Combine these Genealogy Projects for a Richer Family Tree

Work smarter by combining your genealogy projects wherever you can.

Have I overloaded you with family tree cleanup projects? I know I can't keep up. Let's take a look at some of these projects with 2 goals in mind:

• Choose which projects you really want to get done, and
• See how you can combine 2 or more tasks and work smarter.

1. Create a Direct Ancestor List with Ahnentafel Numbers

See "Overwhelming Clean-up Task? Start With Direct Ancestors." Add a custom fact field to hold each direct ancestor's Ahnentafel number. If you can, give each of your 4 branches an identifier. In Family Tree Maker you can color-code a person and all their ancestors. I've given a different color to each of my 4 grandparents and their direct ancestors.

Now I can instantly spot the more than 290 direct ancestors in my tree. This was a one-day project. The color-coding took a minute. Finding and adding each ancestor's Ahnentafel number took an hour or two.

Check your Grandparent Chart for the Ahnentafel number. Don't have one? That's another project you can do in a day.

Whenever you have an overwhelming project to do, take care of your direct ancestors first. That's a lot less to bite off and a great start.

2. Create Your Elder Scroll

Here's a natural project combination point. See "Make Your Own 'Elder Scrolls'." That custom Ahnentafel field from project #1 makes it easy (in some software) to create a custom report. List your direct ancestors (starting with you) in Ahnentafel order. Include each person's name and birth date. Print it out and tape the sheets together, end-to-end. That's your Elder Scroll.

If you've done project #1, you can do project #2 quickly. This is a fun project with a result you can hold in your hands.

3. Get Your "Shoebox" Items into Your Tree

See "How Many Genealogy Gems Are You Sitting On?" Sometimes I see a photo of a relative on Facebook or in a cousin's online family tree. I save the image and keep it in my "gen docs" folder and in the "photos" sub-folder. Apparently I've been doing this with all kinds of family tree documents for years.

When working on a project to add photos to my tree, I realized I had to find the man's whole family.

This weekend I gave my virtual shoebox some attention. I started with census sheet images for people who I thought should be my relatives. Years later, I've built my family tree out so much that voila! Those people are in my tree now! I'm winnowing down my gen docs folder, but it's big.

4. Process All Facts and Documents for a Person at Once

Here's another project combination point. See "Make Smarter Progress on Your Family Tree." I was working on photos in my virtual shoebox, trying to place them in my family tree. When I got to one family portrait, I realized I hadn't documented the family of the father in the portrait.

So while I was there adding his photo, I went after his birth record and added his parents. His father fit into another family unit that was in my tree already. His mother needed more work.

I found her 1850 birth record. Then I found her parents' marriage records. I added each new vital record to my tree with source citations for each fact.

5. Write Your Ancestors' Life Stories

See "Which of Your Ancestors Has the Best Life Story?" When you're working on nearly any of the other projects, you can combine it with this one. Let's say you realize you have a ton of documents and facts for one of your ancestors. There aren't many holes left to fill.

This would be a great time to pull together the timeline of that ancestor's life story. You family tree software can help you by displaying that timeline. How would you tell this person's story? What family anecdotes can you add to bring this ancestor to life?

It can help to break the task into chunks. Capture their timeline of events in a Word document. Later add a couple of photos. Then add in some family stories.

6. Fully Document Your Ancestor's Entire Community

I don't know which other countries make this so easy. But if you have Italian family, you may be able to download your ancestral hometown's records. I did. See "3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree."

I'm approaching this collection in a few ways, making progress on each of them:

• Rename each file to include the name of the subject. Then the whole collection becomes searchable on my computer.
• Add each document's main facts to a spreadsheet. This helps with searches and will be shareable with other descendants of the towns.
• Go through that spreadsheet line-by-line to see who can fit into my tree. Then get them in there.

My renamed files make it so easy to locate a record and build out a family. In project #4 above, I realized I didn't have any documentation on the ancestors of the man in the family portrait. So I searched my computer for his name, found his birth record, and kept going up and up his family tree.

This project benefits everything else I do.

7. Choose a Ripe DNA Match and Pursue the Connection

By "ripe" I mean a DNA match with a decent family tree. See "Can't Connect to Your DNA Match? Keep Trying."

