Why My 83,000-Person Family Tree is Growing Again

When your ancestors come from small, isolated towns, everyone there may be your cousin. Or your cousin's cousin.

I realized this in 2008 while recording every vital record from my grandfather's town. The population hovered around 2,000 over the years, and the people stayed put for centuries. All the families intermarried—with one notable exception. The wealthy families only married into other wealthy families. But the population had far more peasants than wealthy people. And I come from peasants.

This tiny village, a ghost town since 1980, is growing like crazy in my family tree. Find out the steps to this rewarding genealogy project.

Even better, everyone on both sides of my family came from neighboring Italian towns. There was intermarriage within each town, and marriage between the towns. That gives me deep ties to several towns, including:

• Baselice
• Circello
• Colle Sannita
• Pesco Sannita
• Sant'Angelo a Cupolo
• Santa Paolina

I'm the fanatic who downloaded ALL the vital records from those towns. I'm the nut who went through and renamed every image to make them searchable. And I'm the lunatic who published inventories of the towns on my For the Cousins website.

But there was another town called Apice that I was saving for a rainy day. My closest tie to Apice is the 1816 birth of my 3rd great grandmother, Rufina Zullo. I thought I wouldn't find a lot of relatives because Rufina left town early.

Side note: Apice suffered an earthquake in 1980 that made the town uninhabitable. While the buildings still stand, the town is now a ghost town. I'm eager to see it someday.

Starting the Process

The rainy day I was waiting for has come. As I've said before, I've been busy creating the thousands of missing source citations for my tree. I polished off the 9,000 citation-less blood-relatives in my family tree. I'm working through the 50,000 citation-less people with more complicated relationships. But I'm mixing things up a bit.

Instead of striving to complete the citations for at least 100 people a day, I'm setting aside time for Apice.

It took a long time to gain traction on renaming the Apice vital records. The handwriting on the early documents is atrocious! I created a spreadsheet of the town's last names. I checked each name on the Cognomix website to see if it still exists in or around Apice. I also checked the spelling.

When I skipped ahead to later years, the handwriting was fine. (The old town clerk was long gone.) That helped me confirm the names I was seeing on the earlier records. Now, finally, I've renamed every vital record—with one important exception. I haven't gone through all the "wedding packets" yet. These are the required documents a couple must present when they get married. They include such treasures as:

• the bride and groom's birth records. This is very important if they were born before civil record-keeping began.
• the death records for any of the bride and groom's parents who have died.
• the death records of the bride and groom's paternal grandfathers. But only if their father has already died.
• the death record of a previous spouse (there was no divorce; only death).

With the files renamed and searchable on my computer, I can build Rufina's extended family. I started this process last week and have added more than 200 new people to my family tree so far. Each time I add a new couple's marriage, I go through their wedding packets and rename those files, too.

Getting Down to Business

The process of documenting a new town goes like this:

1. Open my family tree to my connection to the town: Rufina Zullo. I added her immediate family long ago, but now I can search for her siblings' families.
2. After I add a new relative and their source citation, I search for their marriage, children, and death. This leads me to research each relative's spouse.
3. For each new spouse, I search for documentation on their parents and siblings.
4. It becomes a never-ending puzzle of births, marriages, deaths, children, and siblings. But this time around, I'm very careful to create each source citation on the spot.

My primary focus for well over a year has been my source citation project. During that time, my family tree hasn't grown. It's only gotten stronger and more valuable to others. I'm beyond thrilled to see the Apice population growing in my family tree now.

When I do rename all those wedding packet files, I'll publish an inventory of the Apice vital records, too. After that, who knows? I have looser ties to more towns in the area, like Pietrelcina (home of Padre Pio) and Tufo. Nothing can stop a genealogy fanatic.

What grand projects are you working on? What's next?

3 Types of Bonus Details on Italian Vital Records

I've written in depth about how to understand Italian vital records. But I haven't told you about these important bonus details. Let's take a look at 3 easy-to-miss types of information on Italian vital records.

Don't overlook these 3 types of bonus details on vital records.

1. Margin Notes

Always check Italian birth records for handwritten paragraphs in the margins. You may find valuable details about the person's life that you won't find anywhere else. These include:

• Who they married, on what date, and sometimes in which town.
• A correction to one of the names written on the document. For example, the clerk who wrote the document may have written the wrong last name for the baby's mother. A margin note provides the correction.
• Recognition of a baby born out of wedlock. If a man and woman have a baby before they marry, a margin note can tell you their names and when they married. If a woman reports her baby's birth, and doesn't name the father, a margin note may have it. This happens when a man steps up to claim the child as his own.
• Death date. This margin note is more common in 1900s birth records when the baby died very young.
• "Born dead". Nato morto (born dead) or senza vita (without life) in the margin or after the baby's name tell you this was a stillbirth.
• Confirmed later. Sometimes a margin note says vista (viewed) or verificato (verified), along with a date and the mayor's name. This tells you the mayor confirmed the birth after the writing of the document. It can also mean a clerk reviewed the document when asked to confirm the birth for the person's marriage.
• Father died in the war. World War I caused an enormous amount of Italian casualties. Look for a margin note on birth records during la Guerra Nazionale to see if this baby's father died in the war.
• Father's death date. Sometimes a baby's birth happens after their father has died. When this happens, look at the handwritten paragraph beneath the baby's name. It may contain the father's date of death.

