It's Time to Wrap Up Your Genealogy Year

I haven't created a list of next year's genealogy goals since 2020. I stopped because my techniques and my true mission kept evolving.

The best example of this is what happened after I finished this 2019 genealogy goal:

• Log 5 years' worth of birth records from each of my ancestral hometowns into spreadsheet.

I completed that goal, but my next project made my 2019 effort useless. The purpose of logging those 5 years of documents was to make it easier to search for any one person.

But I found an infinitely better method. And it was much easier to completely finish than adding to the spreadsheet. I renamed thousands of Italian vital record image files to include the name of the person and their father.

What's the next logical step to take in your genealogy journey?

For example, here's how I renamed the 2nd birth record of 1809 in one of my towns:

2 Pasquale Maria Cernese di Giovanni.jpg

The baby is Pasquale Maria Cernese (Maria is a common middle name for Italian baby boys), the son of Giovanni Cernese. With all the files renamed this way, I can easily search for all the children of Giovanni Cernese at once. I can run the Windows program called Everything and type in:

"Cernese di Giovanni

That'll show me a list of every possible child of Giovanni Cernese. My work is now a database that I share with other descendants of my towns.

I've explained this, my secret weapon, many times before. This time, it's a prime example of why I stopped setting annual genealogy goals. Instead, I'm constantly working on my tree and imagining how I can make the most of all that data.

So instead of making a 2023 Genealogy Goals List, let's look back for a moment. Let's take stock of our 2022 genealogy accomplishments. Then we can wrap up our genealogy year and dream up what comes next. I'll start. In 2022:

• I finished examining the 38,000 available vital records from Grandpa Iamarino's hometown of Colle Sannita. (See How to Use Your Personal Genealogy Database.)
• I made the names of all those files available to anyone who may search the internet for "Colle Sannita." (See How to Create and Share Your Ancestral Town Database.)
• I followed different types of genealogy leads to unexpected places. (See A Random Search Led to a Detailed Life Story.)
• I returned to my Genealogy To-Do List again and again to keep things interesting. (See Start Your Rainy-Day Genealogy List.)
• I used Family Tree Analyzer, the relationship calculator spreadsheet, and color-coding to see my family tree's facts and connections in different ways. (See How to See Your Cousin Connections More Clearly.)
• I spent November tying up a long list of loose ends in my family tree. (See Make November Genealogy Loose Ends Month.)
• I somehow managed to publish this blog every Tuesday!

As 2022 ends, I'll finish renaming the vital records from my other grandfather's hometown—Baselice. Then I'll be ready to piece together every Baselice family in my tree. And I'll publish my database for other descendants of the town to use.

One big goal is nearly finished, clearly paving the way for my next big genealogy project.

Unless a new idea strikes me, I'll move on to another one of my ancestral hometowns. For me, that's what genealogy is all about. I'm claiming every last drop of my heritage.

What were your genealogy accomplishments in 2022? Where will that work lead you in 2023?

These Genealogy Projects Can Chase Away the Boredom

Would you get bored with your genealogy research if you were at it for 8 hours a day?

Last Friday was my first vacation day of 2020. As obsessed as I am with genealogy, I have a corporate job that keeps me away from it. The day after Thanksgiving was my first day off that wasn't a national holiday. At last I was able to spend hours on end doing genealogy!

If you have the time, and you want to make progress on your family tree, there's a secret to keep it from getting tedious. Projects.

If you have a variety of genealogy projects to work on, you won't get bored. You may be thinking, "If you're bored, stop doing genealogy." Sacrilege, I say!

Here are my favorite projects I turn to whenever genealogy is becoming a chore.

Before I go on, here's a programming note: I've been publishing a new article each Tuesday and Friday for 4 years. I've published 432 articles! This labor of love has taken over my life, so I'm dropping it down to once a week. I'll publish a new article each Tuesday, starting today.

Fit Everyone into My Tree

My family tree is going to be THE resource for any descendant of my grandfather's hometown. I've got tens of thousands of the town's vital records beginning in 1809. And I have a book that documents everyone who lived there in the year 1742.

I'm laying a solid foundation by fitting people from the 1809 vital records into my tree. In some cases I can connect them to people who were alive and documented in 1742.

Here's how it worked this long weekend:

• Check an 1809 birth record to see if the baby is already in my family tree.
• If not, check my tree for the parents.
• If none of the people are in my tree, search my extensive database of the town for them.
• Other records, like the death records of the parents, usually help me place them in my tree.
• Then I can add the baby and search for their marriage or death records.

The whole process can take a long time, but I added dozens of townspeople to my tree for each 1809 baby.

Using all my tools, I can fit nearly the whole of Grandpa's town into my family tree.

