06 January 2026

12 Genealogy Projects to Put on the Calendar

Because I have so many big genealogy projects going on at the same time, I can't seem to follow my own advice. Sometimes I re-read my old blog posts and think, "I need to do this project." But I never find the time.

My massive source citation project could take another two years to finish! Meanwhile, I've been ignoring all these smaller genealogy projects. But here's an idea. What if I commit to one of these 12 projects a month in 2026? I can complete some of these projects in a couple of days. Then I can get back to my source citations.

That's what I'll do. Early each month in 2026, I'm going to devote time to one overlooked project. Projects that I've recommended to you! Which genealogy projects should you add to your calendar?

Put one genealogy project a month on your 2026 calendar. Set a reminder and get those smaller projects done!
Want to get those genealogy projects done? Commit to one project a month and stick to the schedule.

January 2026: Crop document images

I wrote about this project in "How to Improve Your Digital Genealogy Documents". I had tons of document images that I downloaded from Ancestry. Almost all had a big black border around them, and a large file size. For a while I pushed myself hard on this project, and I almost finished it.

All that's left to crop are city directory images. There are less than 100 of them, so I know I can complete this project in 2 or 3 sittings.

February 2026: Look for father's death date

In "5 Details to Review for a Richer Family Tree" I told you how some Italian birth records say the baby's father is dead. In most cases, the death record is not available online. Then I realized that sometimes the father's date of death is there at the bottom of the baby's birth record.

When I enter a birth date in my tree for a child born to a dead father, I make a note of it in the birth date's description field. I always use the same wording, which means I can search my GEDCOM file for every instance of those words. Then I can double-check the birth record to see if it includes the missing date of death.

March 2026: Add to your life story

I wrote about an easy way to start writing your autobiography in "4 Steps to Writing Your Own Life Story". I haven't added to my life story Word document in a while. Now that I have a new daughter-in-law and grandson, it's overdue. I'm not sure I added my first daughter-in-law to the story yet!

April 2026: Add more war casualties

I have access to lots of military records for Italians who died in World War I. Italy lost major battles in that war that cost thousands of lives. I've downloaded many records, which I talk about in "Free Italian Military Records for WWI and WWII". But I have many more to download and add.

Can't access military records for your people? Find the draft registrations cards for men of the right age.

May 2026: Find ship images

In "Your Immigrant Ancestor's Ship Has a Story to Tell", I showed how to dig into your ancestor's immigration. That reminded me of something. I've always wanted to find more photographs of the ships that brought my people to America.

Years ago on Ancestry, when you searched for an immigration record, they had a column with a link to the ship's image. I don't see that anymore, and I'd only saved a few. I'll spend a few days in May searching for images of the ships that carried my closer relatives to America.

June 2026: Digitize more pages

I told you about HandwritingOCR in "Finally! A Great Tool to Transcribe Handwritten Documents". I used it to digitize a few books and handwritten pages. I digitized Italian books, dropped the text into Google Translate, and saved it in English.

HandwritingOCR performed very well on my handwritten notebook of ship manifest entries. This notebook dates back to my earliest days of family tree-building. Now that it's digitized, I can make sure I've followed up on every lead.

My task for June is to find other texts to digitize and put them to good use.

July 2026: Find new details in family photos

Last July in "How to Use AI to Analyze Family Photos", I used AI to analyze and date old family photos for:

  • clothing styles
  • military uniforms
  • locations
  • automobiles

There's so much more I can explore! This July I'm going to dig through my photos and see how much more I can learn.

August 2026: Look into local social conditions

The immigrants in your family tree always left home for a reason. In "Why Did Your Ancestor Leave Home?" I wrote about the reasons so many people left their countries.

When I visited Italy, I wondered why my ancestors left such a beautiful place. What we need to do is research the history of their location at the time they left. We're bound to find stories of oppression, poverty, unemployment, and disasters.

Pick a few ancestors and look into the social conditions at home when they emigrated. These historic facts will be a great addition to your family tree.

September 2026: Solve more DNA matches

In general, I've gotten all I can out of my DNA matches. But you never know when a new one will break open another branch of the family tree. In "5 Steps to Making a Cousin Connection" I explained my process for solving DNA matches.

This month, I'll spend a few days solving new DNA matches.

October 2026: Find more immigrants

All my roots are in Italy, so I spend most of my time looking at Italian vital records. Often the only way I find out which Italians came to America is by spotting them in a DNA match's family tree.

