Look Past the Misspellings to Find Your Ancestors

My second grade teacher taught us to read by making us "sound it out." I remember my class sounding out a sentence in one voice. "We went to the park" sounded like: wuh ee, we; wuh en t, went; tuh oo, to; thuh uh, the; puh arr k, park." It sounded weird, but it worked.

That lesson from too many decades ago helped me break down a family tree brick wall last week.

There's an Italian-American woman who wants to visit her ancestral hometowns. She wants to identify her ancestors so she might connect with people in the towns. One branch of her tree was giving me problems. I couldn't be sure where this particular husband and wife came from, and my searches were coming up empty.

Then she shared a family history that her ancestor wrote about this brick wall branch. The document had exact birth dates for the couple. It listed 2 or 3 hometowns for both the husband and wife. That was curious. Then again, it could mean that they were born in one town and their parents were born somewhere else.

I focused on the husband first. I checked a website that lists the names of every town in Italy. Of the 3 hometowns in the family history document, only one existed. I did not find him there.

The other 2 towns did not exist, and the spelling didn't look like proper Italian. I figured this was how the town sounded to the family history author when her ancestor said it. This was a phonetic spelling of the town.

Say It, Don't Spell It

With that in mind, I kept saying the 2 misspelled town names aloud, over and over again. I scanned the list of Italian towns as I repeated the sounds again and again. I didn't find them.

You may not know how to spell the name of your ancestor's town. What to do? Sound it out.

One of the best methods for finding a hometown is to find your ancestor on a ship manifest. I knew I wouldn't find the hometown on his ship manifest because he came to America too early. My ancestors were kind enough not to arrive before 1898, giving me a good look at the names of their hometowns.

The family history document had one more good clue about this couple. They got married in Manhattan in about 1888. I went straight to the search page for the New York City Municipal Archives. I knew I should find the marriage document there. I hoped it would have the bride and groom's parents' names. I did not expect it to list a hometown.

My searches failed. I couldn't find this couple, even when I included all the city's boroughs and expanded the years. Then I searched for a variation of the bride's last name. Experience tells me that an Italian last name ending in i usually ended in o at an earlier time. So I searched for her name ending in an o. This produced a long list of possibilities. I looked at the search results, hoping to find one with both her name and his.

That's when I found them. I never thought a clerk would misspell his very common last name. I swear, the NYC clerks in the late 1800s were illiterate. Who spells Italy Ytali? Someone who hears an Italian pronounce Italy and can't spell, that's who.

See How It Sounds

Now I had my couple's parents' names, even though the clerk mangled each one. (Saverio is a first name. Saviero is not.) Since the groom's mother's name was not common, I did an Ancestry search for her. The one search result made me gasp. (I guess I'm a gasper.) It was someone else's family tree that included my groom's entire family—but not him.

Everything about this unsourced tree made perfect sense to me. The parents matched the NYC marriage record. The family history mentioned the groom's sister and brothers, and here they were. I never accept someone's family tree as fact, but I was able to verify what they were showing.

The one thing that made me certain this was the right family was their hometown. Remember those misspelled town names? The ones I kept saying aloud to hear their sound? This tree had one of the town names. When I said it aloud, I knew for a fact it was the misspelled town from the document.

Keep sounding out that foreign town name as you search for something that matches the sound.

Now it was time to prove this person's tree right or wrong. I searched the properly spelled town for my groom's birth record. I found him in the year before the date from the family history. (Always assume early ancestors may not know their own birthday.) There he was with the same parents I'd found misspelled on his NYC marriage record.

Knowing the right town, I used vital records to take the groom's family back 4 generations!

Most people would see that other family tree and think, "That's not the town great grandpa used to talk about." But I saw the town name and said it aloud as an Italian would. I heard it as a match for the botched spelling in the family history document.

When you pronounce an R in Italian, it sounds like a D. My grandfather used to call my grandmother Mary something that sounded like Moddy. That wasn't a D sound. It was a rolled R. That's why the family history had the town name so wrong.

What Else Makes That Sound?

My second grade teacher's "sound it out" method is still working for me. Have you heard your ancestor's hometown spoken with a foreign accent but never saw it written? You may not know how to spell it at all.

I used this method in my own family tree once before. (See Case Study on "What If There's No There There?") My great grandmother used to talk about where she came from. Her granddaughter passed that along to me as a phonetic spelling: Pisqualamazza. That's not a town. So I searched passenger lists for anyone around her age with her last name. I looked at each search result to see the hometown. When I saw Pescolamazza, I knew that was it. And that's where I found her birth record. Now I can name her 3rd great grandparents.

If you can't locate your ancestral hometown, keep your mind and ears open. Sound it out as you try to mimic the right accent. If you heard your grandfather say it when you were a kid, try to remember exactly how it sounded. Then see what sounds the same.

