5 Common Mistakes on Vital Records

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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. ("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.

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

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

Discovering Life and Death Trends in Your Ancestral Hometown

As I looked at my past article about how to use the Italian Ancestry website, one reader comment stood out. She wanted to know why on earth anyone should download all the vital records from their town. Her thought was, "Why spend all that effort when I only need my grandfather's birth record?"

This past week I've been using my downloaded records from one town to add more than 1,300 people to my family tree. In the past, I had only gathered my great grandmother's closest family. Now it's time to connect everyone—as I've done with my two grandfathers' towns.

For at least several hundred years, my ancestors lived in a few rural Southern Italian towns. Being there for so long, there was a lot of intermarrying. As a result, entire towns have a connection through blood or marriage.

The mission of my family tree (current population: 58,553) is to find all the connections.

While working on the town of Pesco Sannita (formerly Pescolamazza), I spotted a terrible trend. This is something I would never have known without reviewing *all* the vital records.

Not only is this infant mortality rate horrifying, but the 1st man's 1st wife had 2 stillborn babies before she died at age 29.

Pesco Sannita had a horrifying infant mortality rate in the first half of the 1800s. It was so shocking that a typical woman was giving birth to 10 babies, and only one or two lived long enough to marry.

The alarming death rate made me realize what a miracle it was for my ancestors to have lived to adulthood.

Here are some examples of what I discovered going through the vital records:

• My 3rd great grandparents, Giuseppe Caruso and Maria Luigia Pennucci, had 7 children between 1829 and 1848. Only 3 lived to marry.
• My 4th great uncle Francesco Saverio Pennucci and his wife Antonia had 8 children between 1824 and 1844. Only 4 made it past infancy.
• Distant relatives Filippo Girardi and Caterina Gentile had 9 children between 1827 and 1844. Only 2 grew up.
• My 5th great aunt Maria Luigia Girardi and her husband had 6 children between 1816 and 1827. Only 1 made it into her 20s before dying.

Because I've studied the neighboring towns, I know this infant mortality rate is unique. My goodness—what was going on in this town at the time? The town's website says Pescolamazza fought for independence from its feudal lord in 1817. The legal proceedings dragged into into the 1850s.

There is one definitive book on the subject that isn't online. It's called "Storia di [History of] Pesco Sannita" by Mario d'Agostino. Suddenly I remembered that a distant cousin gave me a book about the town years ago. When I found it on my bookshelf, I saw it is the very book I couldn't find online! And it mentions a lot of names that I can tie to vital records. I started translating the book years ago, but I didn't get far. Uh oh. Another genealogy project for me.

A much appreciated genealogy gift from a cousin I met online is helping me understand the sad, deadly history of my great grandmother's town.

I used the Google Translate app on my phone for a quick-and-dirty translation of a few pages. It seems as if the town became isolated once they severed ties to their feudal lord. They were unable to take their goods to market. They had a real problem to overcome.

They needed to build a new bridge, at great cost to many, including the townspeople. By today's standards, it took an eternity to build that bridge and restore financial security to the townspeople. This happened in about 1861.

The mortality rate was much better in the second half of the 1800s. In an 1892 newspaper advertisement, the town is looking to hire a doctor. The ad ran several times in the Corriere Sanitario—the Healthcare Courier—way up north in Milano. I suspect the high infant mortality rate was due to poverty, malnutrition, and a lack of medical care.

Visiting Southern Italy today, it's hard to imagine the extreme poverty and lack of opportunity our ancestors faced. All we see is the sublime landscape and ancient architecture.

It took a deep dive into the town's vital records to realize the daily threat to my ancestors' lives. The next time you wonder why I'm piecing together my ancestral towns, remember that's what it took to notice a deadly pattern.

And speaking of piecing towns together:

• How to 'Attack' Your Ancestor's Small Town Vital Records
• How to Use Your Personal Genealogy Database
• Laying the Foundation for a Solid Family Tree

Inspiration Leads to a Family Tree Growth Spurt

When your family tree is always on your mind, inspiration waits around every corner. This week I found 3 sources of inspiration while going about my usual activities. That led to a whirlwind of activity, and I added 339 people to my family tree. In one day!