2. Diversi (Various)

Don't overlook the documents filed under the category Diversi. There is usually a very small number of these documents for any given year. They are most common in the years before 1866. They can include:

• Stillbirths. These records often do not give a name to the stillborn baby. You will learn the parents' names and the sex of the baby, as well as on which date the stillbirth happened.
• Out-of-town deaths. If a citizen of an Italian town dies in another place, that place must notify their hometown. These notifications often contain a great deal of detail.
• Corrections. If a birth record has a margin note about a correction, the diversi record provides all the details. Let's say Giuseppe is preparing to get married and must provide a copy of his birth record. But they discover an error on the original record. The clerk said Giuseppe was a female named Giuseppa. Uh oh! The clerk must file a correction to the name and sex before Giuseppe can marry.
• Abandoned or out-of-wedlock babies. There seem to be a few babies found on doorsteps or born to unnamed fathers each year. You may find their births with all the other births, or in the diversi documents. If you find a record for an abandoned baby, look for the word projetto (for a boy) or projetta (for a girl). The mayor, clerk, or midwife will make up a name for the child. This document may tell you:
  • Who found the baby.
  • Where and when they found the baby.
  • How many days old the baby appears to be.
  • Any identifying items found with the baby. These can include a blanket, clothing, or a religious token that only the parents can identify. They can use this detail to claim the baby later. An identifying item is a segno—a mark or a sign. If you see senza segno, there was nothing to use for later identification.
• Recognition of a baby born out of wedlock. You may find this in a margin note on a birth record, but check the diversi documents for more detail. I found a document for an abandoned baby adopted by a couple who lost their own two babies in infancy.

From marriage dates to abandoned babies to very late birth records, know where to look for these details.

3. Different Parts and Series

Most Italian record books you'll find online contain an image of the book cover and a cover page. The cover page tells you what you're looking at. For example, Registro degli Atti di Matrimonio—register of marriage certificates.

Have you ever found a second or third cover page toward the end of a register? These cover pages are for different document categories. They have labels such as Parte II, Serie A (Part 2, Series A), Parte II, Serie B (Part 2, Series B), or Parte II, Serie C (Part 2, Series C).

In one of my ancestral hometowns, the 1930s Parte I (Part 1) marriage section is always empty. The bulk of the marriages are in Parte II, Serie A. I never gave it much thought before.

Let's look at these different parts. Understanding these distinctions can be very important to your family tree research.

Marriage records (How to Read Italian Marriage Records):

• Part 1 marriage records are for couples married in the town hall by the mayor or another official. You may see a margin note telling you when the couple married in the church.
• Part 2, Series A marriage records are for couples married by a priest or other religious official.
• Part 2, Series B contains out-of-town marriages. If a man and woman came from different towns, they almost always married in her town. So Part 2, Series B records are often for a man from your town who married a woman from another town.
• Part 2, Series C is for special circumstances. They are completely handwritten because they vary too much for a pre-printed form. It could be a marriage-by-proxy, where the groom is in another country at the time. It could be a marriage of two townspeople who married someplace else.

Birth records (How to Read an Italian Birth Record):

• Part 1 is the most straightforward. These are births that happened in this town.
• Part 2, Series A birth records tell us when a townswoman gave birth in another town. She may have been visiting relatives or traveling, but her baby would live in her hometown.
• Part 2, Series B records are completely handwritten. They are for:
  • babies born to townspeople either out-of-town or out-of-country
  • births reported late. By law, fathers had to report their child's birth right away or face a penalty. But some birth reports were very late.

My great aunt's husband and his brother were born in New York City to Italian immigrants. But the family went back to Italy. I found handwritten copies of their 1905 and 1907 Bronx birth records in the 1909 Part 2, Series A birth records in their parents' Italian hometown.

My great grandfather Giovanni Sarracino's father didn't report his birth until Giovanni needed proof of his birth to get married. I found his 1876 birth record in Parte II, Serie B of the 1898 birth register. My Sarracino clan may have been rebellious because they reported a bunch of births late.

Death records (How to Read an Italian Death Record):

• Part 1 is the most straightforward. These are deaths that happened in this town.
• Part 2, Series A records are for townspeople who died in another place.
• Part 2, Series B records are also out-of-town deaths. But these notifications come from places like:
  • the military (for a soldier who died)
  • a prison (for a prisoner who died in custody)
  • a hospital (for a patient who died)
• Part 2, Series C records are out-of-country death notifications from the Italian Consulate. Many of these records will lead you to find a death certificate in your country.

Many Part 2 documents can open up new research options for you. If a marriage record says a bride or groom is from another town, you can search for their original birth record. When a death record tells you a person died in a hospital in Naples, you can see if it still exists and record the address.

While I knew there were different parts and series, I never documented the reasons before. And I have been wondering about all the empty marriage Part 1's in my towns.

I hope you'll use these explanations to guide your research. Sometimes they're the only clue to lead you to another town.

5 Common Mistakes on Vital Records

Vital records are crucial pieces of your family history. Without them, I would have no information at all about my ancestors from the old country.

But, is every vital record 100% correct? Of course not. Vital records have mistakes for many reasons, including:

• Clerical error. The town clerk recording the vital record may write something in error. They're only human and they can make mistakes.
• Lack of knowledge. Imagine a death record for someone born in another country. Their son is the informant. He provides the names of his grandparents, but he never met his grandparents. He may never have known his grandmother's maiden name.
• Misunderstanding. The person writing the information may not hear a name correctly. Or there may be some confusion about a particular detail.
• Local and cultural customs. Lots of people go by their middle name. When your daughters are Maria Rosa, Maria Teresa, and Maria Angela, they can't all go by Maria! And what happens to a family when they move to another country and try to fit in? Often they change their names.

