Free Tool Finds Details You'll Want to Fix

Quality control for your family tree includes being consistent in how you record facts.

Consistency is so important to me. That was true when I wrote code for web pages, and it's true now that my family tree is my full-time work.

Recently I discovered an inconsistency in my family tree. For months now, I've been working my way through a long, long list of people in my tree with no source citations. Saturday was my most productive day ever. I completed the source citations for 110 people!

During the citation process, I noticed the inconsistency. Years ago when adding baptisms to my family tree, I recorded only the date and town. After visiting these places, I started adding the name and address of the church, too. (I found a handy website that lets you look up the names and addresses of churches in any town in Italy.)

Whenever I notice one of my early baptism facts—one without a church name and address—I fill it in and cite my source. But I'm sure I've missed plenty. I wish there were an easy way to find every baptism fact that's missing a church name.

Once again, it's Family Tree Analyzer to the rescue! Using this free tool, I can:

• Open my latest GEDCOM file
• Click the Facts tab
• Select all 7 Relationship Types
• Select only the Baptism fact
• Click the button marked Show only the selected Facts for Individuals

This opens a new window that looks like a spreadsheet. It contains only those people with a Baptism fact. (In my case, that 23,077 people.) I can click the top of the Location column to sort the results in alphabetical order.

One of the churches I discovered late in my research is in Santa Paolina. This list shows 700 baptism entries for Santa Paolina that are missing the church name. I'm afraid to count how many church names are missing for the first town I documented long ago: Baselice. There are tons of them! I can also check which Marriage facts don't use a church name.

It's a big job, but I'm glad to have a way to locate and fix them all. I want that consistency for my family tree.

How else can we use Family Tree Analyzer's Facts report? Here are 3 ideas.

One report in a free family tree program is perfect for finding and fixing your less-than-perfect early genealogy work.

1. Pin Down a Specific Oversight

Lots of times a birth record tells you the father and mother's occupation, and I like to add that fact to my family tree. But I worry that I've forgotten to add the baby's birth citation to the parents' occupations.

Using the Facts report in Family Tree Analyzer, I view Occupation facts only. Then I can sort them by the Num Sources column. The number of occupations with 0 sources is staggering!

I can also sort the Occupations by the Comment column. This shows me a ton of farmers and laborers among my Italian relatives. Can you spot any occupation trends among your ancestors? Every dentist in my tree is one of my husband's relatives from Hawaii. I'm surprised to find only 5 miners in my tree, but I have a decent number of railroad workers.

I get a kick out of the more specialized occupations I've found in the U.S. censuses:

• hop picker at the Wigrich Hop Ranch
• bacon packer in a packing house
• chemist at a steel mill
• bottle washer for a soft beverage company
• garters maker
• chick sexer (I have two!)

What are the most unusual occupations you've recorded in your family tree?

2. Get Rid of Early Variations

Over time I developed consistent wording to use on Emigration and Immigration facts. In the description field of an Emigration fact, I type, "Left for [city name] on the [ship name]." In the description field of the Immigration fact, I type, "Arrived [with family members] to join [family member] at [address]."

But I wasn't using that format from day one of building my family tree. Family Tree Analyzer can show me all Emigration and Immigration facts. It's easy to spot the inconsistencies this way. I found only one Emigration fact that had no description at all—the rest follow the right format.

As for Immigration facts, when I sort them by the Comment column, I find:

• 2 entries with a typo (Arrive instead of Arrived)
• a lot of entries following my original format ("Arrived aboard the [ship name]")
• a small number of entries that cite a ship manifest but have no description at all

These are all items I can fix. The number is small because I completed all my immigration source citations long ago.

3. Remove Unwanted Facts

I used to find it interesting that draft cards and ship manifests stated a person's height and weight. When I view all the Height facts in my tree, I find only 7. And one is an obvious error (my cousin Bella was not 11 inches tall at birth). I've removed these unreliable, and often varying, sources of height from my family tree. Only 2 people in my tree had a Weight fact, and one was weight at birth. I've deleted them both.

There's a fact type called Medical Condition that I used random in the past, but only 13 times. Some of the 13 are details about the cause of death, and one mentions my great uncle's artificial eye. But most of the others make no sense in this category. I can fix these easily.

I also recorded 8 phone numbers in the Phone Number category. Two are for dead men, two are Italian phone numbers for cousins I've never met, and the rest are for people I'll never call. I'm sure that years ago I was so excited to find these pieces of information online that I recorded them. Now I'm going to delete them. Okay, I'm saving one phone number, but not in my family tree. I'm putting it in my iCloud contact list.

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If you've been working on your family tree for a while, I'm sure you've formed opinions on how you want to save details. And I'm sure your style has evolved over time. Spend a day using the Facts report in Family Tree Analyzer to bring your old work up to speed. Your consistency makes your family tree—your legacy—more professional.