Harvesting Clues from Your DNA Matches

My DNA matches continue to disappoint me. After ignoring them for a while, I decided to browse through my new matches. I filtered my Ancestry DNA results to show only unviewed matches with a family tree.

I quickly viewed and dismissed about a dozen of them. What good is your tree if it has 3 people? Or if you include only living, unnamed people?

At last I found someone I could latch onto and research. His family tree contains only 6 people including himself. But I knew I was looking at ancestors with ties to my mother's side. That set my expectations on what to look for.

This is why I always say you've got to learn the last names from your ancestral hometowns. I looked at this skimpy tree and saw only 2 last names: d'Onofrio and Ferro. I knew from experience that those names come from my maternal grandfather's hometown.

I searched the vital records I have on my computer for the town of Baselice. I was looking for Leonardo d'Onofrio born in 1913 and Maria Addolorata Ferro born in 1912. I found both their birth records! I felt lucky because the birth records end in 1915, and some years are missing.

If you can find one or two of your DNA match's ancestors, you're in! Do the genealogy research your DNA match can't seem to do.

These are, without a doubt, the right people. Each one's birth record has a note in the margin saying they married the other in 1937. I have their marriage records, too.

With their documents open on one monitor, I launched Family Tree Maker on another. Would I be able to place them in my family tree? My DNA match is a 4th to 6th cousin. It may take some work to make the connection.

My first step was to check my family tree for the bride and groom—my DNA match's parents. They are not in my tree, but I can search the town's vital records for their parents. Hopefully I'll find a place where they fit.

I started with the groom's mother, Maria Teresa Pettorossi. I found her birth record in 1870. It named her parents and each of their fathers. That helped me positively ID her parents, who were already in my tree. Now I had a relationship to these people. But it wasn't a blood relationship.

I continued searching for each parent and seeing if they fit into my family tree. Because I spent 5 years piecing together the families of the town of Baselice, these new people all have a place. Unfortunately, their relationships to me are all through marriage. There was a lot of intermarrying in this somewhat isolated hill town. I'll bet I'm a 4th to 6th cousin of everyone from Baselice.

The best part of this exercise is how it's filling in missing marriages. There are tens of thousands of vital records available for this town. But the marriage records end in 1860 and pick up again in 1931. If I follow the children and grandchildren of the 1850s babies in my tree, I can figure out who they married.

I always intended to figure out missing marriages this way. This new DNA match is a good reason to start.

Because this is "my" town, I added several generations in a heartbeat.

There is one person in this family group I can't positively identify. I need an Angelamaria Petruccelli born in about 1851. There were 2 babies with that name born a few months apart, and I can't be sure which is the right one.

Because of that uncertainty, I can't go any further. As of now, this DNA match has at least 6 different relationships to me. But each one involves a marriage somewhere up the line.

Don't be too disappointed if you can't find a meaningful relationship to a distant DNA match. Focus on your closer matches. Then use the more distant ones to fill in some gaps in your own family tree. Take the facts they know from oral history, and back them up with documents.

And speaking of DNA matches:

• 3 Steps to Solving DNA Matches
• Don't Rely on Your DNA Match to Do the Work
• Let a DNA Match Guide Your Research for a While

How to Create and Share Your Ancestral Town Database

On Sunday, after finishing a bunch of chores, I was eager to launch Family Tree Maker. I wanted to do one thing. It's something I've been preparing for the last few weeks.

My Own Vital Records Database

You see, in 2017 I downloaded all the available vital records from my ancestral hometowns. These jpg files sit on my computer, organized in folders by year and type of record (birth, marriage, death). Whenever I wanted to search for an ancestor, I could go year-by-year and look at the indexes until I found them.

But there's a much better way. I've been renaming every document image file to include the name of the main person(s) in the vital record. The original image file name of 2 facing 1809 birth records was 007853875_00497.jpg. Now it's 007853875_00497 Carmine Pasquale Zeolla di Antonio & Anna Maria Martuccio di Giovanni.jpg. The image includes the birth records for:

• Carmine Pasquale Zeolla, son of Antonio
• Anna Maria Martuccio, daughter of Giovanni

In the future, if I need to find either Carmine or Anna Maria, I can locate these documents in a snap.

There are thousands of files in my collection. I want to squeeze every single relative from them. And that'll be way easier if I can search for their names on my computer.

A perfect combination of software makes my public genealogy database possible.

Breaking Through to Another Generation

With that in mind, I've been renaming the vital record files from my great grandmother's hometown. I'd already gone quite far in building her family tree. But I knew there were more ancestors hiding in those files.

Sunday night I hoped to add a generation to her family tree. One by one, I looked at her direct ancestors in Family Tree Maker to see who was missing a death record. Only two of my 5th great grandparents were still dead ends.