I'll spend time this month following my own advice in "Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections". I'll dig into the records and find more cousins who came here. That'll tie up a lot of loose ends.

November 2026: Find out-of-town marriages

In "How I Found My 8th Great Grandparents" I described how I found my ancestors' names in another town. They were born too early to be in their hometown's vital records. But their grandson married for the 3rd time in another town at age 83—which was a huge break for me!

I'm going to look for missing marriage dates in my family tree. I'll research the marriages that could have taken place in another town and see what new facts I can learn.

December 2026: Research the boarders

In "That's No Stranger in Your Relative's House" I wrote about researching a man living in my uncle's home. His true identity was a wonderful surprise!

On many census forms in my family tree, I made note of the fact that a boarder, roomer, or lodger was also in the home. I also noted when my relative was a boarder in someone else's home. I'll search for those notations in my GEDCOM file and research the unknown people. They could very well be cousins who belong in my family tree.


I've created a calendar reminder for each of these monthly tasks to make sure they get done. Many won't take much time, and January's project starts today. It's going to be a very productive year!

P.S. I wrote this article on Sunday—finished my January project on Monday!

30 December 2025

That's No Stranger in Your Relative's House

When I got interested in genealogy, my husband gave me an Ancestry.com subscription. The census records seemed like a great place to start. I enjoyed going page-by-page through my family's Bronx, New York, neighborhood. Most of the last names on those pages rang a bell. Some were my cousins, and some were family friends whose names I've known all my life.

Check your relative's census records to see who's living with them but isn't a known family member. They may be a cousin you need in your family tree.
A bit of genealogy research into the boarders in your relative's home can yield crucial results for your family tree.

Over time I found that many people in this neighborhood came from the same part of Italy. My father's side of the family came from Colle Sannita, Italy. There are lots of Colle Sannita families in these buildings.

I noticed that many families in these Bronx apartments had one or more boarders living with them. They all seemed to be Italian immigrants. But I've spent very little time trying to research these boarders. Were they related to the head of household, or were they just a paesan?

Note: A boarder may be listed in a census as a roomer or a lodger.

Today I looked at the records I have for one of my Bronx relatives. He was my 2nd great uncle, Giuseppe Antonio Iamarino, born in Colle Sannita in 1871. When my father was a little boy, his family moved from Girard, Ohio (where he was born) to the Bronx. He told me his family lived with his Uncle Joe at 275 East 151st Street until they got their own apartment.

Thinking about this, I wondered when Uncle Joe first moved into that address. I know my father left Ohio in 1935 or 1936, and his family lived in their own place by the 1940 census. Can I make those facts line up with the documents? Here are Uncle Joe's documented facts:

  • 1871 born in Colle Sannita, Italy
  • 1900 immigration to the United States (per the 1905 New York census; ship manifest never found)
  • 1905 lived at 464 East 151st Street with his first wife and their son and daughter
  • 1910 lived at 275 East 151st Street with his first wife and their daughter
  • 1915 lived at 302 East 150th Street with his first wife and their son and daughter
  • 1920 lived at 302 East 150th Street with his first wife and their son
  • 1928 lived at 300 East 150th Street when he married his second wife
  • 1930–1938 lived at 275 East 151st Street again with his second wife
Your immigrant ancestor may have had boarders in their crowded home. Have you researched them?
Who are those boarders, roomers, or lodgers in your relative's house on the census? Do the research and you may place them in your family tree.

He died at that address on 9 Jan 1938. These dates and the 275 address do line up with my father's recollection. It's the 1930 census where Uncle Joe has 3 boarders living with his second wife and himself. They are:

  • Frank Pauluchio, age 30, born in Italy, single
  • George DeGrosso, age 33, born in Italy, married
  • Marces DeOffrio, age 19, born in Italy, single

I guarantee the census taker misspelled these names. If you get familiar with the names from your ancestors' towns, you can see past misspellings. I'm positive "Frank Pauluchio" is Francesco Paolucci and "George DeGrosso" is Giorgio DelGrosso. The third boarder's last name might be D'Onofrio. But that name isn't found in Colle Sannita, so I'll put him aside for now.

The first boarder, Francesco Paolucci, is of particular interest to me. Why? Because Uncle Joe's second wife is Filomena Paolucci from Colle Sannita. I searched for anyone named Francesco Paolucci born in Colle Sannita in about 1900. There were 2 possibilities, both of whom are in my family tree.