For more help with family tree consistency:

• How to Batch Process Your Genealogy Documents
• Consistency Makes Your Family Tree More Professional
• The Basics of a Well-Crafted Family Tree
• Make Consistency King in Your Family Tree

6 Powerful Features of Family Tree Maker

Most family tree software programs have more features than you may realize. These 6 features of Family Tree Maker are genealogy game-changers.

I bought my first computer—an actual IBM PC—in 1985 and upgraded from DOS to Windows 3.0 in 1990. I remember how juvenile early software programs looked. My first version of Family Tree Maker had that 1990s look when I got it in 2002.

Today, Family Tree Maker has an excellent, robust user interface. (See "Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener".) Here's a look at 6 FTM features I've found to be a big help in building your family tree. If you're using another program, does it have all these features?

1. Color Coding

I first used FTM's color-coding feature to distinguish the 4 main branches of my family tree. I went to each of my 4 grandparents and in one click, gave each one and all their direct ancestors a color. I made Grandpa Adamo and his ancestors green and Grandma Mary and her ancestors blue. I made Grandpa Pietro and his ancestors yellow and Grandma Lucy and her ancestors pink. My grandparents Pietro and Lucy were 3rd cousins. Their shared ancestors have both yellow and pink bars beneath their names.

These colors come in handy when I'm working on an individual whose relationship to me is unclear. When I view the person in FTM and see green, blue, yellow, or pink ancestors, I know exactly which ancestors we share.

For more ways to use color coding, see "Using Color to Understand Your Family's Last Names".

2. Filters

There are a few other groups for which I was using color coding. Then I realized there was a better way.

Family Tree Maker lets you create custom filters so you can display only a select group of people in your index. When your family tree gets pretty big, this can be a big help. What I didn't know at first is that you can assign a color code to everyone in a particular filter. You don't have to add the color to a person or family unit one at a time.

Here's why that's so helpful. I have 246 people in my family tree who have no direct relationship to me. Some share my Grandma Mary's last name, and they come from the same little town as her parents. But a lack of vital records means I can't figure out how we're related. At first I was color coding unrelated people in red. But if I discovered their connection, it was a bit tedious to remove the red color from the correct people. Now if new research turns them into relatives, I remove them from the Unrelated filter and the red color is gone.

In fact, I recently solved a mystery that turned 14 unrelated people into relatives. You never know when you'll find the answer to those unanswered questions. Now my Unrelated filter contains only 232 people.

I've also created filters for:

• Everyone in my family tree with an Ahnentafel fact (more on Custom Facts in a moment). This restricts FTM's index to only my direct ancestors.
• All the Italians I know emigrated to Brazil. This helps me connect to the many people in Brazil with my last name. This filter uses a blue color code.
• All the DNA matches I've been able to place in my family tree. This filter uses a purple color code.
• Actor Tony Danza's direct ancestors. (See "Apply Your Genealogy Superpower to Other Families".)
• My Uncle Kenny's direct ancestors. He's my mother's sister's husband with roots in the same town as my father. I'm hoping to spot an ancestor overlap some day. This filter uses an orange color code.

To add a color to everyone in a filter, find Smart Filters in the lower left corner of FTM's Tree tab. Choose Manage Filters from the menu beside Smart Filters. Select the right filter and click a color. Done!

3. Custom Facts

When I learned about Ahnentafel numbers, I needed a way to add the right number to each ancestor in my family tree. FTM doesn't have an Ahnentafel fact, so I created it. (Discover the value of Ahnentafel numbers in "3 Things to Do with Ahnentafel Numbers".)

Over the years I've needed other custom facts, too. My husband's family is Japanese and from California. The U.S. government forced then into internment camps during World War II. There are documents for these people on Ancestry.com, so I needed a way to record dates and places. I created a custom fact called Internment. There's also at least one guy in my family tree with documents about his jail time. I created another Custom Fact called Imprisonment.

To find out how to add a custom fact in Family Tree Maker, see "How to Add or Delete Custom Facts in Your Family Tree".

4. Undocumented Facts Report

For months now, I've been creating source citations for the majority of people in my family tree. I knew this would be a huge task, so I started with the people who have no source citations at all.

Using Family Tree Analyzer, I generated a spreadsheet of people without source citations. I sorted the spreadsheet to put people with a blood relation to me at the top. They're my first priority. To find out how to create this spreadsheet, see "2 Keys to Tackling a Big Family Tree Project".

Working through everyone in this big spreadsheet is step one. Then I'll use a Family Tree Maker feature to see what I've missed. FTM has a report within the Source Reports category called Undocumented Facts. This will help me find people who have at least one source citation, but are missing others.

When the time comes, I'll export that report to Excel so I can again work on my closer relations first. I know there will be a lot of facts in that report that I'm not going to source:

• I don't include a source for a person's sex. Unnecessary.
• I can't cite a source for more recent events, like the birth of my niece's children, or even for my cousins' marriages.