Share My Research Database

I have all the town's available vital records on my computer. I've renamed them to include the subject(s) of the document. For example, "007853875_00496.jpg" is the first 1809 birth record. I renamed it "007853875_00496 Carmine Pasquale d'Agostino di Giuseppe.jpg" because it's the birth record of Carmine Pasquale d'Agostino, the son of Giuseppe. Keeping the number in the file name helps me tie it back to the file's original location online.

Now I can search for ANYBODY on my computer with a program called Everything. My plan is to share this amazing database with anyone with roots in the town. Before I do so, I need to finish renaming the extra documents that come with a marriage. These can include:

1. the groom's birth or baptism record
2. the groom's father's death record
3. the groom's grandfather's death record
4. the groom's mother's death record
5. the groom's first wife's death record
6. the bride's birth or baptism record
7. the bride's father's death record
8. the bride's grandfather's death record
9. the bride's mother's death record
10. the bride's first husband's death record

What a treasure trove! The only problem is, I haven't renamed ALL the files. I still need to do this for the marriage records from 1834 through 1860. I'll get there soon enough.

If I get bored with fitting each baby into my tree, I keep on renaming these marriage documents.

Once each vital record has a name, I can make them all searchable for other descendants.

Fill in Missing Dates

One quick-shot project is to find exact dates of birth when all I have is a year. This happens when I have a birth record that includes one or both parents' ages. I can say, for example, that the father was born in 1830.

If I sort the Family Tree Maker index by birth year, it's easy to see all the people with missing birth records. Then I can use the Everything program to search for and fill in their missing birth dates. On Thursday I was up to people born in 1830. Now I'm up to 1850.

Pick Up a Forgotten Genealogy Goal

Each December I write down specific genealogy goals for the new year. Then 2020 happened. I tried to keep up with my 2020 goals in January and February. But when everything fell apart in March, I had bigger things to worry about.

Now I've settled into a groove (a deep groove that led me to take one day off this year). I can always look at my goals and pick whichever one interests me at the moment.

Return to An Old Research Thread

I like to work off lists that I type into a text program. I do this for my corporate job, and it works so well that I use it for genealogy, too.

To that end, I have a text file named Notebook filled with genealogy information. It tells me where I left off on my marriage document renaming project. It has my genealogy goals for the last few years. It has a list of rainy-day genealogy tasks, like "sort out my photos and add more to my family tree." It also has research notes, like: "Did Gregorio Liguori and Apollonia Grazia Caruso have a child before 1809? Search the Circello marriages starting in 1825 looking for other children. (I'm up to 1843.)"

There are details on projects I've completely forgotten. But each one is something I can turn to if I get bored with whatever I'm doing.

You can always make progress on your genealogy research. Even if you can't visit that library you need, there are tons of ways to fortify your family tree. What excites you today?

Don't Miss Out on Your Ancestors' Culture

We've all met them. The guy who spent an hour on Geni.com and claimed to be a descendant of Eric the Red. The woman who clicked into one family tree and boom! She brought her family back to the time of the Roman Forum.

If you expect it to be that quick and easy to build your family tree, you may have been mislead by TV commercials. And if a foreign language and detective work make you give up, you're missing out!

Take the time to get familiar with your ancestors' genealogy documents. You'll find cultural gems hiding between the lines. There are tools to help you with that foreign language. You will get better with practice. And along the way, you'll be learning about your ancestors' culture.

As a kid, I learned about 1940s American culture from Bugs Bunny cartoons. I learned lots of weird British phrases from Monty Python's Flying Circus. I was there for the comedy, but I was learning much more.

Now genealogy research is teaching me about my ancestors' Italian culture centuries ago.

In 2008, when I began reading Italian vital records from the 1800s, it was all new to me. I had to learn the Italian words for the months and all the numbers. The documents spell out the years and days. They don't say June 15, 1868; they say mille ottocento sessantotto, quindici di giugno.

I had to learn a handful of Italian words to get started: born and died, husband and wife, marriage, deceased, and so on.

Once I mastered those foreign words, I began to notice how they recorded some events. Like the abandoned babies. Only the midwife knew who the mother was, and the mayor could give the baby a made-up name. Sometimes a mother left her baby on someone's doorstep. It's like something out of an old movie.

My 5th great grandfather found a naked baby on his doorstep. The mayor named her Maria Giuseppa.

Then I learned it was perfectly normal to remarry 2 months after your first spouse died. A widower, like my 2nd great grandfather Nicoladomenico, might marry a much younger woman and keep having children. Nicoladomenico's 2nd wife, my 2nd great grandmother, was his daughter's age. Perfectly normal.