I like to revisit my unsolved, ripe DNA matches once in a while. There's a chance that my other projects wound up adding a connection to a DNA match.

I'm trying to keep all my projects moving.

Decide which projects matter to you. Start doing any one of them with the others always in mind. Don't be afraid to go off on a tangent if it means you'll make progress on another project.

Keep track of where you left off on any one project, take care of that tangent, and come back to where you left off. Keep making valuable progress on your family tree—your legacy.

And happy birthday to George Harrison! He isn't gone. Shut up.

Commit to This One Genealogy Project

No time for a genealogy marathon? Commit to one family tree project and tackle it in sprints.

As I hope you noticed, I haven't publish a new genealogy article for the last two weeks. I had to travel to help my parents move, and after that was Christmas. But the visit gave seven of us COVID-19, so there was no Christmas.

Did I put the brakes on my family tree progress during that time? Well, helping my parents move was beyond exhausting, so I had no time for genealogy. But COVID has only slowed me down a bit. As sick as I am, I've spent at least a half-day every day adding people and source citations to my family tree. It helps keep my mind off my symptoms.

My overwhelming project in 2024 has been to create thousands of source citations I'd left out. I used Family Tree Analyzer to create a spreadsheet of everyone in my family tree who had no citations at all. My tree has 83,000 people, and I still have 62,000 people with no citations. That's embarrassing.

But I know why I skipped them in the past. I have easy access to the vital records for my Italian nationals. I knew I could go back at any time and create the source citations. But yikes! I went too far.

Because this project seems as if it'll take a few years, I need to liven things up sometimes. Instead of working my way down the list, I jump on opportunities.

When a man contacted me on Ancestry about his ancestors in my family tree, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I added missing source citations to his people and crossed them off my citation to-do list.

I haven't found a cousin connection for the two of us, but his people are from my 2nd great grandmother's hometown. Long ago I downloaded all the available vital records for the town to my computer. (These mass-downloads are no longer easy to do. Websites block any attempts.) Then I renamed each of the more than 12,000 documents to make them easy to search on my computer.

I built out all my closest families from the town, and I completed their source citations. But I have a lot more families to build. With a bit of luck, I may find my connection to the man who contacted me.

Channel Your Energy into One Important Project

I know you aren't all as lucky as I am—able to spend several hours a day knee-deep in genealogy. But if you focus on one project that's important to you, you can make progress in smaller amounts of time.

If you had to choose one genealogy project that's important to you, what would it be? Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• creating source citations
• finding more vital records
• gathering military documents
• downloading missing census records
• searching for newspaper articles
• finding a very important missing branch
• organizing your documents
• scanning your family photos
• creating a Book of Life

Imagine you've chosen that one project, and you're committed to spending a little bit of time on it every day you can. After a short time you can make measurable progress! In my half-days last week, I added more than 100 new people with source citations, and made new family connections.

What's your top-priority genealogy project for 2025? Now, is it time for another dose of medicine yet?

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. Colle Sannita and Baselice are so close together you can see one town from the other.

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.

Start from 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!

12 Genealogy Projects to Put on the Calendar

Because I have so many big genealogy projects going on at the same time, I can't seem to follow my own advice. Sometimes I re-read my old blog posts and think, "I need to do this project." But I never find the time.

My massive source citation project could take another two years to finish! Meanwhile, I've been ignoring all these smaller genealogy projects. But here's an idea. What if I commit to one of these 12 projects a month in 2026? I can complete some of these projects in a couple of days. Then I can get back to my source citations.

That's what I'll do. Early each month in 2026, I'm going to devote time to one overlooked project. Projects that I've recommended to you! Which genealogy projects should you add to your calendar?

Want to get those genealogy projects done? Commit to one project a month and stick to the schedule.

January 2026: Crop document images

I wrote about this project in "How to Improve Your Digital Genealogy Documents". I had tons of document images that I downloaded from Ancestry. Almost all had a big black border around them, and a large file size. For a while I pushed myself hard on this project, and I almost finished it.

All that's left to crop are city directory images. There are less than 100 of them, so I know I can complete this project in 2 or 3 sittings.