I use a Windows program called Everything to search my computer for an ancestor's name. It organizes the results by folder names, so it's easy to see which results are death, birth, or marriage records—and which year they're from.

I found the death records for my two dead-end 5th great grandparents easily. That means I discovered the names of four of my 6th great grandparents. All within a few minutes!

The database I'm creating by renaming the image files is invaluable. I'd love to share it with other descendants of my towns. If they find their ancestor in a list of all my file names, they can pull the original file from the Antenati website.

My database is the best thing ever to happen to my family tree. Now I have a way to share it.

Sharing My Hard Work

To make this database sharable, I need to capture all the file names in hundreds of folders and sub-folders. After researching, I found a reputable Windows program that can do the job. It's called Karen's Directory Printer, and it comes highly recommended.

I put it to work on my grandfather's town of Colle Sannita. I set it up to create a list of each file name and the folder it comes from. Within a couple of minutes the program generated a nearly 40,000-line text file of file names. This is the first time I've had any sense of how many vital records I have for this town!

There are many marriage documents I skipped in the file renaming process. At first I renamed only the marriage documents themselves. That made the couple's names searchable. But the folders also contain marriage banns, birth, and death records for the two families. Usually I rename those extra documents when I'm working on a particular couple.

But lately I've been renaming all the files in a marriage folders. I have a long way to go, but the very old death records are wildly helpful. I've been using them to bring some branches of my family tree back to the 1600s.

What I did for now is create a text file for each of my towns containing the file name every vital record on my computer. I'll regenerate the text files after I rename lots more image files. Finally, I can share this bounty with everyone who has a stake in any of my ancestral hometowns.

I've seen lots of people upset that these Italian documents online aren't searchable. It takes hundreds of man-hours to turn an image collection into searchable text. As long as I'm spending those man-hours, I may as well share the results.

This project will keep me busy for a long time. If you're thinking about doing something similar, there are many benefits:

• If you view and rename batches of files from a town, you will get familiar with the names. This helps you overcome bad handwriting.
• Individual searches for your ancestors become very easy.
• You may find that the whole town's related through marriage.

I'll add links to my database in the Free Genealogy Resources section of this blog. I'll upload the files to my www.forthecousins.com website. And I'll mention them in Facebook groups devoted to individual towns. Maybe I can interest the Antenati site, too.

Don't keep a big important genealogy project to yourself! You've got tons of DNA relatives out there who need your work.

And speaking of document image files:

• How to Create Your Ancestral Hometown Database
• Build Your Own Genealogy Research Library
• 3 Reasons Why Transcribing Every Document Is Not Crazy

What Was it Like When Your Ancestors Lived Here?

We watched "I Love Lucy" so much when I was a kid that my family still speaks in phrases from the show. One favorite comes from Lucy imitating Ricky mispronouncing "soak up some local color." It sounds like "sock up some lockel collar."

Whenever a member of the family is going on a trip, we tell them to "sock up some lockel collar." We can't go anywhere in 2020. So why not use a free online newspaper to get the "lockel collar" of the town I call home?

You can do this, too. Start at a Wikipedia page listing online newspaper archives from around the world. Many are free. Many are on the Fulton History website you may know, but others are not found there.

I went straight to the New York state newspapers and chose my Hudson Valley region. That led me to Hudson River Valley Historical Newspapers.

What if we search old newspapers for our ancestor's town instead of their name?

In the 12 March 1909 edition of the "Kingston Daily Freeman" is a story about a church less than 5 miles from my home.

The headline is "THE DEVIL IN CHURCH." I'm intrigued. This is a very small chapel within steps of a main road near the border of Fishkill, New York.

The article reads as follows:

"While holding prayer meeting in a small churh [sic] at Wiccoppe [sic], near Hopewell Junction, Dutchess county, the congregation was startled by the appearance of a figure clad in black wearing horns and a black mask and a pitchfork held in his hands. One of the members made a grab for the masker but he ducked out into the street and disappeared. The affair has stirred up a great scandal in the village."

What did he do? Hop on a Model-T motoring by?

Next I searched for my town in a paper called the "Rockland County Journal." I grew up in Rockland County, and it's an hour away from me now, across the Hudson River. I chose the earliest article in the results, from 20 March 1875.

I've lived in a lot of towns without knowing details of their past.

An article called "Bridging the Hudson" talks about some critical infrastructure in my area. There's a National Park near here called the Walkway Over the Hudson. It's a former railroad bridge turned into a walking and biking path. They completed the railroad bridge in 1889. Following a fire, they closed and abandoned it. Finally, they rebuilt it for pedestrians in 2009, and it's very popular.

The article says Boston merchants wanted New York to build the bridge. Boston is a 3-hour drive from me, and more than 4 hours from New York City. There is no other railroad bridge across the Hudson between here and New York City. The lack of a crossing isolated Boston merchants from the rest of the country.