I learned that each marriage required the presentation of certain documents:

• the bride and groom's birth records
• the 2 times they publicly posted their intention to marry, with no objections
• the death records for any of their deceased parents
• the death records for their grandfathers, if their fathers were dead

That last part—the death records of their grandfathers—is the only way to find a record of a death before 1809 when church records are not available. (1809 is when they began keeping civil records in this part of Italy.) This past week I've been taking advantage of that practice.

I needed to find the death record of my 5th great grandfather, Gioacchino Tricarico. There was no other way to learn his parents' names. I knew he died before 1809 because there was no death record for him in the civil records.

To find his death record, I needed to find a marriage record for his grandchild. But the grandchild needed to marry after their father (Gioacchino's son) had died. I searched their town's civil records to learn the names of all his grandchildren. Then I searched the marriage indexes year by year, until I found a granddaughter who married in 1855.

The Italian tradition was for the bride's (or groom's) parents to give permission for his child to marry. If their father was dead, the grandfather could give permission.

There needed to be a reason for the missing permissions. So they included the death records of the bride or groom's father and grandfather.

This may be the single best thing about Italian marriage records. In the 1855 marriage records, I found the 1808 death record of my 5th great grandfather. I learned the names of his parents, my 6th great grandparents: Tommaso Tricarico and Orsola Antonelli.

Knowing how my ancestral hometowns kept their records helps me make unusual discoveries.

I've also learned from studying these documents that:

• A bride and groom often lived in the same neighborhood. There's a good chance their families owned adjacent land, and their marriage was an alliance for the strength of both families. That stood out even more when I saw the matchy-matchy pairings of children with similar names. Francesco married Francesca. Giovanni married Giovanna. It happened too often to be a coincidence. I guess it was better than flipping a coin. And who even had a coin?
• When a bride and groom came from different towns, they had to publicly post their intention to marry in both towns. They often married in the bride's town and lived in the groom's town. The groom was more likely to have a house or land in his town.

There are always exceptions to the rules. My 2nd great grandparents bucked the rules. Antonio from Sant'Angelo a Cupolo moved to Colomba's town when they married. I've been studying documents from her town of Santa Paolina. It seems her family was better educated, had better professions, and owned vineyards. It must have made more sense for Antonio to move to Colomba's town.

But this family kept rewriting the rules. Two of Colomba's brothers moved to the next town, Tufo. Tufo is famous for its vineyards to this day. My 2nd great grandparents followed the brothers to Tufo after their 1st baby died. They lived there long enough to have 2 sons. When one son died, the family of 3 moved back to Antonio's hometown. After having a few more kids, Antonio became my 1st ancestor to come to America.

As I went back further, I found that Colomba's mother came from another town called Apice. Colomba's parents married in Apice, but lived in Santa Paolina. This bolsters my idea that Colomba's family was more well-off than others.

So what's your rush? Do you really want a family tree that someone else put together? Someone who may have done a careless job? Or do you want to appreciate your ancestry? Do you want to know how they made a living, and why they emigrated? Do you want to try to understand their sorrow when child after child died in infancy?

Don't rush through your family tree building. Learn, experience, and savor the day-to-day culture of your ancestors. It's the history of you.

How to Create a Targeted Genealogy Research Plan

I've been all over the place with my genealogy research lately. That's fine. It's all fun and helps me make progress. But since I've got a long weekend, I want to do some carefully targeted research.

Here are my 4 steps for creating my targeted research plan. Think about how this applies to your research.

1. Choose Your Most Important Goal

If you've read a few of my articles, you probably know I'm trying to find out why my parents share some DNA. If there's a common ancestor, I want to know who it is. I'd like to figure this out while my parents are still able to have a laugh about it.

2. Look at the Research You've Done

I've built the daylights out of both their trees. Lately I've been working on one of Mom's under-developed branches. This branch's hometown is so small, it was common for the young ladies to marry men from another town. Did one of those grooms come from one of Dad's towns?

DNA Painter showed that Mom and another match (I know exactly who he is) overlap in 2 places on Dad's chromosomes. But I have no inkling of a relationship between Mom and this other match.

The Leeds Method gave me a way to examine Mom and Dad's shared DNA matches. But I didn't reach a conclusion.

Tools and methods only got me so far. Now I've got a theory, and I'll work to prove or disprove it.

I've looked at their shared matches on Ancestry DNA, and reached out to many matches with no real progress. Some offer no family tree. Those who do have a tree don't have a visible connection to me.

I made a spreadsheet (yes, another spreadsheet!) of my parents' 8 shared DNA matches. I included the number of centiMorgans (cMs) they shared with each and across how many segments. This helped me see which matches skewed more toward Mom, and which leaned more toward Dad. I made note of familiar last names in the available family trees.

3. Decide Where It's Best to Focus

Even though they're not the closest matches, I decided to focus on 3 matches with a family tree. A 4th match has a tree, and it's entirely incorporated into mine because of our relationship. But her tree is entirely on Dad's side of the family.