February 2026: Look for father's death date

In "5 Details to Review for a Richer Family Tree" I told you how some Italian birth records say the baby's father is dead. In most cases, the death record is not available online. Then I realized that sometimes the father's date of death is there at the bottom of the baby's birth record.

When I enter a birth date in my tree for a child born to a dead father, I make a note of it in the birth date's description field. I always use the same wording, which means I can search my GEDCOM file for every instance of those words. Then I can double-check the birth record to see if it includes the missing date of death.

March 2026: Add to your life story

I wrote about an easy way to start writing your autobiography in "4 Steps to Writing Your Own Life Story". I haven't added to my life story Word document in a while. Now that I have a new daughter-in-law and grandson, it's overdue. I'm not sure I added my first daughter-in-law to the story yet!

April 2026: Add more war casualties

I have access to lots of military records for Italians who died in World War I. Italy lost major battles in that war that cost thousands of lives. I've downloaded many records, which I talk about in "Free Italian Military Records for WWI and WWII". But I have many more to download and add.

Can't access military records for your people? Find the draft registrations cards for men of the right age.

May 2026: Find ship images

In "Your Immigrant Ancestor's Ship Has a Story to Tell", I showed how to dig into your ancestor's immigration. That reminded me of something. I've always wanted to find more photographs of the ships that brought my people to America.

Years ago on Ancestry, when you searched for an immigration record, they had a column with a link to the ship's image. I don't see that anymore, and I'd only saved a few. I'll spend a few days in May searching for images of the ships that carried my closer relatives to America.

June 2026: Digitize more pages

I told you about HandwritingOCR in "Finally! A Great Tool to Transcribe Handwritten Documents". I used it to digitize a few books and handwritten pages. I digitized Italian books, dropped the text into Google Translate, and saved it in English.

HandwritingOCR performed very well on my handwritten notebook of ship manifest entries. This notebook dates back to my earliest days of family tree-building. Now that it's digitized, I can make sure I've followed up on every lead.

My task for June is to find other texts to digitize and put them to good use.

July 2026: Find new details in family photos

Last July in "How to Use AI to Analyze Family Photos", I used AI to analyze and date old family photos for:

• clothing styles
• military uniforms
• locations
• automobiles

There's so much more I can explore! This July I'm going to dig through my photos and see how much more I can learn.

August 2026: Look into local social conditions

The immigrants in your family tree always left home for a reason. In "Why Did Your Ancestor Leave Home?" I wrote about the reasons so many people left their countries.

When I visited Italy, I wondered why my ancestors left such a beautiful place. What we need to do is research the history of their location at the time they left. We're bound to find stories of oppression, poverty, unemployment, and disasters.

Pick a few ancestors and look into the social conditions at home when they emigrated. These historic facts will be a great addition to your family tree.

September 2026: Solve more DNA matches

In general, I've gotten all I can out of my DNA matches. But you never know when a new one will break open another branch of the family tree. In "5 Steps to Making a Cousin Connection" I explained my process for solving DNA matches.

This month, I'll spend a few days solving new DNA matches.

October 2026: Find more immigrants

All my roots are in Italy, so I spend most of my time looking at Italian vital records. Often the only way I find out which Italians came to America is by spotting them in a DNA match's family tree.

I'll spend time this month following my own advice in "Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections". I'll dig into the records and find more cousins who came here. That'll tie up a lot of loose ends.

November 2026: Find out-of-town marriages

In "How I Found My 8th Great Grandparents" I described how I found my ancestors' names in another town. They were born too early to be in their hometown's vital records. But their grandson married for the 3rd time in another town at age 83—which was a huge break for me!

I'm going to look for missing marriage dates in my family tree. I'll research the marriages that could have taken place in another town and see what new facts I can learn.

December 2026: Research the boarders

In "That's No Stranger in Your Relative's House" I wrote about researching a man living in my uncle's home. His true identity was a wonderful surprise!

On many census forms in my family tree, I made note of the fact that a boarder, roomer, or lodger was also in the home. I also noted when my relative was a boarder in someone else's home. I'll search for those notations in my GEDCOM file and research the unknown people. They could very well be cousins who belong in my family tree.