I hit the jackpot on the first try. Francesco Paolucci, born on 30 Aug 1900, has a ton of documents in my family tree. They tell me he lived at 275 East 151st Street when he married his first wife on 18 Nov 1922. He's also there in the 1925 New York State census, but not with Uncle Joe. He's with his first wife's family from Colle Sannita.

It turns out I had never found Francesco Paolucci in the 1930 census. That's because he's listed as Frank Pauluchio and living with my Uncle Joe! The census says he's single, but he was a widower.

Francesco (or Frank) is the 1st cousin once removed of Uncle Joe's second wife, Filomena.

It gets better. Frank's 2nd wife is Costanza Paolucci, whose father was born in Colle Sannita. Uncle Joe's wife Filomena is Costanza's aunt and Frank's 1st cousin once removed. That's a surprise.

But wait! There's more. Costanza and Frank Paolucci had one child called Johnny when they lived at 275 East 151st Street. Johnny and my father were lifelong best friends! I'm sure my father never knew his best friend Johnny's father had lived with Uncle Joe like he did.

Add this to the long list of interesting genealogy side-projects to explore:

  • Research the boarders living with your relatives in the census sheets. You never know what you might discover.

23 December 2025

How I Found My 8th Great Grandparents

This month I found something I never expected. A pair of my 8th great grandparents! And they happen to be my double 8th great grandparents. He is Nicola Iamarino, Ahnentafel numbers 1,024 and 1,280. She is Lorenza Cocca, Ahnentafel numbers 1,025 and 1,281. They are the direct ancestors of my father's parents who were 3rd cousins.

I know the names of 9 of my 9th great grandparents (out of a possible 2,048). And I knew the names of 29 of my 8th great grandparents (out of a possible 1,024). But I didn't expect to find any more. I'd exhausted every available vital record from their hometown of Colle Sannita, Italy.

An 1841 death record gave me the clue I needed to find my 8th great grandparents.
Should you care where your 5th great grandfather's 3rd wife was born? You should if you hope to bust down a brick wall in your family tree.

You see, old Italian marriage records can provide a treasure trove of information. They include:

  • the bride and groom's birth records
  • their parents' death records, if they are dead
  • their paternal grandfathers' death records, if their father and his father are dead

This is how you can discover Italians born in the mid- to late-1600s. They didn't start keeping vital records until 1805–1809. And few church records are available to the public. So the marriage records, called matrimoni processetti, are priceless.

So how did I find the names of Nicola Iamarino and Lorenza Cocca? By following up on an out-of-town marriage. My 5th great grandfather, Giovanni Iamarino, married 3 times:

  • He married my 5th great grandmother Libera Pilla in about 1785. They were both from Colle Sannita. She died in 1825.
  • He married Rosaria Antonia Maria d'Agostino in 1826. She was from the neighboring town of Circello, whose records I've also exhausted. She died in 1837.
  • He married 64-year-old Lucia Ferrone in 1839. He was 83 years old!

His third wife Lucia died 2 years later in Colle Sannita. I noticed her death record says she came from another town called Castelpagano. That's on the northern border of Colle Sannita. The only way I knew about their marriage was because I saw the image of their 1839 marriage banns in Colle Sannita.

A woman pores over old genealogy documents to find missing information.
Each clue in a genealogy document can lead to new discoveries for your family tree. Are you looking in the right places?

I came upon Giovanni and Lucia during my ongoing quest to fill in all my missing source citations. I decided to look for their missing marriage record. Since the bride came from Castelpagano, it was a safe bet they married there. Whenever you can't find a marriage record for a couple, be sure to check both their hometowns. In Italy, it was common to marry in the bride's town and live in the groom's town.

I opened the 1839 marriage records for Castelpagano on the Antenati website. There I found everything I wanted:

  • Their marriage record.
  • Their marriage banns in that town.
  • Their birth records.
  • The death records of their previous spouses.
  • Their mothers' death records.
  • Their fathers' death records.
  • Their paternal grandfathers' death records.

That last one was the missing piece I never knew I needed. Giovanni Iamarino's paternal grandfather was my double 7th great grandfather, Vincenzo Iamarino. I knew that. Vincenzo's 1776 death record, found in the Castelpagano marriage records, named his parents. Nicola Iamarino and Lorenza Cocca, my double 8th great grandparents!

I'll bet you have incomplete facts in your family tree. Take another look! Are you missing a marriage record from a year that should be available? Was the bride or groom from another town? You never know what mysteries you may solve by following up on every possible lead.