Boston appointed a committee that, 14 years later, resulted in the bridge's completion. It also recommended the completion of a road from my little town to the city of Poughkeepsie. That's where the bridge is. That road, Route 9, is now the main artery connecting every town from here to Poughkeepsie. It's a 12-mile strip of:

• every franchise in America
• retail stores
• medical offices
• hotels
• restaurants
• businesses, and
• banks.

I always complain that I can't find my ancestors in newspapers. They weren't big businessmen. They weren't socialites. I haven't even found an obituary. And in Italy where they came from, most people were illiterate in the 1890s when my people left.

That's why we genealogists may find it useful to learn about our ancestors' hometowns. We may not find their names, but we may find their neighbors. I have one branch that lived in Western New York state. Their little town is ripe for newspaper exploration.

What local news can you find that had an impact on your family?

And speaking of history:

• What Was Happening When Your Ancestor Died?
• Did Your Ancestors Break the Mold?
• Finding Your Family's Fallen War Heroes

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 Decide Where to Put Your Research Effort

With so many juicy genealogy leads, what should be my priority? If I never had to work, or cook or clean or eat or sleep, I wouldn't need to make this decision.

A few distant relatives have been writing to me from different branches of my family tree. When that happens, I shift gears and work on their branch until I come to a conclusion.

Because of these shiny genealogy objects, I've been bouncing around from:

• Most of Dad's side, working my way through an amazing reference book about their hometown.
• My paternal grandmother's maternal side, connecting myself to a cousin in Western Australia.
• My maternal grandmother's maternal grandmother's side (that's my 2nd great grandmother), collaborating with a distant cousin from that town.

All this bouncing around made me wonder—am I putting my effort in the right places? I've done an enormous amount of work on some of my 7 ancestral hometowns. Should I be working on different towns?

Let's turn this into a game of percentages and let the numbers point us in the right direction.

My family origins are pretty homogeneous. My 8 great grandparents came from 4 neighboring towns in Italy. Once you get to my 3rd great grandparents, a few more towns enter the mix.

Let your ancestors help you set your genealogy research priorities.

We each have 32 3rd great grandparents. Looking only at them in my family tree, I can see how many of the 32 came from each of my 7 ancestral hometowns. I can divide that number by 32 for a percentage of my genetic makeup. Here are my 7 towns, ranked by percentage of my 3rd great grandparents:

• 11 come from Colle Sannita: 34.34%
• 8 come from Baselice: 25%
• 6 come from Sant'Angelo a Cupolo: 18.75%
• 4 come from Pesco Sannita: 12.5%
• 1 comes from Apice: 3.125%
• 1 comes from Circello: 3.125%
• 1 comes from Santa Paolina: 3.125%

The bottom 3 towns are a small percentage of my origin, but they could be easy to tackle.

In Apice, for example, I've identified half of my 8 6th great grandparents. All were born in the early 1700s. I may find their death records included in their descendants' marriage records. Those documents should tell me their parents' names.

You may still need to build your tree wide to find those missing ancestors.

Completing Apice wouldn't yield a big percentage of my ancestry. But it should be a reasonably quick task. The same is true for Santa Paolina and Circello. There are lots of vital records available for these 3 towns.

At the other end of the spectrum is Colle Sannita, which makes up more than a third of my family tree. More than a third of me! Next comes beautiful Baselice, which is a quarter of me. And I happen to look just like my great grandmother from Baselice.

The percentages justify the insane amount of time I spend on my Colle Sannita ancestors. It's not only the birthplace of my maiden name; it's very much in my bones.

Then again, when faced with a large task, I always chip off the easy parts first. It's my mental trick to keep me going. When I'm shoveling snow in our driveway, I never commit to doing the whole job in one session. I bargain with myself. I say, "I'll just make a path for one car." And when that's done, and I'm still feeling fine, I say, "I'll just widen that path and clean up the edges."

One bit at a time, I trick myself into doing the whole job. But I never made a commitment. So this bargaining side of me wants to pick off the bottom 3 towns in my list first. I need to find:

• 4 6th great grandparents from Apice.
• 8 6th great grandparents from Circello.
• No 6th great grandparents from Santa Paolina, but 10 missing 7th great grandparents.

I need to tackle those. Looking at my 12.5% town of Pesco Sannita, I need 12 of my 16 6th great grandparents. I haven't spent a lot of time on this town. I'll bet those names are waiting for me.

My next highest town (Sant'Angelo a Cupolo) doesn't have records available before 1861. I don't expect to go back any farther than I have. As for Baselice, that was my "gateway" genealogy town. I spent 5 years viewing the 1809–1860 vital records on microfilm and piecing together families. While there are ton more recent vital records available to me now, I don't think I can go any higher in my family tree; just wider.