I'll have to filter out and delete from the spreadsheet people whose facts I'm not going to cite. Meanwhile, I'll keep chipping away at the spreadsheet of "sourceless" people. I need to reduce the undocumented facts as much as I can before running that FTM report. Otherwise, with 81,492 people in my family tree, generating the report will take forever. In fact, I know it will. I'll have to generate the report in batches. I can choose one strategic person and run the report only on their extended family, not the entire tree. Mo' people, mo' problems.

5. Relationship Calculator

When someone writes to me because they found their ancestors in my family tree, I go right to this tool. FTM's Relationship Calculator gives me a clear understanding of a complex relationship.

When I heard from a man last week, I looked at his grandparents in my family tree. I used the Relationship Calculator to see who our common ancestors were. Then I turned to my relationship calculator spreadsheet (not part of FTM—I should have called it something else!) to see my relationship to the man who wrote to me. The spreadsheet says he's my 4th cousin once removed. And FTM's Relationship Calculator makes it clear who our shared ancestors are.

When you use the FTM tool, don't stop at the word description of your relationship. Click the View Relationship Chart button for a clear visual of the relationship. For an example of the Relationship Calculator tool in action, see "How to See Your Cousin Connections More Clearly". To download your own copy of the relationship calculator spreadsheet, see "Which Side the Cousin Falls On is Key".

6. Find and Replace

Anytime you use the find and replace feature of any software, you have to be careful. You may wind up changing part of a word, or even part of a name. Say I want to change an Italian man's occupation from "ferraro" to "ferraro (blackmith)". I must remember to make that change case sensitive. Otherwise anyone in my tree with the last name Ferraro will become ferraro (blackmith)!

The Find and Replace option is in the Edit menu of Family Tree Maker. I did use it to include English translations for the Italian occupations in my family tree. At least one of these changes went wrong. See "How to Handle Foreign Words in Your Family Tree" for other uses of Find and Replace.

You can restrict a Find and Replace operation by selecting or not selecting:

• Match case (change ferraro, not Ferraro)
• Find whole words only (don't change a word if it's part of another word)
• Use wildcards (*?); this could be trouble, so use with care.

You can also tell FTM only to make a change if it finds the text in:

• Facts
• Media
• Notes
• Tasks
• Sources

There's a final option of Places, but it's unavailable to me.

There have been a couple of times when I realized I was using the wrong spelling of a last name. For instance, I found the name Aucone in several old vital records, but I thought it said Ancone. I searched for the name in the Italian White Pages and the Cognomix website. Now I know Aucone is the correct spelling.

Before I do a find and replace, I have to think. Could another name in my family tree contain the same letters as Ancone? To be safe, I can select the Match case option to change all instances of Ancone to Aucone.

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Sometimes you don't realize you need a software feature until you read about ways to use it. I hope this article encourages you to dig deeper and explore your family tree software.

My 5 Favorite Genealogy Tricks

Get into a family tree research groove with these 5 time-saving, value-added genealogy tricks.

I've been working on a big genealogy project with such efficiency it's amazing. When I built a newfound cousin's family tree back several generations in one evening, I wondered what makes me so fast. A lot of it comes down to my 5 favorite genealogy tricks. Are you taking advantage of these tricks like I am?

1. Adding Details to Document Images

Building detailed information right into document images increases their value. Your entries in the image's title and comments fields stay with the image. That info is there with the image on your computer, and it's there when you put the image in your family tree software. You can view any image's property details by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

Use an image's title field to keep document images in chronological order in your family tree. Begin the title with the year, such as “1930 census for John White and family.” This practice:

• Helps you locate the document you need easily
• Provides a clear timeline of events, and
• Points out any gaps in a person's records.

An image's comments field also carries over into your family tree software. Include a detailed source citation and line numbers for the people of interest. Line numbers help when you're revisiting a document and can't find your person right away. For a closer look at this process, see step 4 in "7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement."

When I synchronize my Family Tree Maker file with my Ancestry tree, each image displays the title I wrote. The comments field of the image in my family tree shows up as the description of the image on Ancestry. That lets future researchers or family members see exactly where the image came from.

Are you making sure your saved document images speak for themselves?

2. Using a Document "Holding Pen"

Since I work on my family tree every day, I set aside time each Sunday morning to make a complete backup of all my files. Significant changes can happen to my tree in one week! The best way to make sure I don't overlook anything at backup time is to use a "holding pen" for my new document finds.

My family tree is huge. For the moment, I'm avoiding adding more document images to my tree, but I have 11,688 images in there. If I go on a spree and add a bunch of document images to my tree, it'd be easy to overlook some of them during my weekly backup.

To make sure no documents slip through the cracks, I have a "holding pen" for new images added during the week. I have one folder on my computer called certificates. Any new vital record images wait right there until Sunday morning backup time. Each Sunday I know I have to look there.

