5 Traits of an Exceptional Genealogist

Turn your family tree into a valuable legacy by adopting these 5 traits.

The purpose of this blog has always been to help you be a better genealogist. That can mean:

• avoiding and fixing errors
• learning how to use important documents
• exploring new resources, and more.

This is Fortify Your Family Tree's 629th article. It's time we all strive for more than being better genealogists. Let's work to be exceptional genealogists. Your family tree is your legacy. It will continue to inform and enlighten people long after you're gone. Don't you want your legacy to be exceptional?

Certain traits are common to all exceptional genealogists. Here are 5 traits to set as your goals. An exceptional genealogist:

1. Uses Documents to Support Facts

You know Grandma's birthday because you used to celebrate it with her. But your reminiscences and family photos are not proof. To be an exceptional genealogist, your family tree needs documents.

I have a copy of Grandma's 1899 birth certificate. It supports the date our family always knew. It also includes a different middle name than Grandma claimed to have. And I have my grandparents' marriage certificate. These 2 documents are official proof, and I can cite my sources.

It can be tough to get documents for recent events, such as your close cousins' marriage dates. But for earlier generations, you need to search for the documents.

I've seen DNA matches' family trees list a bunch of grandaunts and uncles without proof. They heard their Grandpa mention these different siblings, so into the tree they go. But isn't it far better to cite the available documents for those siblings?

Following the documents, you can learn so much more about Grandpa's family. You can document the lives of the siblings who died before he was born. You can discover who his siblings married. You can document their children and create a priceless resource for their descendants.

It's the documents that make your family tree more complete, believable, and valuable. It's the documents that break through brick walls, dispel myths, and answer questions. Find out how to use them to "Solve Genealogy Mysteries Step-by-Step".

2. Doesn't Accept Hints without Doing the Research

My maternal grandfather had a common Italian last name—Leone. A skilled genealogist wouldn't assume that my Leone family is part of their Leone family. They'd do the research and see that my Leones came from a different part of Italy than their Leones.

But I've seen people pull my grandfather and his immediate family into their family tree. That means they accepted a hint without bothering to do a lick of research. My grandfather's family was in one little town for centuries—far from their town. I have the documents to prove that. All they have is a shaky leaf.

A hint is a clue, not a fact! Hints can be very helpful when they lead you to documents you can examine. But you must examine them! Compare the document's facts to what you've recorded in your family tree. Think of a hint as someone asking you, "Is this the one?" as they offer you a piece of the jigsaw puzzle you're putting together. Of course you're going to examine that piece to see if it fits. You wouldn't smash it into place because of a hint.

The next time you see an enticing hint, think about these "3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good".

3. Presents Information with Consistency

When I worked for an international company, emailing people outside the U.S., one thing jumped out at me. Dates. People in different countries write dates in different ways. If I say that a project's deadline is 12/10/2024, an American will read that as December 10th. But my British colleagues will read it as October 12th.

That's why I adopted a more universal style, and I use it throughout my family tree. December 10, 2024 becomes 10 Dec 2024. Since the year has 4 digits, the 10 is clearly the day of the month. The 3-letter month varies among languages, yet it isn't hard to understand.

Does your family tree use a consistent date format? Can your dates be misunderstood by your distant cousins in Europe and elsewhere?

An exceptional genealogist records dates and other facts consistently. They leave no room for misinterpretation. For examples of other facts, see "Consistency Makes Your Family Tree More Professional".

4. Cites their Sources

Have you ever found an intriguing DNA match and taken a look at their family tree? If that tree has no source citations, are you going to accept it all as fact? I hope not.

But if you find a family tree and the source citations link to document images, you can see the facts for yourself.

I've built a massive family tree based on Italian vital records available online. And I committed the cardinal sin of skipping most source citations. In my defense, I knew I could go back and create the citations, and I was more eager to build out extended branches. That was wrong of me and very unprofessional.

Now I'm concentrating on filling in those source citations. I don't know when I'll finish, but I will keep working at it. It can become tedious when you're fixing a huge backlog of omissions, so I do mix things up sometimes. I may take a break to explore my 3rd great grandmother's town. But if I add a single new person to my family tree, I absolutely add the source citation at the same time. I've learned my lesson.

If you've been skipping the citations, here's a great way to make the task less daunting. See "Step-by-Step Source Citations for Your Family Tree".

5. Doesn't Believe Family Lore without Proof

If you're lucky, your elders passed down stories about your family history. The problem is, those stories can be wrong. Some stories may be exaggerations. Some may be misunderstandings. Some may be cover stories hiding the truth.