Is something wrong on that vital record? Don't turn the page. Know how to spot a simple mistake.

If you know which types of mistakes you may find on a vital record, you can recognize and deal with them. Here are 5 common mistakes to look for on vital records.

1. Wrong Parent's Name on a Birth, Death, or Marriage Record

If 5 out of 6 names are correct on a vital record, that 6th name could be an error. Imagine a birth record where the baby's first and last names are what you expected. It's your grandmother's full name. And her father's first and last names are correct. But when you look at her mother, her first name is right and her last name is wrong. So, 5 out of 6 names are correct. Is it your grandmother's birth record?

Take a look at the rest of the details. Is the place correct? Is your great grandfather's occupation correct? Is there another couple in town with the names you see on this document?

Whenever I record a vital record in my family tree that has an error, I make note of it. In the birth date's description field, I add a standard phrase. For example, "Her mother's last name is Ferraro on her birth record". This tells me, and anyone who finds my tree online, that I'm aware of the discrepancy, but I've done my homework. (It's helpful to have standard phrases to use in your family tree.)

I learned a helpful fact about Italian vital records that can come into play with this type of error. Sometimes they can record a woman's name using her mother's maiden name. I don't know why—to distinguish her from another woman with her name? But I have seen it happen.

When you've researched the whole family, a name error on one vital record won't ruin your day.

2. Wrong Sibling's Birth Date on a Marriage Record

In some countries it was common to re-use a first name among your children. If your baby Giovanni died, you named your next baby boy Giovanni. When the second Giovanni grew up and married, what if a clerk found the first Giovanni's birth record? He'd enter that date into the marriage record.

I've seen this happen a lot. It's only because I've already documented the death of Giovanni #1 that I know this is an error. To keep from recording an error in your family tree, research the whole family.

3. Wrong Grandparent's Name on a Birth, Death, or Marriage Record

It's very common to see the wrong names on a U.S. death record of someone born overseas. My great grandmother's brother was born Giuseppe Antonio Caruso. On his 1949 U.S. death certificate, he is Joseph A. Caruso. The informant was one of his daughters, Rose. Rose never met her grandparents in Italy. She named them as Frank (he was Francesco) and Maria Gerard. Maria's last name had been a roadblock for me, but I knew Gerard was going to be a clue. Piecing together clues, I found it. Her name was Girardi! Rose seems to have used a more American version of the name.

When my 2nd great grandfather died in New York in 1925, his eldest son was the informant. He said my 3rd great grandmother was Mary Piseo. You know what Italian documents say her name was? Grazia Ucci. Talk about a red herring.

On many Italian vital records, they wrote a person's name and then their father's first name. (See "3. Grandfathers' Names".) This can be so helpful in telling same-named people apart. In particular, birth records in the 1860s–1870s include the two parents' fathers' names. But sometimes there's a mistake. The record may say Antonio is the son of Giovanni when he was the son of Giuseppe. As with error #1 above, you have to consider all the details on a document to see if this is nothing more than a mistake.

4. Person Goes By a Different Name

When my mother was born, they asked her immigrant father, "What is the baby's name?" He said Mariangela. My grandmother was out cold, so she couldn't speak up. Mariangela was not the plan. A clerk recorded the name as Marie Angela. The plan was to name her Maryann, and that's always been her name.

The story is that my grandfather wanted to name her after his mother, Mariangela. Then I came along and became a genealogist. You know what I found? My great grandmother's 1 Jan 1856 birth record says she is Marianna. (That's way closer to Maryann, by the way.) So who is Mariangela?

Researching her entire family, I found 7 siblings. The first child, born in 1843, was Mariangela. She died in 1847. The sixth child was Marianna…sometimes. When Marianna married in 1881, she was still Marianna. But when her first and fourth children were born, she was Mariangela. Her name kept going back and forth. I suspect she went my the name Mariangela within her family as a tribute to her dead sister. But on some official documents, she used her proper name of Marianna. My grandfather must have known her as Mariangela.

Follow their complete paper trail to figure out what's a mistake, what's a custom, and what's a matter of fitting in.

5. Complete Change of Name in a New Country

Some of our ancestors hung onto their ethnic identity more than others. I'm impressed that my grandfathers hung onto their Italian names for life. Some people called them Adam and Peter, but every document calls them Adamo and Pietro. Their American children change how they pronounced their last names. But Adamo and Pietro stuck to the origin pronunciation.

This is not the norm. I've documented so many distant relatives who came to America from Italy. Most Giuseppes became Joe. Most Giovannis became John, my great grandfather included. My grand aunt Assunta became Susie.

You may have family members who ditched their ethnic birth name for a more common name. In my family tree I have a Ross who was born Rosario, a Sam who was born Semplicio, and a Julia who was born Giovina.

You need to recognize and look past a name change when seeking vital records for your family member. A family from my great grandparents' town had the last name Muollo (my 2nd great grandmother's name). The family settled in Pennsylvania. Muollo is so hard for an American mouth to say (mwo-lo) that they changed it to Williams. Williams! If a member of that family hadn't told me this, I'd have lost track of the entire group.

If you're trying to follow a family that changed its last name, pay attention to the first names. Let's say I didn't know the Muollos became the Williamses, and I decided to look at the census records for their town. If I found a family that included Ernest, Michael, Teresa, Carl, and Mary Rose, I'd know this was the Muollo family.