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I've created a calendar reminder for each of these monthly tasks to make sure they get done. Many won't take much time, and January's project starts today. It's going to be a very productive year!

P.S. I wrote this article on Sunday—finished my January project on Monday!

One Genealogy Project to Answer All the Questions

Since you became a genealogist, which questions does the family ask you the most? Is there a common thread to the questions? Here's what I've been hearing this month.

Dates, Dates, Dates!

My three first cousins' mother and my mother are sisters. These siblings are eligible for dual citizenship, but I am not. Our Italian-born grandfather took his Oath of Allegiance become a U.S. citizen when their mother was a baby. My mother was negative three years old. They've been texting me because I have all the information they need. They asked me for:

• our shared grandparents' birth dates
• our grandparents' marriage date
• the birth and death dates of their father's three siblings

For me, it was a snap to find these dates in my family tree and text my cousins the answers.

The building blocks for this useful genealogy project include a family group sheet and a descendant chart.

How Old and Who?

While visiting my mother, she asked me how old her paternal grandmother was when she died. I pulled out my iPhone, found her in my tree on Ancestry.com, did the math, and said Marianna lived to be 73 years old. "But we have her photo," Mom said. "She looks so old!" It's true. By today's standards, Marianna looks very old in her studio portrait. "What was her husband's name?"

That question was interesting. My mother didn't know her grandparents' names. They never came to America, so she never met them. Yet to me, the family tree builder, not knowing their names is unthinkable.

Who, Where, and Why?

A few years ago I created a "book of life" for my mom's first cousin. She's the perfect recipient of a book of life because she's always had a deep interest in our ancestors. She texts me often with family tree questions, such as:

• What was Aunt Elsie's maiden name?
• What was Uncle Al's street address in Bridgeport?
• Where was my grandmother born?
• Do you have a photo of my grandmother's father?

She texted me when her newest great grandchild was born. "Add her to the family tree!" I love those texts.

She also asked the deepest question I've gotten about the family. She wondered why her Italian-born grandfather Giovanni chose to come to New York. Why there? The short answer is opportunity. I said he most likely followed someone from his town who'd made the trip and found work. That's the story with most of the immigrants I've researched. But here's what I learned from ship manifests. Her grandparents, Giovanni and Maria Rosa, followed Maria Rosa's parents and siblings. They settled in the Bronx, New York, a year earlier.

It was my earliest genealogy research that gave me the names and some of the dates for my closest ancestors. Then ship manifests for Giovanni, Maria Rosa, and her family identified their hometown. I found the town's vital records on the Antenati Portal. Then I filled the family tree with names and dates none of my relatives had ever known.

Those are the goodies we can share with all the cousins who show interest. The questions my family has are pretty basic stuff: names, dates, and places. Wouldn't it be nice to share your hard work with the people who'll care the most about your discoveries?

The Perfect Genealogy Project

I can answer the questions my relatives ask with standard genealogy reports. I can combine them in an electronic file or print them out and place them in a binder. When I created a book of life for my cousin in 2019, I focused more on her father and his family. (I'm related to this cousin through her mother.) But my cousins with questions descend from my great grandparents, Giovanni Sarracino and Maria Rosa Saviano.

I'd like to make a book of life for Giovanni and Maria Rosa, and share it with this core group of cousins. In that 2019 book of life, I used paper cut-outs to enlarge areas. And I printed some highlights on yellow paper to place on top of black-and-white documents. This time, I'll create everything in Photoshop, PowerPoint or something else, and save it as a digital file to share. I can get as colorful as I like.

Now I'd like you to choose a particular couple in your family tree. Which ancestral couple ties you to the cousins you're in touch with the most? Start pulling together the document images you've collected for the couple. These may include:

• birth, marriage, and death records
• ship manifests
• naturalization papers
• census pages
• draft registration cards
• obituaries

Next, turn to your family tree software. If your family tree is online only (don't get me started), check the website for the types of reports available. Take a look at:

• A family group sheet for the couple (they call it a family group record on FamilySearch.org). This will contain dates and places for the ancestral couple and their children.
• A descendant report or narrative. This puts the facts you've collected into more of a story format and can pack in a ton of information.
• A descendant outline. This will cover more people, offering all the names, dates, and places.