Inspiration Source #1

I spent years working as a corporate website manager. I've brought those skills to this blog and my personal website, forthecousins.com. While looking at my sites' statistics, I started scrolling through a page on my personal site. It has cemetery photos I took in one of my ancestral hometowns.

My great grandmother Maria Rosa Caruso came from a small town called Pescolamazza. Today it's called Pesco Sannita. On my two visits there, I took photographs in the cemetery, mostly of graves with the names Caruso and Girardi. But I never added the people from these photos to my family tree.

Your own family tree notes and photos can be the inspiration you need now.

I had very few Carusos in my tree—only my closest relatives. I need a lot more generations of cousins to figure out where the people from the cemetery belong.

I have thousands of Italian vital records on my computer that I renamed to make them searchable. That makes it easy to find people and piece their families together. (See "How to Make the Best of the New Antenati Website.") The 339 new people I added are the tip of the iceberg. I know I can fit everyone from my little towns together through blood or marriage. It's all a matter of time.

I'm eager to add Pesco Sannita relatives to my tree, but I stumbled across another discovery.

Inspiration Source #2

Once in a while I upload a new copy of my family tree's GEDCOM file to Geneanet.org, updating my tree there. I happened to notice, for the first time, that I can upload my DNA results there, too. It's another free resource for international DNA matches. (See "These DNA Sites Expand Your Tree in New Directions.")

I looked through my 95 new DNA matches, viewing the family tree of those who had one. Many of my matches are French. That makes sense, since Geneanet's headquarters are in Paris. But I have no French roots and my French-named matches have no Italian names in their trees.

Still, I did find one terrific match. I recognized his last name, and all the last names in his tree, as coming from one of my ancestral hometowns: Circello.

Keep your eyes open for genealogy research inspiration. It could be anywhere!

I have a 3rd great grandfather named Francesco Saverio Liguori from Circello. It's another beautiful little town that I enjoyed visiting. That gives me a definite interest in the town. In fact, I've downloaded all the available vital records for Circello. When I get a little bored with one of my other genealogy projects, I always turn to Circello. I've been renaming the town's records to make them searchable. I have 26 years' worth of document images to go.

On Geneanet, I'm looking at a distant cousin's very impressive Circello family tree. We share very little DNA, but to be honest, I'm more excited by his family tree than by him. His tree will be helpful in showing me the big picture as I comb through individual documents.

I see at least one couple from my family tree in his tree. (The wife in this couple has my maiden name of Iamarino.) His information takes these people back an extra generation to the late 1600s. This guy has done his homework. A kindred spirit.

Inspiration Source #3

I belong to Facebook groups for a few of my ancestral Italian hometowns. Sometimes I see posts from people trying to research their roots in that town. The other day I helped out 2 such people with roots in Baselice. I gave them names and dates from the town's vital records. Then I made sure those names are also in my family tree.

There are still tons of people from the post-1860 vital records of Baselice who need to be fit into my tree. One of my ongoing projects is to make sure everyone from the town finds their place in my tree. These online encounters inspired me to do some more of that work.

With so much inspiration all around, how can anyone get tired of their family tree research? Instead of getting frustrated by a brick wall, follow through on that inspiration. Expand your family and expand your history. I try to offer fun and unusual projects to you through this blog. Why not try one of these popular ones?

• How to Share Your Family Tree Research with Relatives
• 5 Steps to Writing Your Ancestor's Life Story
• 7 Days to a Better Family Tree

Lessons Learned from My One Place Study

Last week I finished the biggest genealogy project I've ever imagined. My blog posts tell me I began this One Place Study 2 years ago.

The idea was to work every available vital record from Grandpa's hometown into my family tree:

• Births, marriages, and deaths from 1809–1860
• Births from 1861–1915 (with 6 years missing), and
• Marriages and deaths from 1931–1942.

That adds up to more than 38,300 documents!

Why did I start such a big project? I believed I could connect 95% of the people in those Colle Sannita records by blood or marriage. And I did! My ancestors came from small hill towns. Before modern roads, people stayed put and married their neighbors. That connected everyone.

The moment I finished my project, I felt adrift at sea. I tackled a small project, then I jumped right into the same project for my other Grandpa's town of Baselice.