When I first started my family tree, I learned a family connection to a famous historical figure was a lie. Despite hearing this story from the woman who looked ashamed to be the man's niece, it was 100% untrue. To find out how I debunked a longtime family myth, see "Where Did I Find This?"

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What can you do right now to become an exceptional genealogist?

• Try to find documents for the unsupported facts in your family tree.
• Re-examine any person or fact you accepted from a hint or a hunch without doing your own research.
• Bring consistency to the way you record names, dates, addresses, and more in your family tree.
• Fill in those missing source citations!
• Set out to prove or debunk family stories.

Take pride in your work. You're creating a high-quality, high-value family tree because you are an exceptional genealogist.

How to Be a Family Tree Myth Buster

I've been building a robust family tree for my son's girlfriend since August. She lost her father in late July, and my son told her, "I'll bet my mom can build your tree for you."

It's been easy because her family has been in one corner of Pennsylvania for centuries. To someone like me, whose first immigrant ancestor set foot in America in 1892, that's amazing.

Proving or disproving family lore should be a fun challenge for any genealogy fan.

At first I struggled with how big I wanted to make this family tree. There's so much documentation, and each couple seems to have had ten children. To get this done, I shifted my focus to her direct line. I especially wanted to identify the country of origin for each immigrant ancestor.

She doesn't know what (as in, what nationality) her last name is. I can't imagine not knowing. I discovered her last name was originally French—possibly with a different spelling. Plus she has Austrian, Irish, and English ancestors.

I've generated a few large family trees and descendant reports so far. Then I remembered a memory she shared with me.

Myth #1: This Acclaimed Artist is My Relative

As a student, she visited a local museum and saw a painting by a man with her last name. She pointed to it and said, "That's my family." The tour guide or teacher gave her a look that seemed to say, "Sure, kid. Whatever you say." But her mother had told her that this famous artist was her relative.

I set out to discover the artist's relationship to her family. Wikipedia told me who his parents were, and Ancestry helped my find the rest. Now I can prove this artist is her 2nd cousin 5 times removed. Interestingly, his death certificate says he poisoned himself due to "melancholia."

As I worked to place the artist in the family tree, I saw that his parents were not yet in there. But this Quaker family left behind many records. The artist's grandfather, who was already in the family tree, had 10 children listed on a church record. The 9th child was the father of the artist.

Myth #1: TRUE

It's great when the facts and documents come together. This bit of family lore is TRUE.

Does your family have its own myths about notable relatives?

Myth #2: The Captain of the Titanic is My Relative

My sons' paternal grandfather told us his great uncle was Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic. As a great nephew, he became a member of a Titanic historical society. His mother Lillian felt ashamed that her father's brother was the captain.

Years later, when I caught the genealogy bug, I decided to document my sons' famous ancestor. Immediately I hit a dead end. Not a brick wall. A dead end that made the captain's relationship to my sons impossible.

The captain had no brothers. He had a half-sister and a daughter. The captain was born in Staffordshire, England. He married in Lancashire, and lived with his wife and child in Hampshire.

Meanwhile, the Smith family in my tree is very incomplete. I haven't found Lillian's father Walter Smith's town of origin in England. (To keep things straight, Lillian is my sons' great grandmother who said she was the captain's niece.) But Walter married a woman with a long history in Derbyshire.

I'm not familiar with all the shires in England, so I turned to a map. The captain's place of birth (Staffordshire) is a one-hour drive from Lillian's mother's place of birth (Derbyshire). (One hour on today's modern roads.) I'm going to ignore Captain Smith's professional time in:

• Lancashire (he moved there because it's a northern port)
• Hampshire (he lived there because it's a southern port).

I wondered if Walter Smith was Captain Edward Smith's 1st cousin, since he had no brothers. To prove that, I need to trace Walter Smith further back to see if he ever lived in Staffordshire. It won't matter that their name is Smith, will it?

I know Walter Smith sailed to America in 1891 from the northern port of Liverpool in Lancashire. I know he returned to England because he married his wife Elizabeth Merrin in Derbyshire in 1896. I hoped to find his U.S. arrival in 1897 with his wife.

Derbyshire records have helped me a lot with Elizabeth Merrin's family already. Now I see a marriage record for Walter Smith and Elizabeth Merrin. It seems they lived at the same street address in Derbyshire when they married.

Of course I went straight to Google Maps with the address. I wondered if it was a big apartment building. Nope. It's a store with an apartment or two above it. Maybe their families were close (literally).

Looking at the suggested records for Walter Smith on Ancestry, I found an 1871 census. His age and the name of his father are a match, but I need many more documents to prove this is Walter. Right now it seems as if he was born and raised in Derbyshire.