Within the certificates folder is a sub-folder called DON'T FORGET TO BACK UP THESE. That's where I keep censuses, ship manifests, draft cards, and anything else that isn't a vital record. I have another sub-folder within certificates called working. That's where I keep anything I haven't processed yet. Let's say I downloaded a record from the New York City Municipal Archives, but haven't gotten to it yet. I'll keep it in the working folder so I don't forget about it.

A holding pen ensures that any new treasures get backed up and filed as needed. What steps are you taking to prevent documents from getting lost? To get a better look at the process, see "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree."

3. Sharing My Family Tree Online

It's fantastic when a distant cousin finds their ancestors in my family tree and writes to me. That's often the only way I can find out what became of my ancestor's cousins from Italy.

When I hear from someone, I go into research mode and figure out our connection. How crazy is it to be writing to a 5th cousin you never knew existed? Then I follow their ancestors to America, in most cases, and discover all I can about their family.

I like to provide new cousins with everything I can about their ancestors in Italy. That's the purpose of my enormous family tree. I want my quality research to be there for every distant cousin or paesan who finds my tree.

I keep my family tree up-to-date on Ancestry to help out people who've taken a DNA test. I also upload my tree to Geneanet to help European relatives. (See "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem.") And I took the advice of one blog reader who said I can upload my tree to FamilySearch in such a way that no one can edit it. On my personal website, www.forthecousins.com:

• I list my ancestral towns and my primary last names from those towns.
• I publish my complete indexes of the vital records available for those towns.

Are you building your family tree in a vacuum? Don't you think a distant cousin's personal knowledge of their family could help you?

Make family-tree building easier, and genealogy source citations more consistent and valuable with a simple template.

4. Using Source Citation Templates

Lately I've been adding source citations for the thousands of Italian vital records I didn't cite. Shame on me! Since the documents are on my computer, I skipped citations in favor of building families.

But what happens when a distant cousin finds his grandparents in my online family tree? How can he be sure my facts are correct? Unfortunately, he can't be sure unless I provide links to the documents. When there's a link, he can see the facts for himself on the original document.

I generated a huge list of everyone in my family tree who has zero source citations. I did this in Family Tree Analyzer and exported a spreadsheet. The list contained more than 68,000 people, more than 14,000 of whom were actual cousins to me. Now I spend my days chipping away at that list.

A few tricks help me cross the most people off that list in the least amount of time:

• I sort the spreadsheet by (1) relationship to me, (2) last name, and (3) first name. That let's me focus on blood relatives before in-laws. And it keeps siblings close to each other in the list.
• I create source citations for one person from the list, and then I handle all their siblings. Reducing how much I need to move around within my family tree and within the spreadsheet saves time.
• I work one town at a time. I keep the Antenati web page open with all the available records from that town. Then I can quickly go to the register book I need and open it in a new tab. Sticking to one town reduces the typing needed for the citation.
• The vast majority of facts in my family tree come from Italian vital records. I use a source citation template so it's easy to capture all the important facts with consistency. When I'm making citations for a bunch of siblings, only a few details need to change. I turn into a copy-and-paste speed demon! Here's the basic Italian vital record source citation format I use:
  From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR DOCUMENT-TYPE, TOWN, document #, image # of # at URL

Are your source citations in decent shape? Templates and time-saving tricks can help whip your family tree into professional shape. Not sure templates are for you? Take a look at #2 in "How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert."

5. Making Document Collections Searchable

Consistency can be such a help to you, particularly if you can't work on your family tree every day. Shortly after I began building my family tree, I knew I needed to use a consistent file-naming process. Within a FamilyTree folder, I created a sub-folder for each type of genealogy document:

• census
• certificates (meaning vital records)
• draft cards
• immigration
• and so on.

Within each folder, the file names follow a consistent format:

• Censuses: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of household)
• Certificates: LastnameFirstnameDocument-TypeYear—2 names if it's a marriage. Examples:
  • AgostinelliFrancescoAntonioBirth1789
  • AgostinelliFrancescantonioCapuanoAngelamariaMarriage1828
  • AgostinelliTommasoDeath1800
• Draft cards: LastnameFirstnameWW1 (or WW2)
• Immigration: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of the family if it's a group)

Because I use a consistent format, it's easy to search my computer for a particular document. For more detail, see "3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents."

But the best thing I ever did for my family tree is rename downloaded vital records that aren't even in my tree. Years ago I downloaded entire collections of Italian vital records using third-party software. But websites don't like when you do that, so they throw up roadblocks against such software. (What can you do? See "Semi-Automated Process for Downloading Antenati Images.")

With those images on my computer, I began to view and rename them all. I made them easy to search for on my computer. If someone asks me about their branch in my tree, it's no problem at all to:

• search for more records
• build out their branch more completely, and
• share it with them.