Try to find documents to support that name change. Then change your search to include the new name.

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Mistakes can happen. They do happen. Know what to look for, do your research, and you can deal with the inevitable mistakes on vital records.

Have you missed any of these recent articles from Fortify Your Family Tree?

• My 5 Favorite Genealogy Tricks
• 10 Details Not to Miss on Italian Vital Records
• 5 Reasons to Search Beyond Your Direct Ancestors
• 5 Traits of an Exceptional Genealogist

5 Reasons to Search Beyond Your Direct Ancestors

When you find your ancestor's birth record, don't overlook the other gems in those vital records.

Sometimes I dream I'm searching through old Italian vital records. I spend so much time knee-deep in vital records that it's only natural I would dream about them. The countless hours spent with these records have removed the foreign-language barrier completely.

You should explore all the vital records available from your ancestral hometowns, too. Here are 5 reasons why you should search for more than your direct ancestors in those records. Click each of the 5 titles to get the full story.

1. Don't Miss Out on Your Ancestors' Culture

I cringed when I learned my 2nd great grandmother Caterina was 23 years younger than her husband. Then I did a bit more digging. I found out Caterina was my 2nd great grandfather's second wife. And she was the same age as Nicola's eldest child from his 1st marriage!

Spending more time with this town's vital records, I realized a few things that hold true in all my towns:

• A widow or widower usually remarried in a hurry. Sometimes as soon as 2 months after their spouse died.
• A man's second wife was more likely to be much younger than him.
• When a bride and groom came from different towns, they usually married in her town and lived in his town.
• Each town registered a few abandoned babies each year. Someone might find a baby on a doorstep or on the side of the road. There was a special church window where you could leave a baby and no one would see you. These babies may have been born out of wedlock, but sometimes a woman chose to keep her baby.
• It was the mayor's job to name these foundlings. Their last name might:
  • show the baby's status (Esposito, Abbandonato, etc.)
  • refer to a local place name, like that of a river
  • reflect their physical characteristic (Russo for a red-cheeked baby)
  • or it may be a last name already found in the town.

I didn't fully understand these abandoned babies until I read a lot of their birth records. At first I thought my 60-year-old 5th great grandfather had another baby in 1809. Actually, he was about to step outside his home when he found the baby girl on his doorstep. That exact detail is noted on the birth record.

2. Discovering Life and Death Trends in Your Ancestral Hometown

I discovered a sad fact about my great grandmother Maria Rosa's hometown. Vital records showed a higher than usual infant mortality rate. How did I know it was higher than usual? Because I'd already reviewed the records from neighboring towns. A typical mid-1800s family in this town had 10 babies, but only 2 lived to adulthood.

That bit of information made it obvious why Maria Rosa and her siblings came to America. They all made a better life for themselves in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

3. What Do the Records Say About Your Ancestor's Town?

My 2nd great grandmother Colomba's hometown records told a very different story. While reviewing vital records, I realized that most marriage records included one out-of-towner. Colomba's husband (my 2nd great grandfather) came from a neighboring town to marry her. Colomba's own mother came from yet another town.

This led me to a second discovery. In my other ancestral hometowns, most men were farmers or laborers. But in Colomba's hometown, most men were merchants, notaries, and doctors. While this town is notable for its vineyards, it seemed to attract a more educated population.

So why did my 2nd great grandparents leave? It's possible Colomba's brothers inherited the family's land and property. Or her husband had his own ambitions.

4. Why All Siblings Are Critical to Your Family Tree

If you know when and where your 2nd great grandparents were born, you need to find all their siblings. Those siblings and their descendants will help you connect to many of your DNA matches.

I've found that one sibling's vital record can hold more clues than the others. No matter where your ancestor came from, vital records will vary depending on the year.

In some of my ancestral hometowns, birth records from 1866 to 1874 hold extra hints. For each of the baby's parents, you can find their full name, age, and their father's first name. That extra detail can help take your family tree back another generation.

5. Searching for Family in a New Town Takes Practice

I'm so familiar with the last names in my ancestral hometowns that I can see past the worst handwriting. But when I discovered my 3rd great grandmother in a new-to-me town, it was like starting from scratch.

This town's early records (starting in 1809) feature incredibly bad handwriting. I had to do a few things to feel confident about how to spell these new names. I started a spreadsheet to keep track of the last names I was seeing, then, for each name in the list I:

• Checked the Cognomix website for last name distribution in Italy. I made note of whether the name is still found in the town. If not, I noted the closest town that still has that name.
• Used a green highlight to show which names have high confidence in their spelling.
• Noted any alternative spellings. For example, sometimes a family uses the name Capua, but other times it's written as Capoa.

When I review this town's vital records, I check my spreadsheet to figure out what I'm looking at. Does that say Casassa? Oh, no, it's Casazza, and that's already in my list. Only by reviewing all the documents can I get comfortable with these new last names in my family tree.

Each of your ancestor's life stories depends in part on their family members. If you want to know your family history, be sure to broaden your search to the whole family and then some.

6 Ways to Get Beyond Missing Vital Records

Blog reader Steve asked how to find people who were born after available vital records end. Like me, he's dealing with Italian records that aren't online. My towns' birth records end in 1915. His town's online vital records end in 1899. The answer to his question is true for any ancestor's missing vital record.

My grandmother was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1899. She had one sibling born before her in Italy. I have his 15 Dec 1898 Italian birth record, but his death record isn't available. I only know he died before his parents boarded a ship for New York on 3 July 1899.