16 December 2025

Find the History of Any Date in Your Family Tree

I gave birth to my first child on my mother's birthday. I had my second child on my grandmother's birthday, and last week he had his first child on his own birthday.

While sitting in the maternity waiting room, I saw a stack of local newspapers on the table. That reminded me of something a relative said when I had my firstborn in 1989. She said I should save a newspaper to commemorate what was happening in the world on that date. The big story I remember was the demonstrations and massacre in Tiananmen Square. That story made the front page when my son came along and continued into the next month.

A man sits in a time machine, but that isn't the only way to discover historical context for your family tree.
If you don't have a time machine at your disposal, here's a great way to add historical context to your family tree.

Your Date in History

There is a website you can use to find out interesting tidbits about any date in your family tree. It's History.com. Go to https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history, and it will default to today's date. Next to the page's headline, "This Day in History", there is a square with today's month and date. You can change that to any month and date you choose.

When you choose a date, you'll see:

  • a top story from that date
  • a short list of famous people born on that date
  • a fact of the day
  • a timeline of key events in history (along with a video summary)

This can be a lot of fun. For instance, my father shares his birthday with Bruce Willis, Glenn Close, and Wyatt Earp. My mother and first son share their birthday with Willie Mays, Orson Welles, and Sigmund Freud. Plus, the Hindenburg disaster happened on that date when mom was a little girl.

You can click each event in the timeline to read more about it.

When I put in my birthday I see:

  • The United States established the first Supreme Court in 1789.
  • I share my birthday with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jim Henson, and John Marshall. He was the fourth Chief Justice of the United States.
  • President Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the country's first national monument. It was Devils Tower as seen in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
  • The timeline of events on this date includes:
    • the incorporation of the Honda Motor Company
    • the delivery of the Warren Commission report to President Johnson
    • the first episode of "60 Minutes"
This website gives you accurate, interesting, and well-produced historical information that adds context to your family tree.
Was your ancestors' wedding date historically significant? Did something special happen on your birth date? This website gives you the full story for your family tree.

Since the owners of history.com are in the United States, you may see more U.S. history results than you want. But there's so much more to explore. Look at the second-line menu at the top of the web page. You can choose "World" or "Eras & Ages" to find content that can add context to your family tree.

Choose any item from those lists (or the U.S. list) to find a host of articles and videos that will interest you. You can also use the search area to search for anything you like. (Look for the magnifying glass near the top right corner of the web page.) I decided to look into the Boston Tea Party, which happened on this date (16 Dec) in 1773. The short article includes links to more information, and a short video.

Today's History Channel features programs about aliens, ghosts, and weirdos with odd jobs. But years ago, I admired them for their well-produced, engaging story telling. These video clips put their true professionalism on display.

Which generation of ancestors in your family tree need more historical context? If History.com has the content, you're sure to enjoy the learning experience.

09 December 2025

Your Family Tree's Top 10s

At the end of each day that I work on my family tree, I export a GEDCOM file from Family Tree Maker. Any family tree software program and some online trees give you this option. Today we'll use that GEDCOM to highlight trends in our family trees.

First, open your latest GEDCOM in the free Family Tree Analyzer program. The main screen has some interesting numbers. Here's what it finds for my tree:

  • Direct Ancestors: 418
  • Descendants: 2
  • Blood Relations: 18,520
  • Married to Blood or Direct Relation: 5,226
  • Related by Marriage: 50,035
  • Linked through Marriages: 10,343
  • Unknown relation: 189

Let's use Family Tree Analyzer to discover the Top 10s in our family trees.

Find out how to discover the Top 10 names, jobs, sources, and treetops in your family tree.
Follow a few simple steps to discover the Top 10s in your family tree.

Top 10 Jobs in Your Family Tree

In Family Tree Analyzer, click the Main Lists tab and then the Occupations tab beneath it. This displays 2 columns: Occupation and Count. Click the arrow next to Count and choose Sort Z to A. Now the list shows you the most common jobs in your family tree.

Note: If Sort Z to A doesn't look like it worked, change it to Sort A to Z and then back again. That should do the trick.