4. Spell Out Your Plan of Action

For the 3 matches with undeveloped family trees, I latched onto a familiar name.

• Donato Zerrillo was born in 1896 in the same town as my Dad's father. He's in my tree with a lot of relatives. I can explore his branches further to see if any lead to Mom's family.
• Salvatore Antonio Pozzuto was born in 1884, also in my Dad's father's town. I need to give his ancestors more attention, too. I'll see where his branches lead.
• Giuseppe Leone was born in 1882 in the same town as my Mom's father. I've already got a working theory to try to prove. Giuseppe's father was Michele Leone. There were 2 Michele Leones in town born a year apart. One of them was my 2nd great uncle. If this DNA match is a descendant of my 2nd great uncle, that would make total sense. And get this: I already know his relationship to Dad. He and I share my 4th great grandfather Pietro diPaola. We have a half 4th cousin once removed relationship.

The 3rd option seems to be the most important to follow. I already have my paternal relationship nailed down. And I think I have a good lead on the maternal relationship.

If this theory is true, I'll have 1 DNA match closely connected to my 2 parents.

My goal this weekend is to try to connect 1882 Giuseppe Leone to my 2nd great uncle Michele Leone.

If I tackle these, or if I try and strike out, I can get back to my aimless-but-fun family tree research.

Taking the Time to Take Care of Our Own

With so many family tree projects to tackle, a combo plan may work best.

While I'm in isolation, I'm turning my attention to my closer relatives. Sure, they lived in Italy in the 1800s. But those are the souls I live with day in and day out.

In past articles I've written about dozens of projects to clean up, beef up, and improve your family tree. Some of my favorite ongoing projects are:

• improving my source citations
• documenting entire Italian towns in a spreadsheet
• renaming image files to create a searchable database
• finding missing documents to "close out" individual families
• scanning, enhancing, cataloguing, and properly storing my family photos

There can never be enough hours in the day for me to complete these tasks. At least, not until I give up my corporate job.

But this past weekend I had a revelation. I was going line-by-line through my spreadsheet of vital records from my ancestral town of Colle Sannita. I was up to 1812 birth records. For each new baby, I check my family tree to see if I have the parents already. If I do, I add the baby, its facts, and the birth record. Of course I give it a source citation in my newly adopted style. I also add the baby to my document tracker. And I make the whole line green in the vital records spreadsheet. Green tells me this document is in my tree.

I can juggle all my family tree projects while working only on close relatives.

I was adding lots of babies. In some cases, I already had the baby, but not the birth record. And in some of those cases, I knew who they married and when. But I hadn't added the document to my tree yet.

When I found people missing documents, I finished them off. This took quite a bit longer, but it was worth the time to do it right.

And that's when I had my revelation. With limited time, wouldn't it be better to focus on my closer relatives and take a holistic approach? I can combine many of my different projects in one, starting with my great aunts and uncles.

You see, when my source citations broke, I developed a better way of handling them. Then I decided to fix the citations for my direct ancestors first. I have about 290 (n) great grandparents (n=1st through 9th). So I did that. I enhanced the source citations for my direct ancestors.

Now I want to move on from there. I knew exactly where I wanted to focus first: my Grandpa Leone's relatives. Why him? Because his relatives come from the town of Baselice. I documented that entire town by viewing vital records on microfilm. For 5 years I visited a Family History Center. I looked at each record, typing my own shorthand into a text file on my laptop.

Since the source of all those facts was one of several rolls of microfilm, I have tons of citations that are useless now. You can't get the microfilm anymore. But all those documents and more are accessible on the Italian Antenati website.

So my holistic approach goes like this.

I began with my grandfather's 4 siblings. For each one I:

• Fixed their source citations. I deleted the old microfilm sources and created new ones based on the Antenati URL of their vital record.
• Added missing documents. If I knew when and whom they married, but I hadn't added the documents, I added the documents.
• Renamed each document image I looked at until I found the one I needed. When I rename the file, I keep its identification number and add the name of the person in the document.
• Fixed the citations of their spouses and children. I have cases where a man's occupation fact comes from the birth record of his child. So, to cite my source for his job, I had to go to the child and cite my source for their birth. Then I copied that citation and pasted it to the dad's occupation.
• Made the spreadsheet line green if I added a birth record that was in my town spreadsheet.
• For any new documents, I added a notation in my document tracker spreadsheet. For many of the people I work on this way, I get to put an n/a in the "Need to find" column. That feels great.

Soon I began climbing the Leone family tree. I had done my great grandfather's wife and children and then his siblings. Then it was time to move on to his father. My 2nd great grandfather had lots of siblings and half-siblings. I was creating a source citation for the birth of his half brother Giovanni Leone. I noticed that I had him marked as having died in another town in 1864. I'm not sure where that fact came from, but I didn't have his death record.