My working conclusion: There's no reason to think Walter Smith from Derbyshire is a close relative of Captain Smith from Staffordshire.

Myth #2: FALSE

When trying to prove or disprove some bit of family lore, be sure to investigate both sides. Gather as many documents as possible on family members. And research the famous person who somehow worked their way into your family's story.

Provide the Proof and Change Their Minds

It's funny when a family tree on Ancestry uses my cropped Italian birth record as a person's profile image. I didn't get that idea from anyone. I did it for myself so I'd know I have a proof document for the person.

I laughed out loud when I saw a tree using a photo I took of the rare book some information came from. If I see that photo, it's a sure sign I need to investigate that family tree.

Unrelated Relatives

If you've been doing this for a while, I'll bet you've found a tree that gets part of your family all wrong. I found one when a Potential Father / Potential Mother hint appeared on Ancestry. A branch of my family comes from a tiny Italian town that wasn't documented before 1861. I even hired a pair of Italian researchers to find anything more for me. My dead ends are in that town due to lack of records.

One DNA cousin thought she found the parents and siblings of my 3rd great grandmother. That's why I had a hint. But the supposed parents and siblings came from a different province than my family. They lived 3 hours away by car on paved roads. Imagine how far that was in a mule cart on dirt paths.

The reason I found this clear mistake was because of an email. A woman who found that same DNA match's tree was lead to believe that my family was her family. She bought into the Potential Father / Potential Mother hint, too. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Genealogy takes practice.

Family tree mistakes can spread like wildfire. Track down the proof, and they'll want to fix their errors.

Setting the Record Straight

Does it bother you when people borrow your research and put it in their family tree—incorrectly? Are you unhappy they've copied your photos—especially if you recently made your photos private?

Long ago I told a new genealogist that my grandfather is not part of her family. It took a while, but she removed him from her family tree. Most of the time we aren't this lucky.

Writing a "cease and desist" message usually won't solve the problem. If you want to set things straight, there's only one way to handle it. Document their real family.

So, when a woman wrote to me with a proposed connection that made us 4th cousins, I had to do the work. I wanted to find out from actual documents who her great grandparents really were.

I began with a 1902 ship manifest for the wife, sailing to Boston with her son to meet her husband. Their names and the husband's U.S. address told me this was the right family. The manifest said the woman and child last lived in Pietrabbondante, Isernia, Italy. That's also a 3-hour car ride from my ancestral hometown.

I searched the Pietrabbondante vital records on the Antenati website. I discovered the husband, wife, and child were not born there. I thought at least one of them would be.

Since I was stuck, I looked at Pietrabbondante on Google Maps. I randomly chose the town on its eastern border. It's called Poggio Sannita now, but it used to be Caccavone. I went to the Poggio Sannita records on the Antenati website and straight to the 1897 marriages. That's the year my not-cousin believes they married.

Sure enough, I found their marriage record! Here I discovered that the husband was born one more town to the east, but he and his parents now lived in Caccavone. The wife was born in Caccavone and still lived there with her parents.

This one document was proof that the woman who wrote to me had been seriously led astray. I went on to find the birth records for her great grandparents and their first-born child. Thanks to those records, I could tell her the names of four of her 2nd great grandparents, and some of their fathers.

Finally, I told her how I would proceed to build the family tree further back. Work backwards from the year before her great grandparents were born. Search year-by-year for their parents' marriage records. Then find the 2nd great grandparents' birth records. And maybe their parents' marriage records. She was overjoyed by the news.

Prove the truth to the owner of an incorrect family tree, and they'll want to delete your people from their tree. Plus, you've helped turn their tree into a good clue for someone else.

How to Benefit from a Cousin's Mistaken Family Tree

It drives us crazy when someone takes parts of our tree and messes things up.

Each time I go to Ancestry.com I see a list of the latest documents someone borrowed from my tree and put into theirs. I don't mind that.

But it's upsetting when you go to their tree and see mistakes. Maybe that document they took doesn't belong in their tree. Or maybe that person doesn't belong in their tree.

Again, I don't really mind because it isn't going to change anything about our lives. I'd rather look for something good that can come from this experience.

What can we learn when someone messes up the family tree?

I'm happy to share my research, but I want it used correctly.

What Do They Know That You Don't?

We all start building our family tree with what we know. We enter facts about our immediate family and some of their ancestors. Then we turn to research and lots of documents.

If we look at our borrower's tree, we can learn the names of people they know and we don't. For instance, say you're my distant relative. You learned the names of my great grandfather's children from a census form. But you don't know who those children married. If you came to my tree, you would learn their names.

When I looked at this borrower's tree, I saw a handful of familiar last names. I knew they came from my maternal grandfather's hometown of Baselice, Italy.