For a long time, I didn't bother adding a particular occupation to my Italian relatives. Contadino (masculine) or Contadina (feminine) is a farmer or peasant. I come from peasants. They were almost all contadini! But I have tried to add them lately. Here are the Top 10 Jobs in my family tree:

  • Bracciale (farmhand or laborer), 718
  • Contadino and Contadina (both mean farmer or peasant) combined, 338
  • Custode di Pecore and Pastore (both mean shepherd) combined, 186
  • Calzolaio (shoemaker), 109
  • Sartore (tailor), 97
  • Filatrice (cotton spinner or seamstress), 93
  • Proprietario and Proprietaria (both mean owner, proprietor, or landlord), 101
  • Tessitrice (weaver), 72
  • Massaro (steward or farm manager), 59
  • Massaro di Campo (farm owner), 54

I'm surprised to see that the occupations I pulled from U.S. Census records have such small numbers. Then again, I had no one in the U.S. until the 1900 census, and many of them changed jobs often. Here are the Top 10 U.S. Jobs in my family tree:

  • Laborer, 14
  • New Worker, 10
  • Shoemaker, 9
  • Farmer, 7
  • Chauffeur (truck driver), 6
  • Clerk, 6
  • Barber, 6
  • Operator at a Dress Factory, 5
  • Telephone Operator, 5
  • Carpenter, 5

Most of the people who make up that list lived in New York City where jobs of all types were plentiful. The farmers were my husband's relatives in California.

Top 10 Sources in Your Family Tree

If your number of sources is low, you owe it to everyone with any connection to you to work on your source citations! My family tree uses 565 different sources.

To the left of the Occupations tab, click the Sources tab. The label on the last column in this table is Num Facts. Click the arrow next to Num Facts and choose Sort Z to A. Now the list shows the most-used sources in your family tree.

Here are the Top 10 Sources in my family tree:

  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Colle Sannita, 54,560 (and I have SO many more to add)
  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Baselice, 8,514 (many facts still need this source)
  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Pescolamazza, 7,748 (many facts still need this source)
  • State Archives of Avellino, town of Santa Paolina, 6,931 (many facts still need this source)
  • 1940 U.S. Federal Census, 2,509
  • the book "Colle Sannita nel 1742" by Dr. Fabio Paolucci, 2,337
  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Apice, 2,037
  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, 1,827
  • State Archives of Benevento, town of Circello, 1,708
  • 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1,442

As usual, Italians dominate my family tree. The #1 source is not a surprise to me, but the amount is staggering. This is the hometown of the paternal side of my family tree, and everyone's related to me somehow.

Top 10 Last Names in Your Family Tree

For this list, we can restrict the results to our blood relatives. Click the Surnames tab next to the Main Lists tab. In the Relationship Types section, choose (1) Direct Ancestors, (2) Blood Relations, and (3) Descendants. Now click the Show Surnames button. This will take a while to display if your family tree is very large. Watch the progress bar in the lower left corner of the program to see that it's working.

Once your table displays, click the arrow next to the Individuals column and choose Sort Z to A. Now you can see the most common names in your family tree. Here are the Top 10 Last Names in my family tree:

  • Pozzuto, 889
  • Mascia, 861
  • Zeolla, 833
  • Martuccio, 772
  • Piacquadio, 673
  • delGrosso, 562
  • Iamarino (my maiden name), 489
  • Pilla, 481
  • Palmiero, 472
  • Basile, 382

Every one of those last names comes from Colle Sannita. Three or four are also found in my other ancestral hometowns. This list surprises me because I restricted the results to blood relatives. The results look very different if I include spouses and their families.

Now try this. Clear the sort from the Individuals column and sort the Families or Marriages columns from Z to A. For me, the Families have the same Top 10 Last Names, but in a different order. The same is true for the Marriages column—same names, different order. Is that true for your family tree?

Top 10 Treetops in Your Family Tree

A "treetop" is the eldest person on each branch of your family tree. They represent the furthest back you've gone with your research. Click the Treetops tab that's way to the right of the Surnames tab. In the Relationship Types section, choose (1) Direct Ancestors, (2) Blood Relations, and (3) Descendants. There are 2 more options that are pre-chosen, and you can leave them that way:

  • Include Unknown Countries in Treetops Filter
  • Include Individuals that have only one parent known

Now click the Show People at top of tree button.

This table loads fast, and at the bottom left I see my tree has 284 treetops. Let's see which last names can boast the deepest roots in our family trees. Click the arrow next to the Surname column and choose Sort Z to A.

In my family tree, some of my treetops are living DNA matches. I chose to research only the side of their family that's related to me. To filter these people out, let's restrict the results to direct ancestors only. Leave the Surname sort in place. Over in the Relation column, click the arrow and choose only Direct Ancestor.