I checked the Antenati website for 1864 death records for the town of Aversa. That's more than a 2-hour car ride from Giovanni's hometown of Baselice. Imagine how long a trip it was before cars and highways. Why was he there? I knew the date of his death, so it was easy to find the actual death record. I saw the word celibe after his name, so I knew my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone had never married. He was 51 years old with no occupation. Most of the Italian death records I've seen say the person died in his own house, or in his father's house. This one says he died in the Reale Stabilimento dei Matti. I needed my Italian friend to confirm what I thought. And it does mean what I'd feared. Giovanni died in the insane asylum in the city of Aversa.

The fate of my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone was a shocker.

With a bit of research I learned this establishment used caring, humane methods. There was no harsh treatment of the inmates. Maybe Giovanni's family sent him that far away because it was the kindest thing they could do for him.

Poor Giovanni's fate is a silver lining to this holistic approach. By sticking to closer relatives and tying up loose ends, I made this sad discovery. Instead of wondering why Giovanni left town and never married, I now know exactly why.

In the end, this approach means I'll make slower progress on my individual projects. But I'll make deeper, more complete, and more meaningful progress on my blood relatives.

How can you combine your family tree projects into more fulfilling genealogy research sessions?

How to Figure Out a DNA Match

Even with no cooperation, you can work a DNA match into your family tree.

One of my 2020 Genealogy Goals is to figure out my connection to at least 1 DNA match per month. Here's a breakdown of how I met this goal for January.

I bought an Ancestry DNA kit back in 2012. I have uploaded my raw DNA to a few other websites, but Ancestry DNA gives me the most robust tools. As I scroll down my match list, I can see the brief notes I added to people, like:

• descendant of Teofilo Iamarino (that's my great grandfather's brother)
• related thru Libera Maria Iamarino (that's another great grandfather's sister)
• related thru Nicola Leone (that's my grandfather's 1st cousin)

These notes make it easy to scan the list and find someone with a family tree but no note from me.

No tree, private tree, worthless tree. Why did they get a DNA test?

My 1st candidate is a man with a 7-person tree, but only 4 names are not private. The facts are almost non-existent. But I recognize the my match's last name as being from my grandfather's hometown in Italy.

I don't know what year anyone in my match's family tree was born. So I searched for my match's exact name on Facebook. I found a man who is very likely him, based on our mutual friend. Having seen him in one photo, I can estimate he's about my age.

That gives me something to go on. I can assume his grandfather is from my grandfather's town and was born more than 100 years ago. There are 2 people in my collection of Italian vital records who could be the grandfather of my match.

But I can't go any further without writing to my match and hoping he replies. Let's move on.

My 2nd candidate is a woman with a 29-person family tree. Once again I recognize a couple of last names from my grandfather's Italian hometown.

Unfortunately this 29-person family tree makes very little sense. People are not connected to one another. There's a lack of maiden names. And the 2 last names I recognize don't have an obvious connection to my DNA match. I'm starting to lose hope.

Before I move on, I'll search my Italian vital records collection for people in the tree. One person from the tree might be the son of my 1st cousin 5 times removed, Liberantonia Iamarino. But I have no way to be sure.

The next few candidates have worthless trees. This is what happens when someone gets a DNA kit as a gift but doesn't care.

Finally, down in the 4th–6th cousin range, I see another familiar last name. (Grandpa's hometown has descendants EVERYWHERE!) His family tree has only 7 people, but it has what I really like: Italians born in the 1800s.

Sure enough, my DNA match's paternal grandfather is from Grandpa's town. I found his 1882 birth record and saw a note written in its column. It said this man married my DNA match's grandmother in 1904. That proves I've got the right birth record.

To turn this cousin into a solved DNA match, I've got to get his people into my tree. His grandfather Gennaro was born in 1882 to Ignazio and Costanza. Ignazio is not a common first name in the town, and that will help me. I searched my digital town folder and found his 1931 death record. I know it's him because he's still married to Costanza. Based on his age at death, I found his birth record. Then I found Ignazio's parents' (my match's 2nd great grandparents') 1843 marriage records.

While fitting this DNA match into my family tree, I discovered 4 of my 7th great grandparents!

And that marriage is the key. The bride in 1843 (Costanza) is the daughter of my 5th great uncle, Francesco Saverio d'Emilia. Boo yah!

Now I can work my way down to my DNA match. I add my 1st cousin 5 times removed, Costanza Carmela Guilia d'Emilia, to my family tree. I add her husband and their son. Then I add his wife and their son. Then I add his son—my DNA match.

Solved: This DNA match is my 5th cousin once removed. I'll go back to add the details and attach the Italian document images. Then I'll contact my DNA match and point him to that part of my tree. Your DNA match is more likely to answer if you say "Here's your family" than if you ask "Who's your family?"