Grandma's October 1899 birth record is available online from the NYC Municipal Archives. Their website has birth records for her siblings Alfredo (1903), Amelio (1905), and Stella (1908). But I can't get their youngest sister Aida's 1911 birth record. The available Bronx birth records end in 1909. I know Aunt Aida's exact birth date only because her daughter told it to me. I found no U.S. documents that include her birth date. (Find out which certificates are available for each NYC borough.)

Missing vital records don't have to bring your family tree research to a halt.

If the records you need are not online, here are 6 places to look so you can extend your family tree.

1. Marriage Documents

The marriage records I've seen from England include only the name of the bride and groom's fathers. How disappointing! Italian marriage records include both sets of parents' names. As a bonus, Italian women keep their maiden name for life. Other countries will vary, but some may contain the detail you're missing.

My 2nd great uncle married in the Bronx in 1902. His marriage record names the towns in Italy where the bride and groom were born. And they're both correct! It also includes all 4 parents' names and addresses for the bride and groom. As for their ages, we get only 21 years and 25 years. Actually, a clerk wrote that part in Italian as "21 anni" and "25 anni."

Sometimes Italian marriage records include a document I call a request to marry. It's actually a request for a couple to publish their intention to marry. In Italian: richiesta di pubblicazione da farsi alla casa comunale. I love this one-page record because it includes:

• all the parents' names, and
• the exact date and town of birth for both bride and groom.

A marriage record may not have the detail you seek, but it can hold enough clues to extend your research. My great grandparents' 1906 New York State marriage record helped me solve a mystery. It lists the bride's mother as Maria Luigia. I used clues from her brother's death record to figure out her full name, Maria Luigia Girardi. To find out how I made this discovery, see "This Expanded Resource Provided an Elusive Maiden Name."

2. Death Records

There will be times when you can find a death record even if you can't find a birth record. In my experience, U.S. death records often get some facts wrong. My 2nd great grandfather Antonio died in New York City in 1925. His eldest son provided the information for the death certificate. The certificate says Antonio's father was Raffaele, and that's right. But it gets his mother's name 100% wrong. The certificate calls his mother Mary Piseo. This led me on a wild goose chase for quite some time.

It was only when I hired a pair of genealogy researchers from Naples that I discovered the truth. I now have an image of Antonio's parents' marriage record. A few months before Antonio was born, his father Raffaele married Grazia Ucci. Who on earth is Mary Piseo? Apparently nobody.

To find out about my experience with hiring Italian researchers, see "Results! Hiring a Professional Genealogist."

Even if the death record you find gets some details wrong, it will get some right. My great grandfather's 1969 Ohio death record includes:

• his correct date of birth
• his wife's correct maiden name
• his father's Anglicized first name (but otherwise correct).

For his mother, they got the first name right, but the informant didn't know her maiden name.

See which clues you can turn into productive research. If nothing else, that death record tells me that Michele Iamarino married a woman named Lucia.

3. Records in their Adopted Country

Vital records don't usually say if someone from Italy went to another country. (Find out what it looks like when a document does tell you they left the country.) When a trail goes cold in the in-country records, it's worth a broad search to see if they emigrated.

If you get lucky and find them on a ship manifest, you may find out their destination. Then you can track down their records in their new country. Even if you don't learn their date of birth, you can discover what happened to them next.

4. DNA Matches and Online Family Trees

One of my cousins bought a DNA kit for her adopted daughter. She got some pretty close matches who pointed us straight to the correct families. Some of her matches had built decent family trees. One in particular has an enormous family tree. This is someone who's clearly interested in documenting her family history. We should all be lucky enough to find a match like her.

If you find the person you need in a family tree, remember everyone else's family tree is nothing but a set of clues. Continue the research for yourself.

Today I found my Aunt Aida, mentioned above, in a stranger's family tree. The tree belongs to a distant cousin of Aida's husband, but they:

• borrowed facts from my tree, and
• managed to bungle Aida's last name.

You have to prove or disprove what their family tree says.

The closest direct ancestor I can't name is one of my 3rd great grandmothers. Her hometown has no records before the 1861 unification of Italy. Even those Italian researchers I hired found practically nothing to document my family. That's why I don't think any other descendant can tell me her name. But if you're looking to ID a 2nd great grandparent or closer, you have a much better chance of finding the clues you need among your DNA matches and their family trees.

5. Archive Records

I wish every genealogy document could be online. I hit the jackpot when FamilySearch digitized their microfilm and the Antenati site came online. The only way I'll ever go further back in my family tree is if all the parish records come online, too. As it is, the earliest direct ancestors I can name were born in the early 1600s. That's amazing for an Italian family with zero nobility in their line.

If the records you need aren't online, you may need to visit or send someone to the archives. I wanted to see my grandfather's military record, and it isn't online. So I visited the Archivio di Stato di Benevento during one of my trips to Italy.

I went there prepared with an Italian sentence or two. I had the register number and the document number I wanted to see along with his name and hometown. This made it easy for the staff to bring me the book, and they gave me permission to photograph the page. They were also kind enough to bring me the book with my grandfather's birth record, and I hadn't asked for it. Even though I'd seen it online, it was exciting to see the original and realize how large these books are. To read about this incredible experience, see "Taking a Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 1."