There. I've found my priorities, in this order:

1. Find the 4 missing 6th great grandparents from Apice.
2. Find the 8 missing 6th great grandparents from Circello.
3. Search my Santa Paolina records to complete that set of 7th great grandparents. (I've been renaming my collection of vital records to include the name of the person in the document. Game-changer!)
4. Find the 12 missing 6th great grandparents from Pesco Sannita.
5. Return to my Colle Sannita book that details the 560 families living there in 1742.

You may set your priorities in a different way. I'll bet you thought I'd go for the highest percentage town first. You didn't know how much I love doing the easy stuff first.

I feel great about this plan. Instead of trying to split my time among the towns, I have specific goals.

You may have hometowns that are almost impossible to research. That will influence your plans. Those towns may call out to you most strongly, but don't let them stop the rest of your progress. So…what are your percentages?

And speaking of priorities:

• Why You Need to Set Genealogy Priorities
• Focus on Goals for a Better Family Tree

How to Use the Power of Shared DNA Matches

There is a way to get a good handle on those tree-less DNA matches.

I bought my DNA test from Ancestry DNA 8 years ago. Lately I've explained a handful of ways to figure out your DNA matches. You'll find them in the DNA section of my Genealogy Lessons page.

Today let's look at one of my new favorite features of Ancestry DNA: shared matches.

I've uploaded my raw DNA file to other sites, including GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, 23 and Me, and My Heritage. But Ancestry gives me the best tools to use.

I imagine I'd get more tools from the other websites if I had a paid membership! I did pay a one-time fee to Family Tree DNA, and I see they do have a "Matches in Common With" feature. Check your testing site for something like what I describe below.

I love the Shared Matches feature on Ancestry. Keep in mind that this is extra important for those DNA matches who haven't attached a usable family tree.

Ancestry lets you add each DNA match to groups you create. Once you do, that match gets one or more colorful dots attached to their listing. I use a green got to signify that I've figured this person out. So I'll scroll down to find a DNA match without a green dot. I want to focus on my mother's side of the family. My father's side has a gazillion matches, all coming from one ancestral town! My mother's side has far less matches.

When your DNA match offers little or no clues, don't forget to look at your shared matches.

My 1st match on my mother's side without a green dot has a last name I know. It starts with a V. This name is from a town tied to my maternal grandmother's family. It's called Pastene, and it's very small.

His tree is as useless as it gets. It has 1 private person. Him! When I click Shared Matches on Ancestry, I see that besides my mother, we share only 4 DNA matches. I recognize 2 of our shared matches as being descendants of that same last name. I know this because I've corresponded with them and explored one of their trees.

Another shared match has my grandmother's maiden name, so I know his roots are also in Pastene. I'll add a note to this match's profile that says he's a V from Pastene.

But I can keep going. I clicked the match with Grandma's maiden name. He also has no family tree, but I can look at his shared matches. This list includes everyone from the previous shared matches list, and several more.

I see one match who I know had a grandmother with my Grandma's maiden name. I see another match whose handle appears to be an abbreviation of that maiden name. Her shared matches support that idea.

One other match has a last name I know from a different, but connected town. You see, my 2nd great grandfather was from Pastene, but he married a girl from nearby Santa Paolina. This match has a name that's prevalent in Santa Paolina to this day.

Following this method, I can add notes to the profiles of unknown matches. The notes can include last names I know and towns. Over time, these notes will help me see how different matches may fit together.

I can continue to click interesting shared matches and view our shared matches. Here's a person with a decent tree of 243 people. On both the mother's and the father's side of this tree, I see last names from Santa Paolina. Lately I've been reviewing my downloaded vital records from Santa Paolina. I'm getting very familiar with the town's names as I change the file name of each document image. For each image, I'm adding the person named on the document and their father's first name.

I know I can find vital records for this DNA match's grandparents and generations before them. This is a match I can figure out!

Make notes and use groups to leave yourself research breadcrumbs.

When I figure them out, and work them into my family tree, I'll have strengthened my ties to our shared DNA matches. More "common names" will appear in our trees.

If your DNA website lets you add categories or notes to your matches, do it. (Do this offline in a spreadsheet, if you must.) Leave yourself these useful breadcrumbs. If you know the general branch a match should fit into, note that. If they have last names you know, notes them.

It's impossible to count our thousands upon thousands of DNA matches. But categorizing many of them, and figuring out those you can, can help you get to the result you want. And that is, fewer empty branches on your family tree.

6 Ways to Find Your Ancestor's Hometown

The quest for the holy grail: your ancestor's place of birth.

You can't go back beyond your immigrant ancestor until you know where they were born. That town of birth is critical to finding documents.

I'm working on a couple who married in New York City in 1889. He was Giovanni Calleo. His naturalization papers have his exact birth date, but not his hometown. She was Cristina, and New York marriage indexes gave me her maiden name: Mastroianno. But nothing more.