This is why you work on your DNA match's family tree.

As I told my husband the other day, anyone who's a DNA match to me is very lucky. I've got a big tree and the documents to make it bigger and bigger. The key to figuring out your DNA match's connection is familiarity. You've got to be very familiar with the last names in your family tree and in your towns. That's how I attack each match. I spot a last name (usually from Grandpa Iamarino's town), and I try to solve it.

That's my DNA genealogy goal for January. Time to tackle a different goal.

Here Are My 6 Genealogy Goals for 2020

Start thinking about which family tree tasks you want to complete in 2020.

It's time to set your 2020 Genealogy Goals. First, keep in mind that these should be stress-free goals. If you can't get to one or can't finish a couple, so be it. You can try again next year.

The point is to encourage yourself to complete a few helpful family tree tasks. When you complete one, you should feel recharged and ready to tackle another goal.

I had the most success with the 2019 goals that I kept limited, manageable, and possible. That's why some of my 2020 genealogy goals are going to be continuations of my 2019 goals.

Goal #1: Five Times Two

Enter the facts from 5 years of death and marriage records (for each of my Italian ancestral hometowns) into a spreadsheet.

Last year I kept my goal limited to 5 years of birth records for each town. It went so fast that I'm doubling it this year. In the end I'll have the most awesome database I can share with anyone who has roots in my towns. (If I live so long!)

Adding to this genealogy database was helpful last year, so I'm doubling my efforts.

Goal #2: Gimme All the Babies

Enter all Colle Sannita births for babies named Zeolla into my family tree.

Last year I entered all the babies born in the town of Colle Sannita named Pozzuto. Those 2 last names—Pozzuto and Zeolla—are important to my family tree. There are people with those names who are DNA matches to both my mother and my father. If I gather all the people with those names, I may figure out my parents' DNA relationship.

Two last names are important to my family mystery; I'm collecting them all.

Goal #3: Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine

Each month choose at least 1 DNA match (with a family tree) and figure out their relationship to me.

Our DNA match lists grow all the time. This goal will make a dent in my match list. And if I find that 1 a month is too little, there's no reason I can't do more.

Goal #4: Papers, Please

Search for every missing WWI and WWII draft registration card listed in my Document Tracker.

Last year's goal was to search for every missing census form in the "Need to find" column of my document tracker. And hopefully find them. That took a while to finish. The draft registration cards should be much faster. If I finish early I can start searching for missing ship manifests.

Draft registration cards can give you crucial genealogy facts.

Goal #5: Once Upon a Time

Write a brief life story for each of my direct ancestors with enough data.

I turned my maternal grandfather's facts and documents into his life story. But I haven't written any more stories. I can at least write a life story for my paternal grandfather and my 2 great grandfathers who lived in America. I don't know as much about the women in the family, but I can still write something from their perspective.

Last year I had 7 goals. I had no luck completing 3 of them, but I did try. That failure helped me understand how to craft better genealogy goals. I did complete 3 of them, and I never got to the last one. Technically, I should carry that one over, so…

Goal #6: Gimme More Babies

Enter all Sant'Angelo a Cupolo births for babies named Muollo into my family tree. And find documents for the one who emigrated to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania.

This is a smaller town with fewer documents available, so I should be able to finish this goal this year.

What will your goals be? Remember to break a bigger goal into reasonably sized chunks. Don't give yourself more work than you can handle.

Use your goals to get you closer to whatever it is you want to achieve. Choose tasks that will make you happy when they're done. Never forget this is all for your enjoyment. Now, go get busy!

3 Rules for Setting Your 2020 Genealogy Goals

Get ready to set genealogy goals that will make the most of your time.

It's just around the corner. Time to get serious about writing your 2020 Genealogy Goals. Over the past 2 years I've realized the secrets to being successful with your goals.

Forget those silly New Year's resolutions. You're going to craft the ideal genealogy goals list. Simply follow these 3 rules.

#1 Set Yourself Up for Success

Your goals need to be achievable. Instead of setting yourself up for failure, make sure it's possible to reach your goal within the year.

If your goal is to find and visit your cousins in the country where your ancestors were born, you may not be able to do that this year. Start smaller. Find out all you can about the relatives who stayed in the old country.

When I visited the cemetery in Italy where 2 of my great grandparents were born, I saw Vincenzo Sarracino's grave. Based on his name and age—and his photo on the grave—I thought he might be my grandmother's first cousin.

It was 3 years later that I learned I was right! I found and contacted Sarracino cousins several hours away from me in Pittsburgh. Luckily, my husband had a wedding to attend in Pittsburgh. So we visited my new relatives.