If you want to visit the archives in another country, do your homework first. Know the location, their holdings, their hours, and any demands they will make of you. When I went to the New York State Archives in Albany, there was one room where they didn't allow you to bring in a pen. It was pencils only, and a notebook, but no backpacks. The more you prepare, the more productive your visit will be. And if you can't go in person, seek out a reputable researcher in the area. Or, if you're lucky, a cousin may be able to help.

I spend a lot of time getting around missing records. For instance, a birth record may tell me that the baby's grandfather has already died*. If the death record isn't available, at least I know he died before such-and-such a date. I make note of that date so I don't give him any facts that happened after he died.

*On Italian records, a person's name is sometimes followed by their father's name. This helps distinguish between two people with the same name. If the person is Giuseppe Caruso di Francesco, the di means his father Francesco is still alive. But if his name is Giuseppe Caruso fu Francesco, then Francesco has died. Certain birth records from about 1866–1874 tell you the name of the maternal grandfather, too. What a tremendous help that can be!

6. Military Records

I really love U.S. draft registration cards for World War I and II. Sometimes they're your only documentation of a man's date of birth. And if they include a town of birth, it's usually right.

One draft card led me to discover the hometown of my 2nd great grandmother. Another gave me a birth date for one cousin when the vital records for that year were missing. Yet another helped me realize we'd always been wrong about Grandpa's birthday. To see why this is such an important document, read "Why You Need Your Ancestor's Draft Registration Cards."

Be creative. Clues may exist in unexpected places. I found out my 2nd great grandmother was still alive at age 60 in an unusual way. She reported the births of two of her grandchildren in 1901 and 1902. These were completely unexpected discoveries. Remember to leave no stone unturned.

3 Projects Make Your Genealogy Document Images Perfect

My 74,000-person family tree has one major difference from most family trees. It connects everyone who lived in three of my ancestral hometowns during a long span of time. These small towns had so much inter-marriage that everyone in town had a connection.

I'm able to build this family tree, and continue to do so, because the towns' vital record images are online. (Grazie mille, Portale Antenati!) These vital record images are the puzzle pieces that connect everyone in town.

Because it's such a huge project, I needed to enforce certain standards. These standards add value to every document image in my family tree. Deciding on, and sticking to your own set of standards will save you any doubt or confusion. And it all turns your genealogy research into a true legacy.

Here are 3 projects to help you perfect the way you handle your genealogy document images.

Find the best rules and tips for naming and annotating the document images in your family tree.

Project One: 3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents

Most of us seem to run into the same problem when we first get into genealogy. How do I organize all these files? I hadn't gotten too far in my document gathering before I realized I needed a system of organization.

Years later, these 3 rules for naming genealogy document images still work like a charm. Click the link above to see which methods you'd like to adopt for your own family tree research.

Project Two: Add Proof and a Breadcrumb to Family Tree Documents

Sometimes you need to return to the online version of a document you downloaded. You may realize there's a potential relative on the next page who you need to see. You may discover you forgot to download the second page of a ship manifest.

Each time I download a document image for my family tree, I follow these rules to show exactly where it came from. I also went back and filled in the missing information for every document already in my family tree. Now it's a habit, and it makes my family tree much better.

Project Three: 6 Steps to Make Your Family Tree 10 Times Better

My goal for this blog is to encourage more professional family tree building. I do this by applying business skills to genealogy. This article helps you follow a step-by-step process for handling your document images.

Imagine if every family tree you found online used a detailed, thorough process like this!

As I write this, I'm finishing up another document image project. It uncovers valuable hidden clues in a vital record collection. I was lucky enough to be able to mass-download several towns' worth of vital records some time ago. Currently I'm renaming all the marriage records for the Italian town of Circello.

Italian marriage documents can include:

• birth records for the bride and groom
• death records (if appropriate) for their mothers
• death records (if appropriate) for their fathers and grandfathers

These extra records are not in an index. You must view the files. And lots of them are not covered in the vital records that began around 1809.

As I rename the images, I discover the names and parents' names of men who died in the mid-1700s. That's amazing hidden information!

If you're serious about genealogy, I hope you'll do the most perfect job you can with your family tree. Here's to a productive year of genealogy in 2024!

How to Use DNA Matches to Go Beyond Vital Records

As I've explained to death, I'm fitting every vital record from my hometowns into one huge family tree. (See "Why Your Half 4th Cousin Once Removed Matters.") But the vital records have limitations. In my towns, there are no civil records before 1809, deaths and marriages end in 1860, and births end in 1915. Then there's a brief hurrah from 1931–1942 with death and marriage records only.

That means I have tons of people who become a loose end. If they married from 1861–1930, and it isn't written on their birth record, I don't know who they married. I don't know what became of them.

This simple technique can lead you to research that ties up loose ends in your family tree.

That's where DNA matches come in. Because of my obsessive research, I've never found a DNA match who can help me get back further in my family tree. But they can bring me forward! They know who their grandparent married.

Today I'm going to seek out a DNA match who can tie up loose ends for me. I'm looking through my dad's DNA matches for anyone with a decent-sized family tree.

I look at a match's direct ancestors in the tree preview Ancestry shows on the match page. Which last names do I recognize? I found a match where I recognize a few names on her maternal side. On this branch I see 4 last names I know, and they're all from the town my maiden name comes from—Colle Sannita:

• Finelli
• Mascia
• Basilone
• Galasso

I found both of this DNA match's maternal grandparents in my family tree already. But I had no way of knowing they married one another. Her grandfather Angelo is my 5C2R (5th cousin twice removed). Her grandmother Maria Grazia is my 4C3R. The combination of my 5C2R marrying my 4C3R may be making this match look like a closer relative than she is.