Use Your Superior Skills and Learn More

To see if my borrower knew more than I did, I first went to the document she borrowed from me. It was an 1809 birth record for the wife of my 3rd great uncle. One of this couple's sons, Giovannangelo, was in my tree. But I have him married to a different woman that my borrower does.

And Giovannangelo is critical to her tree. He's her 3rd great grandfather. She has an Anglicized version of his last name. Consulting my handy relationship chart, my borrower is my 6th cousin twice removed. Our shared ancestors were born around 1718 in Baselice. (I sorted this out after I solved the problem with her family tree.)

Since her Giovannangelo born on 3 Jan 1849, has a different wife than my Giovannangelo born on 3 Jan 1849, who's right? Was it the same man who married twice and had 2 sets of children?

I have about 15,000 people from the town of Baselice in my family tree. They came directly from the town's 1809–1860 vital records. I looked in my tree for the woman my borrower shows as Giovannangelo's wife—Serafina. There was only one choice. And guess what? Her husband is Giovanni, not Giovannangelo, but he has the same last name. The same name they Anglicized in America.

My borrower didn't do the exhaustive research I've done on Baselice. (Who else would?) So she assumed that Giovannangelo, born the same year as Serafina, was her direct ancestor. She didn't know about Giovanni.

With a clue from my borrower's tree, I found where she went wrong.

For proof, I looked up the birth records of the children my borrower gave to Giovannangelo and Serafina. The first baby told me all I needed to know. The Giovanni who married Serafina and had this baby had a father named Giuseppe. Those facts match my tree. My borrower chose the wrong man and his ancestors and put them in her family tree.

Giovannangelo's ancestors—the whole bunch in my borrower's tree—came from my tree. From my research. She thinks they're her direct ancestors. I guess I'm obligated to set her straight.

Bring the Old Country Folks to the New Country

I can get a lot of new information from her tree about the generations in America. And I can learn who the children of Giovanni and Serafina married. My first interest is in Annamaria who married one of Giovanni and Serafina's sons. Her last name is prevalent in Baselice. Her father is in my tree, but I didn't know who he married. He is my 2nd cousin 4 times removed.

This Italian family is the 2nd in my tree that adopted a very English name in America. Why? Because it's easier for an American mouth to say. Or maybe just to fit in. That loss of identity makes me sad. I'm glad my family kept their names.

Is someone mistakenly borrowing people from your family tree? See if their tree has any information you can use. Then, if you want to, you can show them their error. While my borrower grabbed the wrong branch of my family, she is absolutely my relative. Her tree gives me a lot of leads I can use.

Is this what they mean by "don't get mad; get even"?

3 Ways to Keeps Strangers Out of Your Family Tree

Name 3 reasons why you're positive this man belongs in your family tree.

I started this blog out of some frustration. Someone stole my grandfather and added him to their family. They didn't care that he was from the wrong part of Italy and had a well-documented family. They put him and my grandmother in their tree.

But it happens. When you step out a little further onto a distant branch of the family tree, the names are less familiar. It gets easier to make a mistake.

So what are the best ways to avoid adding the wrong person—and everyone attached to them—to your family tree?

Here are 3 smart ways to make sure you're adding the right people to your family tree.
©Can Stock Photo / leonidtit

1. Compare All the Facts

Let's say you find a man in a census document. His name matches the missing son you're trying to find. You don't know who he married. You only know he isn't with his parents anymore.

How do you know he's the right man?

Take the time to compare all his facts to the person you want him to be.

• Do his age and place of birth fit your family?
• Does he have a job that would be impossible based on what you know about him?
• How many years has he been married, and does that make sense based on what you know?

Consider all the facts on the document you found. Are you sure you've got the right person?

2. Follow the Person Through Time

Imagine you're trying to find the death date for a man in your family tree. You find 2 men with almost the same name. One man served in the Army and is buried in a military cemetery. The other man has almost the same birth date. But his Social Security Death Index has a different death date than the veteran.

How do you know which one is your guy?

The answer is to research both men. Follow them through time. Find them in the census. Find their military record. If you can find their burial site online, who is buried next to them?

Research both men with the goal of ruling one man out of your family, as much as ruling one man into your family.

Check and compare all available facts. Are they the same person?

3. Check Other Family Trees

I wouldn't rely on someone else's family tree any more than I would rely on their hand-drawn map of the world.

But you can check other people's trees for corroborating evidence. Let's say you're wondering if this person with limited documentation belongs to you. You find 5 family trees that have him, and they all firmly place him in a family you don't know. That's a lot of evidence that he's not yours.