For these documents, I use a different, more readable format. It contains the document number and the full name of the subject(s) of the birth, marriage, or death record. If it's a marriage record it includes both the groom and bride's names. If it's a birth or death record, it also includes the first name of the person's father. This is a tremendous help in finding the right record or putting together families. Here are some examples:

• Birth record: 1 Giovanni Luigi Stanziale di Antonio
• Death record: 16 Guglielmo Ciampi di Andrea
• Marriage record: marriage 7 Angelo Carpenito & Giuseppa Fioretto
• Marriage banns: banns 2 1st Francesco diFreda & Petronilla Panza

While a computer search may find what you're looking for, I want more power. I use a search program for Windows called Everything. (Find out how well it works in "My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives.") It's so good at finding a particular record, and this helps a lot with my source citation project. I can find the document I need to cite, see its document number, and go right to it online to capture details.

Can you find any genealogy document on your computer in an instant? Consistent file-naming formats and a good search tool may be exactly what you need.

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A lack of efficient genealogy research methods can be a big source of frustration for you. Think about what you can change to work smarter, not harder—and make constant progress.

Are Ancestry Pro Tools Worth the Money?

Here's how the new features of Ancestry Pro Tools stack up. Are they worth the price?

When I heard you can sign up for Ancestry Pro Tools for one month and then quit, I knew I had to try out their new features. My main interest is to see how my DNA matches match to one another. This can help you understand which of matches share a common ancestor with each other. That can help you see where they fit in your family tree.

The other Pro Tools give you desktop-like tools for your online-only family tree.

What's Included in Pro Tools?

• Charts & Reports. Family Tree Maker (FTM) provides the same reports as Pro Tools. I'm sure other family tree software programs do, too. A computer-based family tree program is better than building your tree online in so many ways.
• Tree Mapper. This feature has a cool visual representation and several types of filters. But I can do this in the Places tab of FTM. Or you can get really fancy and use this free program.
• Smart Filters. If you use MyTreeTags™ on Ancestry, this is a nice way to see everyone with a particular tag. But I don't use the tags. I didn't see any filters that offer me something I'd like to do but can't do in FTM.
• Tree Checker. This tool's main finding about my tree is that tons of people have no documentation. Yeah, tell me about it! I've been creating source citations for weeks. It also thinks I have 7,040 possible duplicates. I don't. We've all seen towns where everyone has the same name. As I scroll through this list of people, it's plain to see they all have different birth dates. This feature isn't helping me. It can also find many types of errors, and that may seem like a big help. But we already have Family Tree Analyzer to do that for us.
• Tree Insights. These factoids are not something I can generate within FTM, but I've used Family Tree Analyzer to do so. I can't say it's useful. This tool is showing me:
  • the top 5 surnames in my tree
  • the 5 longest-living people in my tree (they're only that old because I can't find out when they died)
  • the 5 couples with the most children
  • the 5 youngest brides or grooms
• Fan Chart Settings. I like the look of the Fan Chart in Ancestry much more than the one in FTM. But the Pro Tools add-ons to the existing Ancestry Fan Chart don't do anything very useful:
  • You can choose the number of generations to display (4, 5, 6, or 7). I have more generations than that.
  • You can show Family Lines, which gives a different color to each of your 4 grandparents' ancestors. I think the non-Pro version does that.
  • If you choose the Hints setting, it uses varying shades of green to show you who has a lot of hints and who has few or none. The Photos setting and Sources setting does the same thing. A range of colors show you the haves and have-nots.
  But check out the more-detailed fan chart I created a long time ago using Charting Companion software.

For me, none of those tools are worth a recurring cost. That brings me back to the reason I jumped on a $7 sale for one month of Ancestry Pro Tools: Enhanced Shared Matches.

For years I've wanted to know why my parents share some DNA with one another. I had to see what Enhanced Shared Matches could do for me. (Note: Each of my parents took an AncestryDNA test, and I manage their kits.)

After a long and frustrating day of comparing Mom and Dad's DNA matches, I came up empty. My problem is the family's IBS segments—that's Identical By State. All my ancestors came from the same small geographical area. These small bits of shared DNA are more from the land itself than blood relationships.

My parents' shared DNA matches need to be my focus. As I worked through them, I hit so many with dead ends in their tree that I couldn't resolve. Do those dead ends hold the magic key?

I don't want to lose the extra insights from Enhanced Shared Matches, but I don't want to pay for it again. What to do? Make a new spreadsheet, of course!

Step 1. Document their Shared Matches

Looking at Dad's shared matches with Mom, I find a list of 21 people, but I'll exclude myself and make it 20 people.

I'll start a new spreadsheet with Dad in column A and Mom in column C. In column B, I'll enter the name of each shared match. I can also add what I know about them, if I've figured out their relationship to me.

Capture and analyze the insights of Enhanced Shared Matches in a spreadsheet while you can.

In each cell of the spreadsheet:

• I'll list the number of shared cMs and Ancestry's predicted relationship.
• I'll note which side of Dad and Mom's families they're on: Maternal, Paternal, Both Sides, or Unassigned. I have to view Mom and Dad's match lists separately for this.

