How to Create Your Own Family Tree Source

My only source for some of the earliest people in my family tree is the personal research of Dr. Fabio Paolucci. Dr. Paolucci has roots in two of my ancestral Italian hometowns and a passion for genealogy. His research is very valuable to me. I created a generic source citation in Family Tree Maker to attach to facts I learned from him.

Now I want to create a more specific source for certain facts I learned from Dr. Paolucci. On 26 Jul 1805, there was an earthquake in my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita. Dr. Paolucci emailed me a link to a list of the earthquake victims and their details in 2007. I saved it as a text file so I could work my way through the names. Thank goodness I saved it because that link doesn't work anymore. Since then, I've connected 33 of the 41 victims to my family tree.

Follow these few steps to place a completely custom source citation in your family tree.

Here's how I'll use this list of earthquake victims to:

• create a brand new source document
• create a source citation
• attach the citation to the 33 people.

Create a Document

The text file I've had on my computer since 2007 had a handful of my personal notes. Most of the people have the notation IN TREE. One person has a note saying she is my 6th great aunt. I removed those notations for a cleaner list that other descendants of the town can use.

I copied and pasted the list into a new Word document and gave it a title:

Victims of the 26 Jul 1805 earthquake in Colle Sannita, Benevento, Italy
Compiled by Dr. Fabio Paolucci

Then I put the names in alphabetical order by last name which makes it easier to use. From Word, I saved the file as a PDF. It's better to put a more stable and universal format (Acrobat PDF) in your family tree than a Word document.

Upload the Document to Your Family Tree

I do all my genealogy work in Family Tree Maker. Then I sync it to my tree on Ancestry and upload it to Geneanet to share my research. To add this PDF to my family tree, I went to FTM's Media tab and dropped in the PDF file. I always assign a category to any media in my FTM file. My categories include Cemetery, Census, Citizenship, etc. The best choice for this item is the category Other. It contains a bunch of items that don't fit any other category.

The caption for the media item is the same as the title: Victims of the 26 Jul 1805 earthquake in Colle Sannita, Benevento, Italy. I added this description to the Media item:

A list of the victims of the 26 Jul 1805 earthquake in Colle Sannita, Benevento, Campania, Italy, compiled by Dr. Fabio Paolucci from the town's 1805 parish records.

This media item is now ready to use.

Create a Source to Hold the Document

To create my new source, I found one of the people from the list in my family tree. Her line item in the list reads:

Maria Callara, figlia di Giuseppe Callara & Giovannangela Piacquadio, moglie di Costanzo delGrosso, di anni 48.

That one line has a lot of detail for my family tree. It says that Maria Callara was the daughter of Giuseppe Callara and Giovannangela Piacquadio, the wife of Costanzo delGrosso, and she was 48 years old. As it turns out, there is a copy of Maria's death record in her daughter Serafina's 1820 marriage documents. The record has the same details and includes the words "sotto le rovine del terremoto"—beneath the ruins of the earthquake!

Maria's facts already have a source citation that links to the 1820 copy of her death record. Now I can add a new source citation that contains the full list of victims.

First I chose to create a new source citation for Maria's death date. I gave it the title, "Victims of the 26 Jul 1805 Earthquake in Colle Sannita". I attached the PDF file from the media library to the source citation. Then I copied this citation to the other facts: Maria's name and year of birth.

With the source created, I went back to the Sources tab in FTM to add a bit more detail. As a citation detail, I added the same blurb I gave to the media file:

A list of the victims of the 26 Jul 1805 earthquake in Colle Sannita, Benevento, Campania, Italy, compiled by Dr. Fabio Paolucci from the town's 1805 parish records.

Now I can attach this one source citation to the facts for every 1805 earthquake victim in my family tree.

Attach the One Source Citation to Each Fact

There's a big benefit to having this one source citation for all the victims. I'll be able to see them all at a glance by viewing the citation.

To do this, I worked through the list of names one line at a time. I went to the person in my tree, removed the generic source citation and attached the new source citation. In some cases, the list is my only source of a victim's parents' names or spouse's name. Those facts need the new source citation, too.

In the end, I attached my new source citation to 102 facts. Now I have a complete, documented record of the victims of the 1805 Colle Sannita earthquake.

Think about your family tree. Was there an event that claimed the lives of several people? How can you document that event to make it more permanent and official? Wouldn't that source citation benefit others with a connection to your family tree?

And speaking of source citations:

• How to Batch Process Your Genealogy Documents
• 3 Steps to Take When Your Source Links Break
• Take the Time to Improve the Sources in Your Family Tree