Now look at your family tree's chart capabilities. On Ancestry.com, be sure to check out the LifeStory tab of your ancestor's profile page. On FamilySearch.org, look at the customizable Time Line.

• A descendant chart can include all the cousins with whom you plan to share this project. But you may need to slice it up into printable sections. Geneanet.org has a descendant chart you can customize. FamilySearch.org has Person Details in the Print Options menu.
• A waterfall chart (in Family Historian software) or a horizontal hourglass chart (in Family Tree Maker) is like a descendant chart. The chart in Family Historian looks terrific—it's a thing of beauty. It has the main person (or couple) on the left, and each descendant generation in columns to the right. But you can customize it to flow right-to-left, top-to-bottom, or bottom-to-top if you prefer. The horizontal hourglass chart has the main person on the right and descendant generations to the left. (Choose 0 ancestors to focus on the descendants.)

Customize the charts and reports until you're happy with them. Save them as PDFs or images you can insert into this project. Now I'll refer you back to my "Book of Life" article for the creation process. If you'd like to go all digital like me, take all the pieces and use whichever software is comfortable for you. Oh! This is the perfect opportunity for me to try out NotebookLM from Google. Now I'm psyched to do this!

I've been working on this project, and I'll tell you exactly how I did it in next week's article. You need to try this!

3 Reasons Why Transcribing Every Document Is Not Crazy

I'm transcribing an enormous collection of vital records for my genealogy research. Here's why I'm not nuts for doing so.

If your ancestors came from a small town, there was most likely a ton of intermarriage going on. And it's very possible that families stayed in one town for hundreds of years. Some may have moved to the next town to marry.

Because my roots are almost entirely in 5 little towns there, I've begun an ambitious project.

This massive project will connect me to thousands of relatives.

I discovered a software app that let me download massive collections of birth, marriage, and death records from my towns to my computer. (See "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives".)

Here's how I've been using these document images so far.

First, I located the vital records for my closest ancestors: my grandfathers, all my great grandparents, and their parents. I put these images in my family tree software.

Next, I began searching for other babies born to my ancestors. I put their facts and documents images in Family Tree Maker, too.

Then, I started sifting through one town's birth records, pulling out all the babies with a particular last name. This is an exercise that I hope will lead me to a missing link. I need to find the one married couple who are the reason why my parents share DNA. (See "The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle".)

The thing is, I know there are countless relationships to me waiting to be discovered. That's why I want to put each image's facts into a searchable, sortable spreadsheet. Each time I discover a relative, I put that image in my tree and color the spreadsheet line green. That lets me know I've already found that relationship.

Yesterday I completed one chunk of this project. It was a reasonable amount of work—not overwhelming. That feeling of accomplishment has me excited to do more. It was one of my 2019 Genealogy Goals: to enter the first 5 years' worth of births from each town into my spreadsheet. (See "How to Set Realistic Genealogy Goals for 2019".)

After typing the names, dates, and places from 1,000s of documents into an Excel file, I realized 3 powerful benefits to this seemingly insane project.

1. Name Recognition

What do you mean, you can't read this?

My husband can't understand how I can read these handwritten, 1800s Italian vital records. But going over every document teaches you:

• which family names are common in the town
• which given names are commonly found together (Nicola Domenico, Maria Antonia, Francesco Saverio)
• what the street names were (and maybe still are) in this town

With repetition, even if the quality of the document or the handwriting are awful, you'll recognize names in a heartbeat.

2. Spotting Familiar "Faces" As You Type

Excel has an AutoComplete feature that's proving very helpful. As I enter several years' worth of birth records, couples are going to show up, having another baby every couple of years. Thanks to AutoComplete, as I begin typing the father or mother's name, I can see that I've entered their name before.

Sometimes I may be unsure of a name. There's could be a blotch on the page, or ink may be bleeding through from the other side. But as I start typing, the name I'm about to type appears in AutoComplete. That's a confirmation that I was making the right choice.

3. Lightning-Fast Searches

I saved the best for last.

Normally, to find a particular person, I have to look at the files for each year. I go to each year's index and try to find the name I need.

But with all the facts—names, dates, ages, occupations, addresses—in a spreadsheet, searches are faster than any genealogy site's search function. No online connection needed.