I can't find Giovanni's immigration record. But he arrived in 1881. There's almost no chance his ship manifest will state his hometown. Her 1889 ship manifest has no details beyond her name and age. She arrived two weeks before her marriage. Two weeks! That makes me think they came from the same hometown. Family may have arranged the marriage and shipped her to the U.S.

Their hometown is everything. Your quest is to find your ancestor's hometown.

To go any further back, I need to know where they came from. Here are 6 different avenues to explore.

1. Ship Manifests

My first traveling ancestor was my 2nd great grandfather. He made a few trips in the 1890s.

In 1898 he went back to Italy to bring over his wife and 2 of his children. That 1898 ship manifest has the details I needed.

My great aunt said the family came from Pastene. The 1898 ship manifest lists their town as "S. Angelo." I scoured a map for a while until I figured it out. Pastene is a frazione (a hamlet) of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. With that information, I was able to learn so much.

A well-timed ship manifest is a great way to find your ancestor's hometown.

2. Naturalization Papers

United States naturalization papers have 3 varieties. A person first filed their Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. This form may include your ancestor's:

• place and date of birth
• the exact date of their arrival
• the name of the ship.

Next came the Petition for Naturalization. This may also include your ancestor's place and date of birth.

A thorough naturalization form can give you a ton of places, dates, names, and facts you need.

Finally there is the actual naturalization. I have this document for Giovanni Calleo, but it confirms only his birth date.

I can't find Giovanni Calleo's declaration and petition. It may take a page-by-page search in the New York City court closest to where he lived.

3. Death Certificate

A close relative provides the facts on a death certificate. But what if they don't know the full names, proper spelling, and places of birth for their ancestors?

If you find a death certificate, keep in mind they may have Anglicized the names. What do you think the names might be in the original language? They may misspell the town of birth, if they include it.

4. Marriage Certificate

It's a bit of a rarity, but a marriage certificate may tell you where your immigrant ancestor was born. My ancestors' New York marriage certificates don't have a town; only a country. My grandparents' Ohio marriage license says she was born in Hornell, New York. But for Grandpa, it says only Italy.

A marriage certificate may be a long shot for finding an international place of birth. But it's a worthwhile search.

5. Find Others with the Name

Sometimes I'll search Ancestry for a last name only to see which towns the name generally comes from.

Searching for the name Mastroianno gives me a list of towns I can check. They include: Caiazzo, Caserta, Villa Santo Croce, Alvignano, Conflenti, Sezze, Benevento.

That's a lot to go on. Almost too much. Since Caiazzo came up a few times, I'll try there first.

I'll search the 1865 and 1869 birth records in these towns for Giovanni and Cristina.

6. Trace their Siblings

It's disappointing not to have found their hometowns yet. I have one ace left up my sleeve, and his name is Pasquale.

In the 1905 New York State census, Cristina's brother Pasquale Mastroianno is living with her. He's a 44-year-old married man who's been in the U.S. for 6 years. Did he plan to return to his wife and kids in Italy once he had enough money? Or was he going to bring them to America?

Pasquale's 1899 arrival should include his hometown. That'll be Cristina's hometown.

Here's what I found:

• An 1861 Italian birth record from the town of Falerna. The baby's parents are much too old to have had Cristina 8 years later. I looked anyway, and there is no record for her in that town.
• A 1900 ship manifest, hometown: Recale. While this is a good fit for Pasquale, I did not find Cristina born in Recale.
• An 1893 ship manifest, hometown: Nocera. There are 4 towns whose name begins with Nocera. I'll have to search all 4.
• An 1891 ship manifest, hometown: Palermo. He's heading to New York. It could be him.
• An 1890 ship manifest, hometown: Nicastro. My list of possible hometowns is getting awfully long.
• A 1902 ship manifest, hometown: Campochiaro. The 1905 census says he'd been in the U.S. for 6 years. This doesn't seem like a good fit.
• A 1905 ship manifest that's the Pasquale from the 1861 Italian birth record. He was going to Pittsburgh.

Lots more ship manifests, city directories, and naturalization indexes didn't fit this Pasquale.

Usually one of the first 3 methods would give me what I need. But this family is a tough one. Since I know Giovanni's birth date and Cristina's birth year, my best hope is that long list of towns.

I'll search for them in the birth records for each town in the list.

That hometown is the holy grail. If I find their birth records, I'll have their parents' names. I can search for their parents' marriages, and so on.

Don't give up on your search. Try every path until one leads you where you want to go.

And now for some déjà vu:

• Where Did Grandpa Come From?
• What to Do When Your Last Name Is So Common
• Walking in Your Ancestors' Footsteps

How to Identify Relatives in an Old Photo

Can acting like a detective unlock the mysteries of your old photos?

