveled to America in droves. They came to work on the railroads, in the steel mills, in the coal mines, and in the factories. They were hard, dangerous jobs, but at last they could earn money to help support their families.

Using Ship Manifests to Find Your Chain of Immigrants

Who paved the way for your earliest immigrant ancestors? Very early ship manifests won't offer you much information. But if you have anyone who left their home country in the 1890s or later, you're in luck. Your relative's ship manifest should tell you who they're coming to join in the new country. You may even see a street address.

Here's what I've put together by studying ship manifests.

anchor: a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security

My Iamarino Anchor. My great grandfather, Francesco Iamarino, traveled to New York City a handful of times. He earned money and went back home to Italy. The first ship manifest I find for him is from 1903. He is coming to join his brother Giuseppe Iamarino on Morris Avenue in the Bronx, New York. Also on board with Francesco are Giuseppe's wife and two children.

On a 1909 ship manifest, Francesco is sailing to Boston, but he isn't alone. He's with his brother Teofilo, brother-in-law Innocenzo Pilla, and cousins Giorgio and Antonio Paolucci. All five men were heading to the Bronx to join Giuseppe Iamarino.

In 1920, my grandfather Pietro Iamarino (Francesco's son) had no opportunities at home. His only choice there was to work the land and hope to get by. Instead, Pietro joined his uncle Antonio Pilla in a Boston suburb where he worked for a baker. Then he went to Pennsylvania to join some men from his hometown and work at a steel mill. Then on to Ohio to work in another steel mill and live with a cousin who would become his father-in-law. (Pasquale Iamarino, my great grandfather.) Finally, he took his family to the Bronx to join his uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. That's the same Giuseppe his father had joined at least three times. Pietro worked as a stone setter for a jeweler, finally achieving security for his family.

I've never found a ship manifest for my 2nd great uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. The 1905 New York State Census says he arrived in 1900, but I don't know who was here for him. Giuseppe became an anchor to help his family find a better life in America. My father was about 3 years old when his family moved from Ohio to the Bronx. He says his family lived with Giuseppe until they could get their own apartment nearby.

My Caruso Anchor. My great granduncle Giuseppe Caruso boarded a ship in 1900. He and his brother-in-law set out to join their shared brother-in-law Michele in Elmira, New York. Michele arrived in America in 1894. His ship manifest offers no extra details. That's why I'm so lucky my ancestors arrived as late as they did.

Giuseppe Caruso sent for his wife in 1901, his brother Nicola in 1902, his brothers Filippo and Luigi in 1903, and his sister Maria Rosa (my great grandmother) in 1906. Each person listed Giuseppe as the person they were coming to join.

Four months after Maria Rosa arrived, she married Giuseppe's friend, Pasquale Iamarino (my great grandfather). Part of Giuseppe's work in paving the way for his family was finding a husband for his sister.

Who paved the way for your immigrant ancestors? Did they find a better life? Do you think you could have been born if they hadn't left?

Who Gave Away the Treasure in Your Family Tree?

Is generosity is in your genes? I'm going to ask you to search your family tree for someone who gave all they could to help others. But first, let's look at two of the biggest philanthropists of all time. What life occurrences made these two titans of industry so generous?

philanthropist [ fi-lan-thruh-pist ]: a person, typically a wealthy one, who has an altruistic concern for human welfare and shows it by donating money, property, time, or work to aid people in need or to support institutions that serve the public.

Hopkins' Quaker values made it clear where his vast fortune should go.

Quaker Values

Johns Hopkins was born in 1795 and grew up on a tobacco farm as one of 11 children. (His unusual first name comes from from his great grandmother, Margaret Johns.) His family was not poor, but the farm's income wasn't enough for such a large family. Hopkins left home at age 17 to help his uncle run his business.

After an ethical disagreement about alcohol, Hopkins set out on his own. He became a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and a bank president. He charged higher interest rates to the wealthy and lower interest rates to the poor.

He wasn't an extravagant man. In fact, when he died of pneumonia in 1873, people joked that he'd been too cheap to buy a winter coat. He had devoted himself to using his wealth and position to help others. He never married—and this is the interesting part to genealogists: He fell in love with his first cousin, and of course they weren't allowed to marry. They chose to remain lifelong friends and never marry anyone.

With no wife or children of his own, he began planning for the distribution of his enormous wealth. He laid the groundwork for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

What do you suppose led this successful Quaker to become a philanthropist? I'll bet it was his close friend's influence and an awareness of the suffering in his city of Baltimore.

He was a good friend of George Peabody whom some have called the father of modern philanthropy. Peabody had to be a role model. Hopkins saw the terrible effects of cholera and yellow fever epidemics in Baltimore. This must have had a deep effect on him based on his 1870 will. In it, he left $7 million dollars (about $168 million today) for the hospital and university. He created scholarships for the poor and an orphanage for African American children. If you're wondering about that last part, he was a slave owner during his life. One would like to think he regretted it.

An Avid Reader

Andrew Carnegie, born in Scotland in 1835, earned his massive fortune from scratch. As a boy, he labored in a cotton factory in Pittsburgh. He became a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad at the age of 24. In his 30s, he began investing in other companies. He sold his Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 for $480 million dollars. That's almost $18 billion today.

That's when Carnegie became a philanthropist. He donated $13 billion in today's money so he might, in his words, "promote the welfare and happiness of the common man". The recipients included:

• the New York Public Library
• the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie-Mellon University)
• the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Carnegie Hall

He once said, "The aim of the millionaire should be, first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display and extravagances." Yet I can't help but notice the increasing number of servants in his household.

Carnegie knew his fortune was meant to serve his fellow man.