She's categorized in my dad's 4th–6th cousin range because they share 36cM. But those 36cM come from 4 different segments. Their longest segment is only 10cM. They may be as distant as 7th cousins. (Now that this DNA match is in my family tree, I can see she's my dad's 6th cousin. That relationship is not among the possibilities listed on Ancestry. It's far more distant.)

Her family tree says Angelo married Maria Grazia and they had a child in New York. With that hint, I can research the couple in America for proof of their relationship. Here's what I found:

• Angelo's draft registration card confirms his birth date (I have the Italian birth record). It says his wife is Grace (an Anglicized Grazia).
• Grace's U.S. naturalization record confirms her maiden name and town of birth. Her birthday is the same as on her Italian birth record, but the year is off by one. The document lists her 5 children with their birth dates. I love when that happens. One of the kids is the DNA match's mother.
• The 1920 U.S. census shows Angelo and Grace living with their children and Angelo's parents. Angelo's birth record confirms his parents' names.
• The NYC Municipal Archives website has their 1908 marriage certificate. (How cool is it that they lived a few doors away from my grandmother?) Their parents' names are on the certificate, removing any possible remaining doubt.

It bothers me so much that the vital records for my towns have so many limitations. What became of all those 1880s babies? Who did they marry? When did they die?

Now that I've shown how a match's family tree can provide the right clues, I know I can tie up more and more loose ends.

Set Yourself Up for Success

To tie up loose ends in your family tree using your DNA matches:

• Filter your DNA match list to those with a linked public family tree. Make sure the tree has more than 10 people in it.
• Choose a match and scan their direct ancestors for familiar last names.
• Check to see if one of their people is in, or can fit into, your family tree.

Choose the best candidates among your DNA matches to find the answers that were out of your reach.

Don't stop there. Unless your match has sources and documents in their family tree, treat their data as hints. Do the research yourself and find the proof you need. In the end, you'll know exactly how you're related to your DNA match.

But better than that, you'll start tying up those loose ends.

Why Your Half 4th Cousin Once Removed Matters

I've just finished the second of my most ambitious genealogy research projects. I created inventories of available vital records from my ancestral hometowns. Then I reviewed each document, placing about 95% of the people into my family tree.

First I did my Grandpa Iamarino's town of Colle Sannita. Now I've wrapped up my Grandpa Leone's neighboring town of Baselice. I've shared 5 inventory spreadsheets on my www.forthecousins.com website. And I'll have another town ready soon (Circello).

No matter how distant the relationship, there's value to every connection in your ancestral hometown.

The reason 95% of the people from the documents can fit in my family tree is that the towns are remote. They were even more isolated before automobiles. Everyone in town was likely to marry a neighbor. The 5% of people I can't fit into my tree are:

• out-of-towners or
• members of noble families who married other aristocrats.

Why Spend All That Time?

The benefits of this time-consuming project include:

• Gaining familiarity with all the last names in town.
• Overcoming bad handwriting because of that familiarity.
• Finding connections to DNA matches because their people are in your tree.
• Knowing exactly who everyone in town was and their relationship to you.

The first step in such a project is making your inventory. View the town's documents online (find Italian vital records on Antenati or FamilySearch). Then make a brief entry in a spreadsheet for each image. My preferred format is: document number name of subject "di" father's name. (The word "di" is Italian for of, and that's how these documents denote the father's name: di Giovanni, di Antonio, etc.)

An example is: 82 Adamo Leone di Giovanni & 83 Antonia Maria Colucci di Leonardo. That's a single document image showing 2 birth records. Document #82 is my grandfather's 1891 birth record. He is the subject of the document and his father is Giovanni. Also in the image is document #83 for Antonia Maria Colucci, daughter of Leonardo.

The towns of Colle Sannita and Baselice each had under 3,000 inhabitants in he 1800s. The vital records have added at least 30,000 people to my family tree. I have a complete inventory for the town of Pesco Sannita ready and waiting for my review. I'll go through the same process with Pesco as I did for Colle and Baselice:

• View each vital record to see if the subject, their parents, or their spouse are already in my family tree.
• When I can find where this person fits, add the facts from the document, including dates, places, and the names of family members.
• If I can't find a place for this person in my tree, I highlight that line in the spreadsheet in yellow. It's very possible that their connection will show up after I review more documents. I'll make a second pass through the spreadsheet later to see if they can fit.

I've listed the benefits of this project and explained my process. But you may still be wondering why it's worth such a huge commitment of time. Three reasons spring to mind:

1. Connection. Familiarity with the people from my hometowns gives me a strong connection to these places. They aren't merely the quaint and beautiful towns I've visited a few times. They are me! I love knowing how deep my roots go in each town.
2. Knowledge. Often I see people on Facebook asking how they can learn more about their ancestors' day-to-day lives. If you come from a remote town and you're not descended from nobility, you're not going to find their journal tucked away in some archive. They were likely illiterate and living a life of hard work. You may find some general writings about life in that area at a certain time. A history of your ancestral town may provide those types of clues. Otherwise, all you can learn about your ancestor is that they came from this family, married this person, had this job, had these children, and died. Those family names and dates are what you can discover in the town's vital records.
3. DNA Matches. Because I've studied my ancestral hometowns' documents, I can quickly recognize my entry point into a DNA match's family tree. If you're only looking at a match's tree for your last name, you're missing out on that entry point.