My family showed me lots of photos. I recognized Vincenzo Sarracino! These cousins gave me the background on the man I'd discovered in the cemetery 3 years earlier.

That goes to show you some goals take longer than a year. It's out of your control. Finding and visiting distant cousins is a wonderful goal. But it's not suitable for your 2020 list of genealogy goals. Try for something that's in your power.

If this were an annual goal, I'd have failed twice. Do what's in your power.

#2 Be Specific and Limited

If your goal is too vague, how will you work toward it? What steps will you take?

For example, if your goal is "Build my husband's family tree," how will you know when you're done? A family tree is never done! Maybe all you want to do is create a couple of generations' worth of his family tree for starters. You can take a broad goal like that and break it down into its parts:

• Find his parents' marriage record.
• Search for his parents and their families in every census year.
• Search for his grandparents' immigration records.

Think of a bigger, somewhat vague goal as a series of steps. Choose 1 or 2 of the steps and make them your goals.

Success keeps you going! Split that big genealogy project into manageable parts.

#3 Break Big Tasks into Modules

I have some lofty genealogy goals. I'd need to work on them full-time for a long time to get them done. But if you divide a big task into modules, chunks, or units, you can make measurable progress.

Here are my 2 really, really big projects and how I'm handling them.

Project A. Enter key facts from my collection of Italian vital records in a spreadsheet. The result will be a database that's easy to search and to share.

When I started entering facts from each vital record into a spreadsheet, it was wonderful. Those facts were now searchable. If I was looking for the birth of a Giovanni Pozzuto whose father was Giuseppe, I could search for that. But it takes a long time to create. I found ways to go faster, but it's still a huge task.

So, as a 2019 genealogy goal, I committed to a smaller goal: Log the first 5 years' worth of birth records from each of my towns into the spreadsheet.

I finished that by March! Having all those vital records in a searchable format is fabulous for my research. I want to get more ambitious this year. I'll go for 5 years of death records and 5 years of marriage records from each town.

And if I finish that early, I can tack on another 5 years of births. The key is to use small chunks you know you can finish.

Don't burden yourself with a huge task. Achieve your goal in steps.

Project B. Rename every document image in my collection of Italian vital records.

It dawned on me that I could have a searchable database even before I finish Project A. If I rename the image of a death record to include the deceased's name, that person is now searchable on my computer.

I started by renaming the marriage records for my grandfather's town of Colle Sannita. The file names get really long when an image shows 2 pages, 2 brides, 2 grooms. But they're searchable!

I was so happy with the results—and how fast it seemed to go—that I pushed further. I renamed the entire town's files. And I'm moving on to other towns. I have one little hamlet with a very limited number of vital records. I renamed them all within 90 minutes. Then I moved on to another town.

Getting more files renamed is going to be a top goal for me in 2020. I'll break it into chunks, like all birth records for one town. When that's done I'll move on to all births for another town. Every bit of that effort will pay off.

Make yourself and your family tree happy this coming year. Set a small number of 2020 Genealogy Goals you know you can get done.

And speaking of genealogy goal-setting:

• How to Set Realistic Genealogy Goals for 2019
• It's Mid-Year Genealogy Goals Checkup Time
• Why You Need to Set Genealogy Priorities

Last Chance for Your 2019 Genealogy Goals

I'm not nagging, but wouldn't you like to finish another genealogy goal?

There's no guilt in missing some of your 2019 genealogy goals. But there should be joy in completing a few.

I've written about making your annual genealogy goals achievable. Don't bother with pie-in-the-sky goals like "find my connection to Julius Caesar". Make your list of goals short and highly possible.

It's time to make a dash for the 2019 genealogy goals finish line.

Here's where my 2019 list of goals stands today, December 3, 2019:

• DONE: Log the first five years' worth of birth records from each of my ancestral towns into spreadsheet.
• DONE: Search for all missing census forms in my document tracker.
• NO LUCK: Find a resource for Erie Railroad documents during the years my great grandfather worked in New York state.
• NO LUCK: Gather every available document of my great uncle's time spent in the Bronx to figure out the year he moved to Illinois (bet. 1906-1910).
• NO LUCK: Search 1920–1925 New York City newspapers for any mention of the mutual aid society to which Antonio Saviano belonged.
• POSSIBLE TO FINISH: Enter every Pozzuto baby born in Colle Sannita (1809–1915) into my family tree.
• NOT BEGUN: Enter every Muollo baby born in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo into my family tree.

As you can see, I completed 2 of my goals, and tried but had no luck with 3 more. The one goal I haven't begun can get pushed to my 2020 genealogy goals list.

It's easy to see where I should focus during this last month of the year. The second-to-last goal: entering the Pozzuto babies into my family tree.

That name features strongly in my family tree and in my DNA match list. I decided that fitting as many as possible into my tree will help me connect to more of my DNA cousins.