Two photographs in my late aunt's collection have Italian inscriptions on the back. These black and white photos seem to belong together because the handwriting looks the same.

How can I figure out who these mystery relatives are when there's no one alive to ask? Let's see how far I can get with logic.

Are there enough clues to figure out who these relatives may be?

First we have an elderly woman and man holding hands. They look very "old country" to me. Behind them is an old-fashioned TV set with 2 dials. The woman is leaning on an appliance that may be a short refrigerator. I can read "LANDIA 123" on its front. I had no luck finding a brand name ending in "landia".

The man has a handkerchief folded neatly in his suit jacket pocket. He's holding a cigarette European style: with the burning tip hidden in his palm.

I'd guess this black and white photo is from the early 1960s. That's based on the TV set, the woman's clothes, and the similarity to my own family photos of that era.

On the back it says, "ricordo di tua sorella e cognato; tua sorella di anni 74, tuo cognato di anni 77." That means "remember your sister and brother-in-law; your 74-year-old sister, your 77-year-old brother-in-law." If it were taken in 1962, the woman would have been born in 1888.

The other photo shows a well-dressed young man. His neck is too thick for a teenager. He may be about 24 years old. Someone who knows clothing styles may be able to date his distinctive shirt collar. He doesn't look like the older couple, but the handwriting on the back seems identical.

On the back it says, "questo e tuo nipote, Mariano." That means "this is your nephew, Mariano." Nipote is a funny word because it can mean nephew or grandchild. But he can't be the grandchild of one of my closest ancestors. So it's logical that he's the son of the sorella (sister) in the first photo. If she is my relative's sister, then her son is my relative's nephew. The math adds up if the young man's photo is from the early 1950s—earlier than the photo with the TV set.

Who were these photos sent to? Knowing the answer to that question would help me identify these people. Let's examine everyone who might have owned the photos that wound up in my aunt's collection:

Subject 1: My aunt Lillian Iamarino had no sister and was far too young. She was closer to Mariano's age.

Subject 2: My grandmother Lucy Iamarino had no sister. She was the eldest of 3 children born in New York between 1908 and 1914.

Subject 3: My grandfather Pietro Iamarino had 3 sisters. But they all died at a much younger age than 74. Two never made it to age 30.

Grandpa Iamarino's parents stayed in Italy, so the photos were not written and sent to them. That leaves Grandma Lucy's parents. Their birth years are close to my assumed birth years for the couple in the photo.

Subject 4: My great grandmother Maria Rosa Caruso had lots of brothers, but no sisters.

That leaves one possibility.

Subject 5: My great grandfather Pasquale Iamarino had 2 sisters who were about the right age. One sister, Libera Maria Iamarino, came to America and married in Albany, New York. She died there, too. Pasquale would have been able to visit her by train anytime. He was a railroad employee who traveled for free. Libera Maria wouldn't have needed to say "remember your sister."

That leaves Maria Giuseppa Iamarino born in 1878. There is no marriage mentioned on her birth record. That was a common thing to do at the time. I can't search for her marriage document because the possible years are not available.

Can I find any of her children's birth records? That would tell me she did live past childhood. But I don't know what her children's last name would be. I have to page through the town's birth records starting in 1896, with my eyes trained on the last name of the mother.

I thought I had her for a while. I found 2 babies born in 1899 and 1901 to Valentino Borromeo and Giuseppa Iamarino. There is no other Giuseppa Iamarino in the records besides my great aunt who's the right age. The name Borromeo is not from my Iamarino town, so I searched for his full name on FamilySearch.org. I discovered the family went to live in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. I learned that Valentino was born in the town of Circello in 1878. So I found his birth record and discovered he was an illegitimate baby. That's why no one in the area had the name Borromeo. Someone made it up.

Valentino's U.S. Passport application said Giovanni Basilone of Colle Sannita adopted him. That explains how he came to live in Colle Sannita.

His birth record gave me the clue I really wanted to find. In the column a clerk wrote that Valentino married in Colle Sannita on 2 March 1899. He married Giuseppina Addolorata Iamarino.

I chased down every possible document until I had the answer. Not her!

That's not my great aunt. There is no such woman born in Colle Sannita, according to my collection of vital records. I don't know who she is, but she isn't mine. And if it were her in the photo at age 74, the photo would be from 1952. That's too early. I finally looked at photos of old TV sets, and the style in the photo is more likely to be from the early 1970s.

If that's the right time frame, then the sorella was born around 1900. I don't know a female relative born at that time who lived to age 74!

Well, that was a wild ride. I don't like to write about something that didn't work for me. But this method is sound and worth trying.

The name on his photo piqued my interest. I know that name!

I found 3 more interesting portraits in my aunt's collection this past weekend. One shows a man in a suit, and it says D____ Basile on the back. (The glue from the photo album tore off some letters.) The other 2 show a woman alone, and the same woman with a little child.