In the 1850 census, Carnegie's father was a weaver while 15-year-old Andrew was a clerk. There were no servants. In the 1860 census, Andrew lived with his mother, brother, and a housemaid. The family was beginning to prosper, despite the loss of his father. Andrew was a railroad superintendent. His 14-year-old brother Thomas was a clerk.

Jump ahead to a posh Manhattan home in the 1905 census and Carnegie has 15 servants. In the 1910 and 1915 censuses, he has 21 servants. It's hard to imagine unless you've watched certain British TV shows.

What do you think led this intelligent, self-made man to become a full-time philanthropist? My money's on his working-class background and his belief in the power of education.

When he was a boy, his family couldn't afford to give him a proper education. But a local man made his own library available to working boys in the area. Carnegie was an avid reader, so he paid it forward by donating many library buildings. He provided teachers' pensions by establishing the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA). He was a strong believer in the powers of education.

When Carnegie died, he left his wife and daughter enough money to live in comfort, but not extravagance. His brother Thomas left his fortune to his 9 children. He didn't have the same struggles as Andrew. Andrew was able to pay for his younger brother's education who then followed in his brother's footsteps.

These were the stories of two self-made men. Some philanthropists who inherited their wealth followed the example of their elders. New York's Rockefeller family is one example. The Rockefeller who made his fortune came from humble beginnings. His opportunity for a good education led to his success. His descendants carry on his philanthropic work, and education is one area of their focus.

I'm not aware of anyone in my close family who made a fortune. But I am proud of my 2nd great grandfather Antonio Saviano. In 1890, he became my first immigrant ancestor at the age of 47. When he died in 1925, a ribbon pinned to his chest commemorated his work with a mutual aid society. This society consisted of Italian immigrants making like easier for new arrivals from the old country. He was a hard-working man who rose above the extreme poverty of his hometown. He wanted to help others do the same.

Who were the most generous people in your family tree? You may never have met them. But I'm sure you can piece together enough of their lives to see where their generous spirit came from. The world is better for having people like this.

Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections

When your family tree is very large, it's hard to know which people need more research. Usually I don't know which Italian nationals in my tree came to America until a descendant writes to me. DNA matches' trees can also show me who left Italy. Waiting to hear from someone or hoping a good match comes along is a poor research strategy.

Today I'm being proactive about finding Italian immigrants. Most of the Italians in my family tree came from a handful of towns, so I can focus on those towns one at a time.

Cast a Wide Net

Start from the right genealogy record collection and keep your search wide open. Then reap your harvest.

You can use your favorite website to do a broad search for immigrants. I'll use Ancestry.com. I'll start my search from the "New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957" database. In the database's search fields I'll enter one thing only: a town of birth. I'll start with my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita.

This wide search for one town gives me 263 search results, and I recognize every last name in the list. I'll start with Giovanni Mascia because seeing his name gave me this idea. In the search results list I see Giovanni Mascia has a birth year of about 1883. When I check my family tree for this name, I find one man born in 1883 and two others born in 1882 and 1884. I'll look at the ship manifest to see if I can be sure which Giovanni Mascia made the journey.

The record page for Giovanni's 1934 ship manifest says his wife is Maria Iamarino. My tree says her name was Annamaria Assunta Iamarino at birth, so Maria is acceptable. It also says his daughter is Angiolina. This makes the 1883 Giovanni Mascia in my family tree a perfect match. He happens to be my 4C3R (fourth cousin three times removed). I know Angiolina was born in Colle Sannita in 1903 because her vital record is online.

The 1934 ship manifest says Giovanni is coming to America to join his daughter Angiolina. She's in Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife is home in Colle Sannita.

With this new information, I can do a search of all records for Giovanni. I find that he also came to America in 1909, and that ship manifest says he first came here in 1907. He naturalized in Cleveland, Ohio. His Declaration of Intention gives me lots of details I couldn't access before:

• He and his wife married in Colle Sannita on 17 Jan 1902.
• His son Bartolomeo, born in Colle Sannita on 7 Feb 1910, died by 16 Nov 1936. That's the date of Giovanni's declaration of intention, and Bartolomeo isn't listed.
• He had four children I didn't know about. They were born in years for which the Colle Sannita birth records aren't online. Now I have their names and birth dates.

Other search results tell me that Giovanni became a U.S. citizen on 20 Dec 1940 and died in Cleveland in 1942. When he filed for citizenship on 6 May 1940, his wife and four of his children were still in Colle Sannita. His son Pietro was in Argentina. I found him in Cleveland in the 1940 census living with his daughter Angiolina and her family. (Angiolina's husband is also from Colle Sannita.)

When I found a link for Giovanni on "Italy, Find a Grave" I saw the photo that I TOOK and uploaded in 2018. He and his wife's memorials are there in a crypt in Colle Sannita. I never would have imagined he'd become a U.S. citizen. Note: "U.S., Find a Grave" says he's buried in Cleveland. An Ohio death records index confirms his death date and place, and gives me a certificate number. Someday I may confirm his place of burial through the death certificate.

Add Wide Searches to Your Research Routine

A wide search brought me full circle, from Grandpa's Italian hometown to Cleveland, Ohio, and back again to a photo I took in 2018.

All this information came from picking a random name from a wide-search results list. These are all facts I would never have learned if not for that search.

I can imagine using this technique and choosing one person a day to research. For a year now, I've been adding the tens of thousands of missing source citations to my family tree. With more than 82,000 people in my family tree, most plucked from Italian vital records, I still have a long way to go.

Now, anytime I start to feel as if I'm stuck in a rut, I can toss in a wide search. I can gather details about someone I didn't know had come to America. And if they settled here, I can bring their family forward in time.

That new research may connect me to a distant cousin who happens to find their people in my family tree. And that's what all this hard work is all about.