The title of this article mentions a half 4th cousin once removed. I chose someone from my family tree randomly. This cousin is a descendant of my 4th great grandfather Gennaro Pilla and his second wife. Gennaro had 2 children with my 4th great grandmother, and 5 children with his 2nd wife. That's 5 threads I'd have missed if I paid attention only to my direct line. And this particular half 4C1R led me to his son, my half 5th cousin John, who introduced me to a ton of relatives in Canada. I met lots of people with my maiden name on that trip to Canada. That's a rarity.

I love being able to encompass entire towns with my family tree. If you're staying on the straight-and-narrow, gathering information about your direct ancestors only, you're missing out on so many connections!

The Method to My Genealogy Madness

On Saturday morning I mentioned to my husband that my family tree had reached exactly 60,500 people. That afternoon I had 60,854. In May I had a mere 57,238 people. "What changed?" my husband asked.

It's just my usual project. I'm piecing together every family from my Grandpa Leone's hometown of Baselice. That town in southern Italy is where I began this journey more than 15 years ago. Back then, I ordered microfilmed vital records through the Family History Center. I soon realized I needed to document everyone, and fit all the families together. Otherwise, how would I know each Leone and Iammucci's relationship to me?

The available microfilmed records at the time ended with 1860. Now the rest of the records are online on the Italian Antenati website. I have access to the 1861–1915 birth records (with a few years missing) and the 1931–1942 marriage and death records.

I've had all the 1809–1860 people and facts in my family tree for years. But I haven't yet scoured the newer documents for relationships. That's what I'm doing now. And I've only gotten through 1861–1866 so far. (Note: Many of my recent tree additions come from another town that I'm harvesting at the same time.)

Immerse yourself in your ancestor's hometown vital records to unlock all the details they hold.

How to Identify Every Family in Town

When I began, I knew my grandfather's parents' names, and that's it! I found my great grandfather's birth record to learn his parents' names. Then I searched the surrounding years' birth records for any siblings. I did the same for my great grandmother's family.

I kept going back in time, finding the parents' marriage records to learn their parents' names, and looking for siblings. Then I came forward in time, seeing who all the siblings married and finding their children. Next, I built out the families of everyone who married into my bloodline. It was clear that 99% of the people in town had a relationship through blood or marriage. Those who didn't usually came from another town.

My method with the 1860s birth records is this:

• I check each birth record in a given year one at a time to see if:
  • I have the child in my family tree already, or
  • I have the parents.
• After adding the baby to my tree, I find every other baby born to the same couple throughout the years and add them. (I use a Windows program called Everything to instantly search all the records on my computer.)
  
• If a birth record mentions a marriage date and spouse, I add the spouse, look for the couple's children, and find the spouse's parents and siblings.
• When I've exhausted all paths, or my head is swimming and I've lost my place, I go on to the next birth record in the given year.

As I move on to the next year, I'll find that I've recently added many of the children because of the process above. (Of course I'm tracking all my finds in a spreadsheet.)

You can build out an entire family easily once you have all the basic facts.

I can do all that pretty easily because of the preparation I did in the past. I downloaded all the document images for the town to my computer. (Today you have to download document images one at a time. Here's how.) Then I reviewed each one and renamed it. For a birth or death record, I include the name of the father. That way, I can search my computer for every Iammucci born to Antonio, for example.

Renaming the files is a great way to get familiar with all the names in a town. That helps you overcome bad handwriting.

If I hadn't downloaded and renamed all the document images, I wouldn't be able to move back and forth in time so easily. And that's how it was when I was viewing microfilm in a Family History Center. What I did then was add the main facts from each document to a text file. For each birth, I recorded:

• the baby's name, birth and baptism dates
• parents' names, ages, and occupations
• any other family names or addresses mentioned.

When I got home from the Family History Center, I began entering everything into Family Tree Maker to show all the connections. That's when I saw how the whole town was related.

Can't download all the records? You can still document your entire ancestral hometown by taking simple notes about each document you view.

How to Get Around Missing Document Years

Since there are no available marriage records for my town from 1861–1930, things can get a bit tougher. How can I be sure who is a baby's father when so many people in town have the same name?

But I know the ins and outs of the available documents. I know, for instance, that from 1866–1873, birth records often have the name of the baby's two grandfathers. That helps me identify the right mother and father. And I know that the death records from 1931–1942 tend to be very accurate with the decedent's age. I can't say that for most records.

That means if I can't be sure which of many Maria Cece's had this baby in 1865, I have to first look for all her other babies. Finding a record that includes Maria's father's name can set her apart from the others. And if I'm lucky enough to find a death record for someone I wasn't quite sure of, the names of their parents and spouse can seal the deal.

Last week I did some research for a woman with ancestors from northern Italy. World War I must have destroyed a ton of records up north. These towns are challenging, with huge chunks of years missing from the documentation.

But I managed to push the family lines back another generation. How? I searched death records to find all the relatives' whose birth and marriage records were destroyed. How thrilling it was to find the death record of the eldest-known relative with the family name. Now I had his parents' names. I got very lucky when I found his 1811 birth record as confirmation of the names. And learned the name of his grandfather, taking the tree back to about 1746.

Get familiar with your town's records and exhaust all possibilities. Then there's no limit to how far you can expand your family tree.

And speaking of vital records:

• Following the Documents from Marriage to Marriage
• Solve Genealogy Mysteries Step-by-Step
• Why My Family Tree is Exploding in Size