You can use other people's research to decide to pass on this particular person.

You probably have some unrelated people in your tree by accident. You didn't do it because you don't care about getting the facts right. You did it because this person is way out there on a distant branch. You're not invested in him. You grabbed him on the way to find someone else.

And speaking of unrelated people:

• 2 Reasons to Add Unrelated People to Your Family Tree
• How to Handle the Unrelated People in Your Family Tree

3 Ways to Prove Your Family Tree is Correct

You may not trust someone else's family tree, but you can stand behind your facts. Right?

Every now and then you're going to find a very intriguing hint. From what you can see, it looks like it's your family. It's got a lot of names you're missing. You get a little excited.

Then you realize this potential jackpot of a family tree has no sources. No documents. They haven't even capitalized all the proper names. This is not a carefully crafted family tree.

Excitement over.

This sad story should motivate you to fortify your family tree. Make your tree be the exciting find that keeps on giving.

Here's how other genealogists are going to know your family tree is the real deal. It's extremely well-crafted. These 3 things will prove to anybody that your family tree is correct.

If your tree has this much solid evidence, who could doubt you?

1. Official Documents

Gather and add to your tree as many government-issued documents as possible. Whatever country your ancestor is from, their government will have created certified-reliable documents, including:

• birth records
• census forms
• marriage records
• death records
• citizenship papers
• military records
• passports

Other official records don't come from a government:

• ship manifests
• church baptism records
• school yearbooks
• city directories
• newspapers

The last 3 might be the most likely to have errors, but they can provide supporting evidence.

What aren't official are stories passed down through the generations, family bibles, and my brother's college project to write about our family history. (Sorry, Jay.) You've got to strive for those official documents.

2. Official Sources

Lots of times you can't find an official document or an image of a document to support a fact. A good example is the "last place of residence" listed on the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). That's a fact you want to put in your family tree, but you haven't got any document.

That's when it's important to record the source of the fact. You can find details about the source wherever you're viewing it. If it's a website like Ancestry.com, there is a detailed description of the source. If you're in the archives looking at microfilm, the film's box or the beginning of the reel will hold some information.

What's most important is to capture the accurate name and origin of the source. "U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File."

Then capture something more specific to your ancestor. My late step-grandmother's SSDI listing has an additional source citation: "Number: 081-07-1687; Issue State: New York; Issue Date: Before 1951".

If someone's tree has that level of documentation, are you seriously going to doubt them?

3. Supporting Sources

I spend tons of time going through Italian civil records, piecing together my ancestors' families. I love it when an ancestor's official birth record has annotations in the column. Those notes may include their marriage date and place, spouse's name, and their death date.

That's official and corroborating evidence.

Do your best to gather all a person's documents, and you'll find that you have supporting sources, too. A mother's maiden name on your ancestor's death record is not reliable. But if it matches the name on your ancestor's birth and marriage records, it is very reliable.

Make Your Tree Provable

If you've been reading this and thinking, "I'm not sure I can prove my tree is correct," you've got some work to do:

• Start replacing your sketchier sources with more official ones. Some of my sources are "my cousin told me." That might be fine if your cousin told you "this person's nickname was Baldy." But if the facts are important, track down an official source or an official document.
• Try to get as many documents as you can for your people. This way you'll have supporting evidence that says, "Yes, he was born on this date in this place. It says so here, here and here." Find each major, available document for the people in your tree and close the book on them.
• Be consistent in how you record dates and names. Your online tree should show each person's full name. If you're not using software that automatically formats your dates, take the time to type them in the same style.

Hopefully you're thinking your tree is in pretty good shape. If so, keep these ideas in the back of your mind. The next time you're reviewing someone in your tree, think about how you can make their facts more bulletproof.

Make your family tree be exactly the type of tree you'd love to find as a hint!

6 Easy Steps to Valuable Source Citations

NOTE: There is a way to make your sources indisputable. Please see "Taming a Tangle of Source Citations."

Your family tree is not reliable without sources. Don't let creating sources intimidate you.

When you started your genealogy research, were you noting the source of each and every fact? Or were you so happy to find grandma in the 1920 census that you rushed off to find her in the 1930 census?

Create your source citations by copying a few bits of
information.

No one is going to trust your family tree if it has no sources. If you're ignoring your sources because it's too complicated or you don't know where to begin, let's make it easy.

As of today, my family tree has 19,464 people, about 2,900 document images, and just 242 sources. That's because I believe in having the source be general:

• The name of the collection
• What it contains
• Where to find it.