I think the woman is my grandfather's sister Giovannangela Iamarino because she married a man named Donato Basile. I may never be able to prove it, but if I can't disprove it, that's going to remain my theory.

If you ever inherit an unlabelled collection of old family photos, that's great! Don't forget to use documents and all your research skills to unlock as many mysteries as you can.

And speaking of family photos:

• 1925 Death Photo Holds a Clue to My Ancestor's Life
• My Aunt's Photos Tell the Other Side of the Story
• Conjuring Up Memories of a Missing Relative

Six Degrees of Separation, Family Tree Edition

You say a public figure has roots in my ancestral town? Challenge accepted!

Let's play a little "Six Degrees of Separation," genealogy style. Can you find your connection to a public figure with roots in the same ancestral town as you?

All my ancestors lived in small, rural Italian hill towns up until 1899–1920. They weren't noblemen, aristocrats, or educated. Their families stayed put for hundreds of years.

Then came a massive exodus of Southern Italian men. Today, descendants of my ancestors' townspeople are spread all over the world. It can be fun to figure out how a public figure connected to your town fits into your family tree.

I've heard that pop star Gwen Stefani and World War II hero "Manila John" Basilone were descendants of my grandfather's Italian hometown.

Tracing the Pop Star

For a long time Gwen Stefani's ancestors were out of my reach. Our connection goes back further than my family tree did. But now my tree has such deep, dense roots in the town of Colle Sannita, that I found our connection.

Here's how I did it. Since she is a public figure, I was able to Google Gwen for her details. Born in 1969 in California to Dennis Stefani and Patricia Flynn. I needed to climb Dennis Stefani's family tree a generation or two to get back to Colle Sannita. I haven't seen the name Stefani in Colle Sannita records. So I expected to find a connection on his mother's side of the family.

I searched for Dennis Stefani and found his mother, born in Michigan, had the maiden name diPaola. That is my hook. That name is significant. I have several direct ancestors from Colle Sannita with that name. They range from a 2nd great grandmother to an 8th great grandfather.

Census records and the marriage record of Dennis Stefani's parents gave me more clues. In America, his mother's parents were Frank diPaola and Lillie Marino. I needed to find Colle Sannita records for a Francesco diPaola and a Libera Marino.

It takes a pretty big tree to find a place for your celebrity 5th cousin.

I followed the Francesco diPaola born in Colle Sannita in 1885 across the ocean to America. In 1918, according to his World War I draft registration card, he lived in Michigan with his wife Lilly. The birth date on this draft card confirms that I chose the right birth record from Colle Sannita.

There's more research to do on Libera Antonia (Lilly) Marino, born in Colle in 1888. But so far, her relation to me is only through her husband Francesco diPaola. Francesco's birth record gave me his parents' names. I discovered that his mother's maternal grandparents are my 4th great grandparents.

From my 4th great grandparents, I stepped back down the generations to Gwen Stefani. She and her siblings are my 5th cousins. Her 3 children by one of my favorite rock stars, Gavin Rossdale, are my 5th cousins once removed.

Documenting the War Hero

"Manila John" Basilone was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. He died a hero in Iwo Jima, Japan. He showed courage and initiative during a fierce battle and saved the lives of his men.

John has a well-documented life. I learned that his father, Salvatore Basilone, was born in Colle Sannita on Christmas Day, 1884. Salvatore's parents were both named Basilone. His father Angelo was born months after his own father, also Angelo, had died.

Young Angelo Basilone married 3 times between 1858 and 1881. He had children with each wife from 1859 to 1886. As I climbed Angelo's mother's side of the family tree, I connected him to people already related to me.

I often wonder if Grandpa knew about his sister's in-law, the war hero.

Giovannangela Iamarino was my Grandpa's sister. Her mother-in-law was Colomba Filomena Pilla. Colomba's grandmother was Colomba Zeolla. Her grandfather was Angelo Mascia. Coming back down, Angelo Mascia's grandson was Salvatore Basilone. He's the father of "Manila John" Basilone. Easy, right?

There is more research to do. I can track down the death records of more of John's ancestors. I may find a closer connection to me. For now, he is in my family tree. He's the 3rd cousin once removed of the husband of my 1st great aunt, Giovannangela Iamarino.

Recently I told you how I fit a stranger with a Brazilian immigration record into my family tree. The theory is the same:

• Start with someone you know has a connection to your ancestral hometown.
• Climb their tree, piecing together as many facts as possible.
• Keep going until you hit one of your relatives.
• Then retrace your steps, adding in all the documents, facts, and sources you used.

Six Degrees of Separation? Six is exactly how many generations I had to climb Gwen Stefani's family tree to hit my direct ancestors. It is a fun game, and we can all use a good distraction right now.