Don't Try This Unreliable Genealogy Practice

Every day is Day One in someone's genealogy journey. And they don't know where to start. They post questions online with minimal details and hope for the best.

You know what that approach gets them? Frustration and confusion. Let's say they're hoping to learn the names of great grandpa's parents. All they know is which country he came from. So they tell you an Anglicized version of his name and ask if anyone out there is his relative. Does anyone expect that to work?

Don't take a shot in the dark when it comes to your family tree. Try these genealogy steps first.

People, I beg you. Back up. You don't have details about great grandpa, but what about grandpa or grandma? Did they live in your country, or were they immigrants in your country? Start with them.

Search for every piece of grandma or grandpa's paper trail. These documents can include:

• a ship manifest showing their arrival
• a marriage record
• census records
• birth or death certificates
• military registration cards
• naturalization papers
• passport applications

There's a good chance you will learn:

• their date of birth
• where they were born
• when they immigrated
• who their parents were

Here's how this method worked for me, and how it can work for you.

My Grandfather's Paper Trail

I knew nothing about my maternal grandfather Adamo Leone's family. The only nugget I'd heard was that he had a brother Noah and a sister Eve. (Adam, Eve, and Noah!) In my earliest days of genealogy, I found his 1914 ship manifest on the Ellis Island website. There he is on line 17, and it says his father is Giovanni Leone in the town of Baselice, Italy. I knew his birthday already. Now his hometown and father's name were all I needed to begin looking up Italian vital records.

My favorite tidbit about this Leone family? There were five children, and besides Adam and Eve and Noah, there were Mary and Joseph! But let's not Anglicize those foreign names. My grandfather was ALWAYS Adamo, and my other grandfather was ALWAYS Pietro. The Leone kids were Adamo, Eva, Noé, Maria, and Giuseppe.

My Great Grandmother's Paper Trail

No one ever told me my great grandmother Maria Rosa's last name until 2003. After I learned her name was Caruso, she was still a tricky puzzle to solve. A cousin-in-law spotted her in my online family tree and wrote to me many years ago. According to my dad's 1st cousin, Maria Rosa said she was from a place that sounded like Pisqualamazza.

I tried something that became a favorite genealogy trick of mine. I searched immigration records for anyone named Caruso arriving in the U.S. in the early 1900s. I scanned the results for any hometown that might be a match. And I found it! The town was Pescolamazza.

Once her town's records came online, I was able to take that branch of my family tree back six generations.

My Great Granduncle's Paper Trail

I've had some lucky breaks. My two grandfather's often mentioned the names of their hometowns. My maternal grandmother's family was a bit tougher. Grandma's parents died before I turned one year old. But their children knew where they came from. The last time I heard this was in 2004 when my great aunt told me her family came from "Pastena and Avellino".

That wasn't quite enough to go on. There's a Pastena and a Pastene in Italy, and both towns have families named Sarracino. That led me to document the wrong family! As for Avellino, that's both a city and a province, so where were they from?

My break came from my great granduncle's World War II draft registration card. Too often these draft cards leave out the name of the town of birth. But this one is very specific. It says he was born in "Tofo, Province of Avellino".

It was easy to discover that the town's real name is Tufo, so I began viewing vital records. I discovered my 2nd great grandparents had seven children in three neighboring towns. Besides Tufo, there was Santa Paolina in Avellino, and Pastene in neighboring Benevento.

At that point, I knew more about my family than my grandmother and her siblings did.

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Yes, you need to back up. Don't post useless requests online before you know what you're looking for. Search the records that are available to you and find the clues you need. This path of discovery is what genealogy is all about. It's why people like me get addicted to the research. It's fun and rewarding, and more important than that, it's based on documented facts.

Start your search the smart way!