Where I get specific is on the document image or fact notation:

• Title of document image: 1910 census for Timothy Kinney and family
• Date of document: 23 Apr 1910
• Where to look: lines 28–29
• Collection: Columbia Township, Columbia City, Whitley County, Indiana census enumeration district 143, supervisor's district 12, sheet 8A
• Image number: image 15 of 18
• Exact URL: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/31111_4328284-00540/7066655

Here's how you can easily create your general source citations and specific image and fact notations.

1. Find the Document or Fact Again

Can't find grandma in the 1920 census again? Aha! That's the main reason you must make note of your sources. Try to find an easy one to start with.

2. Copy the Exact Name of the Collection

Simple reference notes keep the
family tree software uncluttered.

If your source is a national census, a passport application, or a passenger list, it's part of an official document collection. Put the exact title of the document collection in your source citation.

I like to use the same title as my reference note in Family Tree Maker because it's nice and short, easy to understand, and doesn't take up a lot of room.

3. Copy the Root URL of the Website or the Name of the Repository

Think of this as the address where the document collection lives. It may be ancestry.com, the New York State Library or familysearch.org. Write down the basic URL or building name.

4. Copy the Recommended Citation Detail and Text

Document collections found on a website or in a book will usually give you a suggested description or "source citation". Take the suggestion.

5. Copy the URL of the Collection

Let's say the document collection you're using is the 1930 U.S. Federal Census. And let's also say you're accessing it on ancestry.com. Go to the main page of the collection. This is the search screen for the collection. Or, if you find the collection in the website's catalog, it's the link that's in the search results.

From this URL, you can search for and find every 1930 census fact and document image in your family tree.

That's the basics of source citations! That wasn't so tough, was it? But there's one more thing to do. And it's going to take you longer.

Link to your general source, but pack all the specifics into the document image.

6. Add More Specifics to the Document Image or Fact

How many census, ship manifest, draft registration card and birth record images do you have in your family tree? I have about 2,900.

Do you want your family tree to be your incredibly valuable legacy? Don't skimp on the details. All your document images need individual, more specific notations.

Yes, it's a big task! I devoted time to annotating my 513 census images earlier this year. I'm making sure I add all the details each time I add a new document of any kind to my tree. But my next task is to annotate my 337 ship manifest images. Work your way through, one type of document at a time. You'll get there.

Here are some facts to include:

• Descriptive title
• Date on the document
• Document category (census, immigration, military, vital record, etc.)
• Document collection title, and specifics from the page
• Image number if it's part of a set
• Exact URL of the image online

This level of detail makes my work easy to verify. Even without an ancestry.com subscription, the breadcrumbs are there. You can find the document in another repository.

Creating or fine-tuning your basic source citations should not scare you. Stop putting it off. Tackle them in groups and it will go quicker:

• census sources
• passenger list sources
• military records, and so on.

You'll be the envy of every genealogy hobbyist you know!

And speaking of making your family tree facts better:

• How Do I Get There From Here?
• How to Make Your Genealogy Research More Complete
• How to Find Official Sources for Family Facts You Just Know

A Genealogy Challenge You'll Love

The 1st good clue in my challenge:
naturalization papers.

What if a simple genealogy challenge could:

• Show you how good your genealogy skills are?
• Help you connect with a new friend?
• Teach you some new research tricks?

Would you accept it?

A Challenge Arises

The other day a woman reached out to me longing to know about her lost Italian roots. Her grandfather Matthew had given up his Italian name to blend into American society. After Matthew and his wife divorced, their children had very little contact with either of their parents.

The woman who wrote to me loved her grandfather, but knew nothing about his origins. She offered me the few clues she had, and asked if I could help.

Challenge Accepted

When an assignment comes my way in life or at work, I like to take a peek at it and figure out how hard or easy it might be. Many times this quick peek hooks me. I'm interested, and I'm making progress. So I dive in and get to work. That's exactly how I began this challenge.

Here are the few facts I had:

• Mattio d'Arcangelo was born in 1900 to Valentino and "Ginny"
• He married Evangeline McElroy and owned a shoe company in Boston
• His children, Eleanor and Robert, were given Mattio's adopted last name of Matthew.
• Mattio and Evangeline divorced.

I wasn't getting anywhere searching Ancestry.com for Mattio. I switched to searching for his father, Valentino. I thought his distinctive name would make him easier to find.

Right away I found naturalization records for Valentino d'Arcangelo. I scoured the information, but I had no proof yet that this was the father of Mattio. His naturalization papers did not mention any family members. But they did include his exact birth date.