Imagine being able to find, in one search, each document where your great grandfather is:

• the baby
• the groom
• the father of the baby
• the decedent

My spreadsheet inventory of all my ancestral towns will be the single greatest genealogy database for ME. What can you build for your family tree research?

Genealogy Obsession Pays an Unexpected Dividend

I'm obsessed with my massive genealogy project. Connecting everyone from my ancestral hometowns is all I want to do! I've improved my process along the way, and today my tree has 50,000 people. (See my more efficient technique below.)

When I write about this project, some people say, "I wish I could do that, but the vital records aren't available." Others say they're now doing the same thing, and all the connections are astonishing.

How many people from one town are somehow related? It's not just an obsession. It's a legacy.

Building an 18th–20th Century Foundation

When I add a person to my tree from the 1880s–1900s, I know they're someone's grandparents. That made me realize my project makes it easier to figure out my connection to distant DNA matches.

If you have a DNA match with a very small family tree, you may not see much more than their grandparents' names. I used to make an effort with these matches but not get very far.

Now I'm in a much better position to figure out my connection to a DNA match's grandparents. This weekend I scrolled through my match list, looking for those I hadn't figured out.

Simple notes make it easy to navigate your DNA match list.

One after another, I found their recent ancestors in my tree, and I saw our connection. I add notes to my matches that appear on the main DNA match list on Ancestry. I can scroll down the list and see who needs more research. This weekend I added new notes, like this:

• his 1G Maddalena Iamarino is my 3C3R, common ancestors are my double 5Gs Giovanni Iamarino and Libera Pilla
• 5C thru shared 4Gs Giuseppantonio Basile and Maria Maddalena Tedesco
• 3C descendant of Antonio Pilla and Angelina Iarossi, common ancestors are my 2Gs Gennaro Pilla and Maria Giuseppa Liguori
• her 1G Gennaro Finella is my 3C3R, common ancestors are my 5Gs Giuseppe d'Emilia and Orsola Mascia

Some matches helped me see which of my distant cousins came to America and who they married.

My all-consuming genealogy project is bearing useful fruit!

Letting the Documents Lead the Way

Here's an overview of my process and how I made it work even better.

I started with my Grandpa Iamarino's hometown of Colle Sannita. Vital records for the town are available online on the Antenati website (see "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives"). They have:

• Birth, marriage, and death records from 1809–1860 except for 1859 deaths and marriages
• Birth records from 1861–1904 except for 1875
• Birth records from 1910–1915 except for 1911
• Death and marriage records from 1931–1942 except for 1939 deaths

That's a total of 225 types of records and more than 38,000 document images.

My first step after downloading all the files was to:

• view each document and
• rename the jpg file with the name(s) of the subject(s).

An image named 007853875_00496.jpg now contains the names of a baby and its father:

007853875_00496 Carmine Pasquale d'Agostino di Giuseppe.jpg

The father's name ("di" means of in Italian) lets me search for all the children of any man, like Giuseppe d'Agostino. I can use a free program called Everything to search my computer for "d'Agostino di Giuseppe. (See "My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives".)

This file-renaming process is the basis for building an entire town's family tree.

The file renaming process alone was quite a task! I renamed more than 38,000 image files for this town (and tons more for my other towns). Then I was ready for the BIG project.

I created a spreadsheet with the name of each file. I go line-by-line, viewing each document again, and trying to fit the person or people into my family tree. If they fit, I mark it in my spreadsheet. And if they don't fit, I mark that, too.

I went through several years' worth of documents this way. One problem came up again and again. Some townspeople went by their middle name, making them hard to find each time they had another baby. So I made a change to the process.

If I'm adding an 1865 baby to a couple, I'll mark it on the spreadsheet. But before moving to the next line, I'll search for every other baby belonging to this couple. And if their kids' birth records have a marriage notation, I'll search for their spouses. And I'll add any of their kids. Then I'll return to the next line in my spreadsheet.

This way, couples using unexpected first names won't stump me each time they have another baby. It saves so much time when I complete their families all in one go.