To make progress on the Pozzuto babies, I first completed a huge goal that isn't on the list. It was wildly ambitious. But it went so much faster than expected. I have on my computer all the vital records from my grandfather's Italian hometown from 1809–1942. There are gaps. The birth records end at 1915, and the birth and marriage records are missing between 1860 and 1931.

But I renamed every image in the collection to include the name of the subject. Now the entire collection is searchable on my computer.

What can you do to make your research more productive?

This was such a valuable project! In fact, my priority in 2020 will be to do the same for my other ancestral Italian hometowns. I have all their available vital records, too.

Finding the Pozzuto babies is as simple as:

• Opening the birth records folder for a particular year.
• Searching the folder for the name Pozzuto.
• Working my way through that short list (an average of 5 to 10 names) to see if I can fit them into my tree.

What I do is look to see if I already have their parents. If I don't, or I'm not sure they're the right people, I can search for the parents' marriage record. But those end in 1860 and don't pick up again until 1931.

If I don't have enough information to be sure who the baby's parents are, I do one of two things. I either:

• Put the family unit in my family tree with a profile picture that says "No Relationship Established", or
• Mark the image file with xxxxx at the beginning of the file name. That way I know that baby is not in the tree because I need more clues.

I'm up to 1877 which means I have 33 years' worth of babies to place in my tree. To finish this goal, I'll need to complete more than one year each day. I'd better shoot for 2 years per day because the holidays and other things will be nipping away at my time.

The important thing is that the end of the goal is in sight. And so is the end of the year. I want to make a run for it!

What about you? Take a careful look at your 2019 genealogy goals. If you didn't make a list, think about what you've been working on. Or come up with a way to make future project easier—like renaming your files or creating a new spreadsheet.

What's possible to attack and complete this month? Do what you can to set yourself up for greater things in 2020.

It's Mid-Year Genealogy Goals Checkup Time

Half a year left. It isn't too late to start your genealogy goals!

I had such a wildly productive 4-day weekend of genealogy research. I want every day to be as filled with joy and accomplishment as that.

I had enough hours to bounce around, finishing off tasks that weren't even on my to-do list. Not officially. For example:

• Upgrade my unofficial sources to official sources. I researched facts that I'd borrowed from other distant relatives. I found documentation to prove or fix what they'd told me.
• Go through my old to-do list in Family Tree Maker. I followed up on several questions and answered a bunch of them.
• Find the family connection for branches that are floating loose in my family tree. I knew these people had to be related somehow. I figured out a bunch of them.

Then I realized we've just passed the halfway point of 2019. It's time to refocus on our 2019 genealogy goals. How are you doing with your list?

The bigger your family tree gets, the easier it is to get lost. Your goals can keep you on the right path.

Making Progress on Genealogy Goals

These are the realistic genealogy goals I planned for 2019 and their status:

• Enter the first five years' worth of birth records from each of my ancestral towns into a spreadsheet. DONE!
• Search for all missing census forms in my document tracker spreadsheet. DONE!
• Enter every "Pozzuto" birth and marriage from the town of Colle Sannita into my family tree. MAKING PROGRESS. I'm up to 1841 BIRTHS going forward, and 1852 marriages going backwards.
• Find Erie Railroad documents from the time my great grandfather worked there. TRIED and FAILED. There is a 1938 Erie Railroad magazine issue that includes my ancestor's name. Maybe the Hornell, New York, library has it.
• Figure out when my 2nd great uncle moved to Illinois. NARROWED DOWN to between 1906–1910.
• Search 1920–1925 New York City newspapers for the mutual aid society to which my 2nd great grandfather belonged. TRIED and FAILED.
• Enter every "Muollo" baby born in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo into my family tree. Find all available documents for the ones who emigrated to Pennsylvania. MAKING PROGRESS.

The first 2 items on the list took a pretty long time. They were tedious. But finishing them was such a rush.

All I can think about is the next step—my 2020 genealogy goals:

• I want to enter more vital records from my ancestral towns into that spreadsheet.
• I want to search for the missing draft registration cards for every American man in my document tracker.

It's like potato chips. Once you start, you just can't stop. (See "Plowing Through My 2019 Genealogy Goals".)

The more I add to this database of my ancestral towns, the more valuable it is.

Time to Get Busy

Now here's what I'd like you to do:

• If you never made a 2019 goals list, write a short, achievable list of goals.
• If you did make a 2019 list, see where you stand with each item.
• Figure out which goals you can make the biggest dent in beginning now.
• Think about which goals are better left for next year.

Never stop making progress in your family tree research. Anyone who enjoys this crazy-obsessive genealogy hobby knows the secret: Finding that next important fact is everything! That's what keeps us going. And loving every minute of it.