That May 10, 1873 date helped me match him to other records for Valentino d'Arcangelo. I found a Massachusetts marriage registry book showing the January 12, 1900, Haverhill, Massachusetts marriage of:

• Valentino d'Arcangelo, age 26, a shoemaker from Italy, son of Mattio d'Arcangelo and Maria Porrea, and
• Giovannina d'Arcangelo, age 25, from Italy, daughter of Raffaele d'Arcangelo and Felice Subrizio.

There was a good chance Giovannina is the real name of Mattio's mother "Ginny". But I needed more proof.

This 1910 census provides 2 great aunts and a great uncle.

I found the 1910 census for Haverhill, and there they were. A family of 6: Valentino and Giovannina (now called Jenny or Jinny), and their children Mattio, Assunta, Pastiano and Mary. Mattio was born in Massachusetts, but his younger sister was born in Italy. The census taker crossed out Massachusetts for Assunta, and wrote in Italy.

A 1902 ship manifest supports the idea of the family returning to Italy for a while. In November 1902 Valentino is returning to America—to Haverhill—without his family. Giovannina and her first 2 children must have returned at a later date.

I found out from the manifest that Valentino was from the town of Bisegna in the province of L'Aquila. Unfortunately, there are no birth records available online for Bisegna after 1866.

I went on to find Valentino as a widower in the 1920 census. A death index shows he died in 1942.

I wanted some more documentation for Mattio—my new friend's grandfather. I saw that his memorial on Find-a-Grave has his name as Matthew F. Matthews. When I couldn't find him in the 1930 census, I looked for his wife Evangeline, and his kids Eleanor and Robert.

Mattio d'Arcangelo, aka Francis Matthews.

I found them living in Needham, Massachusetts, but the head-of-household was Francis Matthews. That memorial with the middle initial F. turned out to be a good clue.

They were a family unit in 1930. But in 1932, Evangeline McElroy Matthews remarried right there in Needham. I went back to the 1920 census to discover Evangeline's parents. That family of 4 consisted of:

• Robert the father
• Evangeline the mother
• Evangeline the daughter, and
• Robert the son!

I'd discovered quite a bit in one sitting. Mattio's granddaughter was just about in tears.

Your Challenge

Here are 3 ways you can find a genealogy challenge:

1. Join any genealogy group on Facebook. Every day people ask for help. They may list some of their ancestors' names and dates and ask how to find out more about these people.
2. Got DNA? You may belong to websites that suggest DNA matches to you. I read about an avid genealogist who is researching and building trees for all his DNA matches so he can figure out their connection.
3. Maybe you have a friend who's mildly interested in your genealogy hobby. Help get them hooked by starting their tree for them. Ask for some basics about their parents and grandparents: names, dates and places.

Use the clues, your genealogy resources and skills and see how much you can find. Be careful not to make assumptions. Let the facts point you in the right direction.

Document everything you find clearly and thoroughly. List the facts in chronological order and show where each fact came from. Provide this person with the facts and the documents you've found.

Imagine that you are a professional genealogist, and do the best work you possibly can.

Once you've tackled this challenge, you may want to take a fresh look at your family's brick walls!

And speaking of following the facts:

• Search That Building for More Relatives
• Trust But Verify Your Relative's Family Tree
• Finding Your Ancestor's Lost Babies

Using First Names as Evidence of Family Relationships

If you don't have at least 10 people in your family tree with the exact same name, you may be new to genealogy.

Many cultures follow specific baby-naming conventions—but not always. For example:

• name your first-born son after his paternal grandfather
• name your first-born daughter after her paternal grandmother
• name your second-born son after his maternal grandfather
• name your second-born daughter after her maternal grandmother

My paternal grandparents followed this convention. They named my father and his sister after their paternal grandparents. My mother's family did not follow the rules. If they had, my grandmother and I would both be named Mary Louise.

For help with your ancestors' child-naming customs, follow these links:

• Albanian
• British
• German
• Italian
• Jewish
• Portuguese (in Brazil)
• Russian
• Spanish

If I've left out your ethnicity, try a Google search including the ethnicity and "naming customs" or "naming conventions".

Here's an example of an Italian couple who followed the rules, but put a slight twist on them.

Giorgio and Maria followed the naming rules closely, but not perfectly.

Giorgio and Maria named their first son and daughter after Giorgio's parents, Onofrio and Lucia. They named their second daughter after Maria's mother, Concetta.

But their 2nd through 5th sons were not named after Maria's father, Francescantonio. Instead, 3 of those sons had the Antonio part of Francescantonio in their name:

• Giovannantonio
• Giuseppantonio
• Antonio

You can use your ethnicity's naming customs to help you place a person in a particular family.

Let's say you have a man named Pietro Iamarino. (I have 11 of them in my family tree.) You don't have his birth or death record yet, so you can't confirm his parents' names. But 1 or 2 of his children's birth records call him Pietro, son of Giuseppe.