Another problem I overcame was searching for a set of parents only to discover their baby is already in my tree. That was a wasted search. Here's how I fixed that problem. Before I begin another year's documents, I sort my Family Tree Maker index by birth, marriage, or death year. Then I compare the spreadsheet to the index and mark off the people I already have.

Because I complete entire families at one time, each new year I review is already 75% complete.

At this moment I'm up to the 1868 births. I have 64 folders left to go out of the 225 available. When I add 20th-century people to my family tree, it gets easier to connect with more DNA matches.

When I do get to the bottom of the spreadsheet, I'll make one more pass. I'll re-review the people I couldn't fit into my family tree. They tend to fall into 5 categories, and I want to mark them as such:

• "Out-of-towners" who happened to have a baby or die in Grandpa's town.
• "Old people" who died too early for me to know who their children were, or to have their parents in my tree.
• "Too-common names"—This is usually the only child of a couple I can't ID because so many townspeople had the same names.
• "Foundlings" who died without marrying.
• "Possibilities"—These are people I may be able to fit into my tree after I've gone through all the documents.
  

About 95% of the people found in those 38,000+ document images have a connection to me. Towns in this area kept largely to themselves because travel between them was hard. And all my roots are in this area. I'll bet I can reach the same 95% connection rate with documents from my other ancestral hometowns.

Well, my retirement is fully booked. I'm in my happy place every single day. Where are you?

5 Cleanup Projects to Fortify Your Family Tree

A weird thing happened when I finished a massive genealogy project. I felt lost! I didn't know how I wanted to spend my genealogy time, so I bounced around from task to task.

Then I found a cleanup project in my to-do list that kept me productive and happy. I may dive into another big project, but until then, here are 5 cleanup projects to fortify your family tree.

Have a little time to spend on your family tree? Choose a task with big impact.

1. Chase Down Exact Dates

I'm sure you have people in your family tree who are missing an exact birth date, marriage date, or death date. Use one of the two methods described in "2 Ways to Find the Loose Ends in Your Family Tree" to locate fuzzy dates. Then take the time to seek out as many exact dates as possible. It may be that you forgot to follow through and get those dates in the past.

2. Follow Through on Family Tree Leads

You may have a ton of genealogy papers on your desk in a to-do pile. Or a box full of old photos in the closet. Or a computer folder full of all sorts of family tree items waiting for your attention.

We put off dealing with items like these because they seem overwhelming. Don't you agree? But what if you break the process into manageable chunks that won't take a ton of time? When cleaning out a closet, they tell you to separate everything into 3 piles: keep, donate, throw away.

Why not apply that mentality to your genealogy leads? Start by organizing them into:

• Items that need more research. (Keep, and act on them.)
• Items that you thought were important but turned out not to fit in your tree. (Throw away.)
• Items that should go in your family tree right now. (Put them where they belong!)

For the inspiration you need to make this happen, read "How Many Genealogy Gems Are You Sitting On?"

3. Categorize All Your Genealogy Correspondence

I've been using Microsoft Outlook for email for at least 20 years. When I move to a new computer, I bring my massive Outlook file along—with all the old emails I'd decided to keep.

But my Outlook file is too fat, so I've been reviewing very old emails and deleting lots of them. I realized this is a good time to cut a lot of old genealogy-related messages by moving the facts to a spreadsheet. We don't need to keep every word of a conversation. Find out how to make the most of your correspondence by reading "How to Make Your Own Genealogy Correspondence Database."

4. Get Those Source Citations Done!

An awful mishap with my Family Tree Maker file led me to fix every source citation in my family tree. It was a huge task, but I'm so happy with the results. Now I'm careful to create a solid source citation for each fact or image as I put them into my family tree.

Once you've cleaned up your backlog, you'll be eager to do everything the right way going forward. Here's a detailed look at how to tackle your backlog and create "Step-by-Step Source Citations for Your Family Tree."

5. Cut the Fat Out of Downloaded Images

For the last few days I've been enjoying a cleanup project that's reducing the size of my Family Tree Maker file. I'm cropping the big black borders out of the census images I've downloaded from Ancestry. And while I'm at it, I'm reducing the size of the image from up to 6,000 pixels wide to a standard of either 50% of the original width or 2,000 pixels wide. (Do a test first to make sure the standard size you choose doesn't lose too much clarity.) The file sizes get smaller, and my tree becomes more manageable. Too see my process, read "How to Improve Your Digital Genealogy Documents."