Here are the Top 10 Direct Ancestor Treetops in my family tree, sorted by last name:

  • #1: Zullo, Giuseppe. He's my 6th great grandfather born about 1711.
  • #2–10: Zeolla, born as early as about 1646. They are my 4th through 9th great grandparents. Talk about deep roots!

It's only now, looking at these results, that I realize how important the name Zeolla is in my family tree. The 4 names I grew up knowing are way down the list:

  • Iamarino, my maiden name, has four 7th and 8th great grandparents at the treetop. The Iamarino name was in the town of Colle Sannita for centuries, but never in huge numbers.
  • Leone, my maternal grandfather's name, has one 5th and one 6th great grandparent at the treetop. The Leone name was in the town of Baselice for centuries, but in very small numbers.
  • Sarracino, my grandmother's father's name, has one 5th great grandfather at the treetop. This family came from a very small town that didn't start keeping civil records until 1861. Discovering that fact was a devastating blow.
  • Saviano, my grandmother's mother's name, has one 3rd great grandfather at the treetop. The Saviano family came from the same undocumented town as the Sarracino family.

I'm sure you'll find surprises when you generate your Top 10 lists. You may even uncover areas that need your research attention. I'd love to hear what you've found and if any of the names or towns I've listed mean anything to you. Please leave a comment below.

02 December 2025

Six 2025 Articles to Elevate Your Family Tree

Whenever I review the articles I've published in this blog, I discover tips I've forgotten. My own tips—forgotten! As I explore a new resource or technique to share with you, I often say in the article that I need to do this, too. Then I forget to follow my own advice.

I have to imagine this happens to you, too. You read lots of family tree articles, but you don't always put what you've learned into use. So let's do this together. Let's review 6 articles from 2025, pick the ones that apply to us, and get to work!

An elevator arrives at the 6th floor. This article contains 6 tips to help you elevate your family tree.
Here's your chance to put 6 kinds of genealogy tips to work to fortify your family tree.

5 Steps to Making a Cousin Connection

If you've taken a DNA test, you'll have many matches you can't place in your family tree. If they are a decent match sharing 30 cMs or more with you, don't give up! Even if they don't provide a family tree, you can use your research skills to get some traction. In this article you'll find 5 steps to help you turn that interesting DNA match into a documented cousin.

You Must Find Your Ancestor's Hometown First

When our ancestors came from another country than ours, we have a disadvantage. We don't know enough about their country. Until we have a good understanding of their homeland, our research may be at a standstill.

This describes my earliest days of family tree building. My grandmother's generation said the family came from two places. The first was a town that had a soundalike. They were from Pastene, but I started looking into Pastena. That was a wild ride because both town have our family name of Sarracino.

The other place was Avellino, but I soon found out that's like saying you're from New York. The city or the state? Avellino is both a city and a province in Italy. It took a lot of research to find the real town: Santa Paolina.

This article has 5 tips you can use to pinpoint your ancestor's hometown, the same as I did. And that's the key to finding their vital records. Once you know the town, and you see it on the map, you can identify your relatives.

4 Reasons to Digitize All Your Genealogy Work

Have you digitized your genealogy assets yet? If you're a huge fan of color-coded binders, that's fine. But if your work isn't digitized, too, it's at risk. Fire, flood, and other disasters could destroy your tremendous discoveries.

This article explains 4 important reasons to digitize your work. Find the tips and techniques you need to get the job done.

How to Share Your Family Tree With Cousins

Genealogy is all I do and all I want to do. I get so deep in the weeds that the bulk of my family tree isn't going to interest my 1st and 2nd cousins. But sometimes those close cousins have questions. They want me to share my tree with them.

My 84,000-person family tree would overwhelm them. There isn't a printout I can share. But I have found ways to give them exactly what they each need. Find out how you can create a self-serve option for the cousins who want to see "their" family tree.

5 Discovery Techniques for Your Family Tree

Has your family tree research has stalled? Are you unsure how to fill those empty branches? Then this is a good article for you. Looking back at my research, I can identify 5 discovery techniques that made my family tree grow to such a big size.

Take a look at these 5 techniques, and find out which ones can help you grow and fortify your family tree.

How Reliable Is Your Family Tree?

Wouldn't it be amazing if every distant cousin and DNA match shared a robust family tree? Well, the first step in reaching that ideal is to publish your own reliable family tree for others to find.

In this article are several tips to help your family tree attract those cousins and DNA matches. Be the ideal and they'll strive to do the same.

I encourage you to explore my blog for your specific needs and questions. Use the search feature on this page to find what you need. If there's a topic I haven't covered yet, please let me know!