Now you know he belongs to a father named Giuseppe. But I have 10 Giuseppe Iamarino's in my family tree! Of course I need a Giuseppe who's about the right age to be Pietro's father, but what if I have a few of those? (I do.)

When I examined the facts about my right-aged Giuseppe Iamarinos, one man stood out.

This family makes sense, but I had to track down birth records to prove it.

Giuseppantonio Iamarino was born in 1819 and married in 1840. That fit with Pietro who was born around 1848. Plus, Pietro named his first son Giuseppantonio—not Giuseppe.

But that is not proof. It's an educated guess at this point. So I attached Pietro to Giuseppantonio, but I added a bookmark and a note to Pietro to remind myself that I needed to prove this relationship. The proof came later when I found Pietro's 1848 birth record.

Use caution when you're piecing together ancestors' families from hundreds of years ago. Naming conventions can offer strong clues—clues that lead to a theory. But the names themselves are not the proof you need.

Use these naming customs to form your theory. Then prove it.

Keep searching for that proof and avoid making a mess of same-named, misplaced people in your family tree.

You may also enjoy:

• When Did Your Ancestors First Use a Last Name?
• 6 Places to Find Your Ancestor's Maiden Name
• This Expanded Resource Provided an Elusive Maiden Name

Trust But Verify Your Relative's Family Tree

"Trust, but verify" is a translation of an old Russian proverb that reminds you to find the truth for yourself. It's particularly useful when applied to genealogy.

Here are some situations where "trust, but verify" should pop into your head:

• A relative gives you their family tree with no sources.
• A stranger's online family tree seems like it may connect to yours.
• An elder tells you a bunch of family facts they remember from decades ago.

You may trust the relative or the elder, but you've got to verify their work.

How to Handle Unsourced Names and Dates

You can use an image to alert you to
unsourced facts in your family tree.

You welcome the new information. You're excited to have it. But take steps to mark this new set of names and dates as unsourced. Some options for marking this content are:

• Add a bookmark to each unsourced person in your family tree software.
• Add a profile image to each unsourced person, such as this graphic that says "No sources".
• Create a source citation using the name of the person who shared the information with you.
• Attach no source at all. Personally, I've been very diligent about attaching sources. If I find people in my tree without a source attached, I know someone handed those people to me.

This step to identify unverified information can save future-you a big headache.

The moment you receive a batch of new information, add it to your genealogy to-do list. You need to put some research time into proving or disproving these unsourced facts.

Think how satisfying it'll be when you can replace an individual's "no sources" graphic with an image of their birth record.

How to Figure Out the Facts

Eleven years ago a man named John saw my For the Cousins website and emailed me. He's part of a large group of Italian immigrants and their children in Niagara Falls, Canada. They all came from my paternal grandfather's hometown in Italy.

Four months later, my aunt and I flew up to meet this Italian enclave at their annual dinner party. I brought a big family tree printout with me. As I met and talked with many of the people, they shared lots of names and relationships with me. Together we added branches to my tree.

Eleven years is a long time, but now I have all the available vital records from my grandfather's hometown on my computer. This past weekend, while looking at my family tree for a new section to explore, and I found the Canadian branch.

Add a person's birth record as their photo so you know you have the proof.

I began with John from Canada's grandparents. I found birth records, parents' names, wedding dates, and death dates. I attached each document I discovered to the person in John's family tree. Now I had trusted, verified sources.

This 1887 birth record includes
names and dates for 2 marriages.

Here are a few pointers when working with someone else's tree:

• Expect some names to be slightly different. If your contact's tree comes from family sources, they may remember their "Uncle Antonio". But his birth record may show his given name was:
  
  • Michelantonio
  • Giovannantonio
  • Giuseppantonio or
  • Nicolantonio.
• Check a person's parent's names in the tree to decide if you've found the right birth record. If both mother and father match, you've probably found either the right person's birth record or that of a sibling. Is the birth year what you expected?
• Look for marriage data in the margin of birth records. This is more common on more modern birth records. It's less often found on very old records. Sometimes this annotation is exactly what you need to be sure you've found the right person.

The best surprise in this branch is that John from Canada is related to a set of my cousins through their father. I'm related to them through their mother.

But knowing this small town's high rate of intermarriage, I'm sure I'll find I'm related to John in half a dozen ways!

As I search for more connections, I'm gathering vital records and fortifying my family tree.

You may also enjoy:

• 4 Ways to Make Big Genealogy Progress When You Have Little Time
• How to Connect the Dots to Your Possible Relatives
• How to Turn a Hunch into Facts for Your Family Tree