The first big surprise is that I see a lot more shared matches when I view Mom's DNA test. What the heck? I started with Dad's match list because he has more matches than Mom or me. Nine shared matches from Dad's list are not in Mom's list at all.

It makes sense that this is a built-in 20 cM cut off. The 9 people in Dad's list only have fewer than 20 cMs shared with him. The 30 or so people in Mom's list only have fewer than 20 cMs shared with her. I should concentrate on the 11 shared matches with whom both Mom and Dad share 20 or more cMs. The low-cM shared matches must be Identical By State.

These people with the smaller amounts of shared DNA escaped me in the past. I don't know if the Enhanced Shared Matches Pro Tool is the reason I'm seeing them now.

Step 2. Document Highest Shared Matches of the Top 11 People

In the same Excel workbook, I'll document the shared matches of my parents' top 11 shared matches. I'll view Dad and Mom's tests one at a time and note who each person shares with them. I'll add the number of cMs, predicted relationships, and side of family as before. To increase my chances of success, I'll add only the strongest shared matches of the 11 people. They have to share 139 cMs or more. (I chose that number after consulting the Shared centiMorgan Project.) That way, these matches should be no more distant to my subject people than 4th cousins. Plus, I'll skip any matches if they share less than 20 cM with my parents.

A 15% discount for readers of Fortify Your Family Tree!

My goal is to find the best common connections. After documenting the first person's shared matches, I found something interesting. He's a close match to another one of the 11 top matches. Now I have 2 people from the same family who match both my parents. Is this the break I needed?

In the end, I'm left with 5 people who share DNA with both my parents and have close matches in the original list. I've already fit 2 of them into my family tree, and I find no connection to Mom's family. Plus, the one who shares 116 cM with Dad is actually more distant than expected. He's Dad's 4th cousin on one side and 5th cousin on the other.

While my parents' shared matches are tantalizing, every clue is pointing toward their being Identical By State. The most amazing thing is how their IBS families came together in a one-block stretch of Morris Avenue in the Bronx, New York.

Before I finish this month of Ancestry Pro Tools, I'm going to keep going through my DNA matches to learn what I can using the enhanced tools. It's a huge help when you can see that this match is the mother of that match. But I don't plan to renew my Pro Tools subscription.

2 Keys to Tackling a Big Family Tree Project

Parallel genealogy tasks get you to the goal while keeping things interesting.

Five weeks. That's how long I've been grinding away on one huge family tree project. I wrote about my missing source citations project 5 weeks ago and have been working on it ever since.

How did I get into this mess of missing citations? I forged ahead with my goal of connecting everyone from my ancestral hometowns. I skipped the citations because all the vital record images are on my computer. And I spent time renaming the images to make them searchable.

Since I can find any document again in a snap, I postponed citations in favor of family building. But I went too far.

Using Family Tree Analyzer, I generated a list of 70,000 people with zero source citations. OMG! My entire tree has 80,867 people and 70,000 of them have no citations?

I designed a process that let's me make measurable progress each day. First I made a change to the spreadsheet I created with Family Tree Analyzer. I sorted it by 2 fields:

• Relation to Root. This lets me work on closest relatives first. I have tons of people with very distant relationships to me.
• Surname. This groups siblings together so I can work on an entire family without moving around in my family tree a lot. That saves time. I search for one name and work through the whole family.

But I still have more than 69,000 people left to address! After 5 weeks!!

The sheer volume is why I had to put two things in place to make me efficient and keep my sanity.

Efficiency

I'm very good about adding citations the moment I find documentation on Ancestry.com. It's the tons and tons of Italian vital records I've let slide. About 99% of these documents come from the Antenati Portale. Their missing citations will all follow the same pattern.

That means I can use a single template and make a few edits for each fact. I'm a big believer in templates. Think of a source citation template as a stencil. A stencil makes it easy to repeat a perfect pattern or make uniform letters time after time.

This is my template for Italian vital records:

From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR TYPE, TOWN, document xx, image xx of xx at URL; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/TARGET/full/full/0/default.jpg

I change the variables to match the document:

• PROVINCE becomes the province in Italy. In my family tree, the province is usually Benevento, Avellino, Campobasso, or Foggia.
• YEAR becomes the year of the book in which you can find the document.
• TYPE can be birth, death, marriage, marriage banns, and a couple of other types. I like to use the Italian words: nati, morti, matrimoni, matrimoni pubblicazione.
• TOWN is the town in Italy. They store Italian vital records by town.
• The xx's become the record number on the document, the image number and number of images in the book. For example, document 20, image 12 of 25.
• URL is the link for the exact document on the Antenati portal. (Sometimes the link goes to FamilySearch.org.)
  