Once I finish the census files I'll tackle the ship manifests. I love this project—I just couldn't seem to make enough time for it in the past.

Think of these cleanup tasks as a way to always be productive and keep from getting bored. Go on now and improve your family tree.

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!

Tackling Several Genealogy Projects on the Fly

I have several genealogy projects I bounce between every day. But I'm always open to whatever comes my way. This week I helped 3 distant cousins with their family trees—for their benefit and mine.

Handle multiple projects without losing your place—or losing your mind.

Project 1: Italian Emigrants to Brazil

First there was a man from Brazil. He found my website that's devoted to my grandfather's hometown: Baselice, Benevento, Italy. He wrote to ask if I could help him discover more about his Italian heritage.

We started with his great grandfather Giuseppe. He was born in Baselice in 1887 to Antonio and Concetta. They left for Brazil the following year.

If I built this family for my Brazilian friend, I'd know why they disappeared from town.

I began by finding Giuseppe's birth record and seeing his parents' ages at the time. Then I found his father Antonio's 1860 birth record. Antonio's parents were already in my family tree. That meant that BOOM! I had 6 generations ready and waiting for my new friend.

The only problem was Giuseppe's mother, Concetta. The clerk wrote the wrong last name for her on his birth record. That made her a dead end. What could I do to discover her real name? The marriage records available for the town end around the year she was born.

To learn this missing name, I could check the birth record of every Concetta born in town at the right time. If I were lucky, the right record would mention who she married. But the birth records around 1860 rarely have a marriage notation in the column.

Luckily this couple had another child, and his birth record had Concetta's real last name. I found her birth record and discovered 5 generations of her ancestors waiting in my family tree.

Project 2: New-found Family Members

My ancestry is like strong espresso coffee. Very concentrated! Most of my people come from 5 neighboring towns. Because my family tree represents these towns so well, I get the same comment all the time. "Your tree keeps showing up in all my hints."

One woman who said that to me has been trying to discover her birth father through DNA matches. She kept matching people with names familiar to me. They were all from my other grandfather's town—Colle Sannita. (Find out how to Harvest Clues from Your DNA Matches.)

On Friday, she had a breakthrough. Instead of hard-to-place 3rd cousin matches, she finally got a very close cousin. Her new match is her birth father's nephew.

I soon found her birth father's uncle and ancestors were already in my family tree. The reason the uncle was there was pure serendipity. In 2018, I photographed lots of graves in Colle Sannita. When I got home, I searched the town's vital records to learn whose graves I had captured.

The birth father's uncle had married my 2nd cousin 4 times removed. Not only that, but her birth father's grandmother was my 4th cousin 3 times removed.

I built out the family with vital records from the town and U.S. census records. In the end, this friend (who is not on my DNA match list) is my 7th cousin.

Project 3: Tying Up Loose Ends

After working on those families, I found a 3-month-old email from a man I learned is my 6th cousin twice removed. He had given me a lead on one of his branches, and I knew I could expand that branch.

It was his grandfather's brother's wife I needed to explore. I found her birth record and discovered a connection. Her maternal grandmother was my 4th great grandmother.

So, the great uncle of my 6th cousin twice removed married my half-1st cousin 4 times removed. Only in genealogy, right?

What's the Trick?

The key to being able to shift gears and handle new projects is keeping notes. I have a text file that's always open on my computer. I keep notes on exactly where I am with my genealogy projects when I quit for the day. I made a note to add specific birth record images for my friend in Brazil. I made a note to add census records for my new 7th cousin. And I made a detailed note about where I left off with my own, very complex project.

I'm trying to add as many cousins as possible from one of my ancestral hometowns. Here's that note:

Working on children of Emanuele Ricciardelli and Giovanna Consolazio:

• down to Samuele's son Ponziano Ricciardelli's son Ruggiero's children who married
• but 1st look for kids of Marino Ricciardelli

I'd be so lost without that note. Set yourself up for success and pure luck. Keep notes so you can:

• be ready to pounce on unexpected genealogy projects
• jump back to your own project without missing a beat.