With the Colle Sannita records behind me, I reflected on lessons learned from the project. These will help me as I work on my other ancestral hometowns.

Have a Broad Foundation

Before starting a One Place Study like this, 3 things are essential:

1. Access to vital records from the town.
2. A broad family tree of your relatives from the town.
3. Lists. It's a tremendous help to create lists to work from. Page through the birth records for a year (or the index) and make a list of the names. I like to do this in one big spreadsheet.

Tons of my ancestral hometowns' vital records are available on the Antenati website. And I'm eternally grateful.

Set yourself up for One Place Study success with lists of available vital records.

Lessons Learned

Before I began, my family tree already spread far beyond my cousins. While gathering cousins from the Italian vital records, I routinely added:

• Who each cousin married
• Each cousin's spouse's family
• The spouses and children of everyone I added to my family tree.

That gave me the broad foundation I needed for this One Place Study. Here's what I learned over the course of the project:

See Who You Already Have

Before working through the records, sort your family tree by birth date, marriage date, or death date. Consult your list of names for that year (see "Lists" above), and tick off any who are already in your tree.

Do a Reasonably Exhaustive Search

If you can't place someone in your tree at first, expand your search. Was one of the parents listed by a nickname? If you still can't place them, mark that on your list, too.

Go through the List a Second Time

After you've reviewed all the records, you may find that some problems are now solved. Go through those unplaced records again. I was able to place about 25% of the people I skipped over the first time.

Some Documents Contain Errors

Sometimes the clerk will write down a wrong name. Or a parent may change the name they use. My great grandmother was born Marianna, but she's called Mariangela on later records.

Another Italian researcher told me that sometimes they refer to a woman by her mother's maiden name. I have no idea why, but I have seen this happen. Now I know to look for it when something doesn't add up.

When I'm sure I know who someone is, but there's an error on their vital record, I note it prominently in my family tree.

Leave Yourself Breadcrumbs

I had a lot of fun following the documents wherever they led me. Let's say I'm adding a child to a couple in my tree. While I'm there, I look for all the kids from that family. If some have a marriage notation on their birth record, I find the spouse. Then I add the spouse's family. This can go on for quite some time, and you can get lost.

Leave breadcrumbs so you can make your way back where you started. I did this by keeping the documents open until I finished with them. If a birth record contains a marriage note, I leave it open until I finish adding the spouse and their family. When all documents are closed, I can go back to where I left off in my list.

Highly visible notes in my family tree explain discrepancies found in vital records.

Keep a Map Website Open

There will be place names you can't read. Maybe someone who died in your town was born in another. But what does it say? Or maybe there's a street address, but it's very unclear to you.

Try to find the correct spelling by looking at Google Maps or Bing Maps. Bing Maps does a much better job of naming every little street in my ancestral hometowns. When I'm unsure of spelling, I crawl the map until I find it.

Enjoy the Journey

There will be times when you're not in the mood for a big project. And times when you feel driven to complete a year before calling it quits for the day. Do what makes you happy at that moment.

If I start to feel like this is tedious, I switch to a related project. For instance, in the 1900s, many people from my town married people from the next town—Circello. If I needed a break, I'd go work on my list of Circello vital records for a while.

Final thoughts. I was able to mass-download the vital records from my towns a long time ago. Since then, Antenati and FamilySearch have worked to prevent mass downloads.

But I started this type of project before anything was online. I was viewing bad quality microfilm at a local Family History Center a couple of days a week. I sat there with a laptop in my lap and typed the basics for each record. My shorthand looked like this:

-Pasquale Maria Cernese b 1 apr 1809 to Giovanni di Saverio 35 (bracciale) and Battista di Giovanni Colucci

That means a baby named Pasquale Maria Cernese was born on 1 Apr 1809 to 35-year-old laborer (that's bracciale) Giovanni Cernese, the son of Saverio, and Battista Colucci, the daughter of Giovanni. That information was all I needed to build a 10,000-person family tree of that town. So you can do this project by accessing the vital records on Antenati or FamilySearch.

If you do this, share your work! I share my lists of vital records from my towns on my website. Plus, my gigantic family tree is public on Ancestry. Share the genealogy wealth!