• The next piece, https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/TARGET/full/full/0/default.jpg, is a fabulous trick. It links to a high-resolution version of any image on Antenati. Every document URL on Antenati ends in a 7-character code—a combination of numbers and letters. If you replace the word TARGET in the URL above with that code, you can go to the high-res image and save it.

Here's an example. I edit the template and the source citation for the 1818 marriage of Antonio Maria Teresa becomes:

From the Benevento State Archives, 1818 matrimoni, Baselice, document 20, image 12 of 25 at https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ua757297/0AR6Jg3; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/0AR6Jg3/full/full/0/default.jpg

Go ahead and click those 2 links. You'll see the book version and high-resolution version of the marriage record.

Because I know each citation takes only a minute or two to complete, I keep pushing. One more family before I take a break from my desk. Another family before I take a sanity break.

Sanity

Some days I finish as many as 110 source citations. But it gets tedious after a few hours. That's when I need to save my sanity while still making progress.

When I start losing motivation, I switch to a parallel task. A parallel task is another goal I'm working on that adds a new name or date to my family tree. That new detail needs a source citation. And while I'm there, I check their immediate family. I make sure they all get their source citations.

One parallel task is finding the birth record of an out-of-towner who married into my family tree. I sort everyone in my family tree by birth date and hunt down those with an incomplete birth date. I've been having great success, so it's a gratifying project.

Another parallel task is adding cousins from a town I haven't explored fully. The other day I brought one ancestor's family forward a few generations. Then I found one of these cousin's granddaughters in my DNA matches. Now I know this cousin came to America. And my brother used to live in his hometown.

This combination of efficiency and sanity are how I tackle even the most tedious tasks. It's been my mental trick since I was a kid. I may follow an unusual pattern, but I get the job done.

Do you have an ambitious family tree project to tackle? How can you chop it up, mix it up, and keep things interesting as you make progress?

8 Topics to Make You a Better Genealogist

Get a comprehensive view of 8 topics designed to make you a better genealogist.

Six months ago I thought of a way my weekly blog articles could do more for you. I wanted each article to give you the big picture on any single genealogy topic. Most of my articles since then give you several ways to:

• solve a problem
• improve your family tree
• use new tools to your advantage
• advance your research.

These articles are like one-stop shopping for genealogy best practices.

Here are the 8 articles that received the most attention so far. Have you missed any?

21 Genealogy Tools I Can't Live Without

Years ago I found out my husband's cousin was working on her family tree using only a spreadsheet. That meant it held nothing but names and dates. Any family tree software, whether it's on your desktop or online, offers you so much more than that.

Take advantage of the different tools available to you—many for free. When I took a look at my most important tools, I found that I'm using 21 of them on a regular basis. Find out what you may be missing.

7 Free Genealogy Map Projects

It seems anyone who's passionate about their family history has a fondness for maps. As a kid, I thought it was amazing that my parents grew up a block apart. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. All my branches have intersecting locations, both in New York City and in a small section of Italy.

Here are 7 different ways you can use maps to illustrate, understand, and enhance your family tree.

5 Free, Easy-to-Use Family Tree Charts

I rarely print anything out on paper. But certain forms are terrific to bring with you when visiting an archive or library. And when I research an unrelated family, my custom spreadsheet is exactly what I need.

Here are 5 different PDFs and spreadsheets that I created or adapted and want to share with you.

3 Key Signs a Family Tree is Wrong

If you think that family tree hints are the only way to build your family tree, I'm here to tell you you're doing it wrong. Hints alone can lead to countless errors. Besides, the joy is in the research and in knowing you've found your people.

Before you believe anyone's online family tree, find out how to tell when their tree is wrong.

These 3 key signs don't include a lack of source citations. And that's my own guilt showing. I've spent the last couple of weeks putting in tons of source citations I'd postponed creating. I have a long way to go, but I'm doing it because it will show that my family tree is based on facts.

4 Ways to Safeguard Your Digital Family Tree

How many hours have you put into your family tree? Countless hours, right? That's why your top priority needs to be safeguarding and securing your files.

It isn't hard to do, and you must make it a regular habit. I use:

• cloud storage
• backups on internal and external hard drives
• online storage on family tree websites
• and I always export a new GEDCOM file after a long day of genealogy research.

Find out your options, make your choices, and stick to a plan. If you work on your family tree every day like I do, daily backups are so important.

8 Tips for Researching Your Immigrant Ancestor

I'm lucky to have recent immigrants in my family tree. None of my people came to America before 1890, and the majority passed through Ellis Island. (Funny how 1890 is recent to a genealogist.) That means I have ship manifests with the ability to unlock generations of ancestors.

For many people ship manifests are our first look at our old-country origins. But it's up to you soak every bit of information out of that manifest. These 8 tips will help you get more mileage out of each ancestor's passage.

4 Keys to Italian Genealogy

Too many people think they can't build their family tree because they don't speak Italian. To them I say:

• Can you learn a handful of words if they're shown to you?
• Can you pick out a name among the words on a page?

These 4 keys will de-mystify Italian vital records and help your find your ancestors. I started reviewing these records without knowing anything. Now nothing about them slows me down.

Top 5 Uses for the Free Family Tree Analyzer

Any genealogy researcher can get carried away with the excitement of a new discovery. Those moments of excitement open the door for human error. No matter how careful we are, we're going to have mistakes in our family trees. That's a big part of the value of Family Tree Analyzer (FTA).

Years ago I struggled to improve my coding skills so I could write a program that did an ounce of what FTA can do. FTA's author, Alexander Bisset, has created something far beyond my imagination. The moment I found his software, I quit coding.

If you want your family tree to be your legacy, to be accurate and reflect your work, you need to use FTA. Here are 5 very important ways to use it to improve your family tree.

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If you have a topic you'd like me to cover in this blog, let me know. There will be some topics outside my experience, but I'm eager to know what you'd like to know.

These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable

My extended family tree of more than 80,000 people keeps on helping my very distant cousins. They get so many hints from my tree that many feel compelled to write to me. Helping them discover their roots is my goal.

But my project to connect all the families from my towns makes me skip most source citations. I know, "Shame, shame!" That's why I spent this past week adding tons of missing source citations. If you find your ancestor in my family tree, I want you to find the links to their vital records, too.

A well-sourced family tree shows the world that you've done your homework. Your tree is valid and worth exploration.

Without source citations, why should anyone believe your family tree? Follow the genealogy rules and show your work.

Getting a Handle on Missing Source Citations

After writing "5 Ways to Find Loose Ends in Your Family Tree," I worked my way through people with a missing birth date. I found many of their vital records on the Italian Antenati website. For the sake of speed, instead of a source citation, I added a note to each person that looked like this:

His birth record: https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ua971481/03dOqgV

It's easy to find those notes when I open my family tree's latest GEDCOM file in a text editor. I search for "His birth record:" and follow the link. Then I create the source citation. This example becomes:

From the Benevento State Archives, 1824 nati, Pago Veiano, document 70, image 43 of 51 at https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ua971481/03dOqgV; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/03dOqgV/full/full/0/default.jpg

If you're curious, the first link goes to the document in the book of birth records. The second link goes to a high-resolution copy of the vital record. It's perfect for downloading.

If this were your ancestor and you found him in my tree, you'd be able to follow the link and see his birth record. That's the real value I want to provide for anyone with a connection to my family tree. I still have hundreds more of these notes to cite. Then I'll run an Undocumented Fact report in Family Tree Maker and start whittling away.

If your family tree software doesn't have an undocumented facts report, use Family Tree Analyzer:

1. Export a GEDCOM file from your family tree and open it with Family Tree Analyzer.
2. Go to the Main Lists tab and scroll all the way to the right.
3. Find the Num Sources column, click the down arrow by the column title, and choose Sort A to Z.

All the zeroes will be at the top of the list, showing you all the people with no source citations.

I don't know about you, but I never include a source citation for someone's sex. It seems ridiculous to say, "Yeah, the census says Maria was a girl, so that's my source." I just don't think it's necessary or of value. So my undocumented facts report is going to include the sex of all 80,491 people. I have to skip all those entries.

Last Saturday, from about 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., all I did was create source citations for those "His birth record:" notes. I completed only 86 of them, so the remaining 447 or more of these notes will take many days to finish. (There are also lots of Her birth record, His and Her death record, and Their marriage record notes.)

Then I'm left with the thousands of people whose vital records are sitting on my computer. I put off their source citations because my priority was getting families into my tree. I knew I could go back and create the citations whenever I wanted. And now I want to.

If you have an overwhelming family tree task like this to do, start close to home. Begin with your closest relatives and fan out. (See "Overwhelming Clean-up Task? Start With Direct Ancestors."). If you use Family Tree Analyzer for this task, sort the list by Source Num and Relation to Root. First you must view the Main Lists tab and choose Export (from the menu at the top of the screen) > Individuals to Excel. Then you can use your spreadsheet software to sort by both Sources and Relation to Root.

Doing that, I see that I have more than 100 direct ancestors who have no source citations. (I'm horrified!) That's where I'll start.

Your Task Won't Be as Huge as Mine

Do you have 80,000 people in your family tree? Did you postpone adding sources in favor of expanding your tree as quickly as possible? If not, then you shouldn't have thousands of missing citations.

I have enough Italian vital records available to add one or two hundred people a day to my family tree for a long time. But for now, I'm putting those additions on the back burner. I want anyone who finds my family tree online to see that I have the documents to back up my facts.

An unsourced family tree lacks credibility. With all the work you've done, do you want your tree to look unreliable?

If you're proud of the family tree you've built, show it! Retrace your steps to find the documents you used to add someone to your tree. Then add each document's source citation to prove you're a thoughtful, careful genealogist. (See "6 Easy Steps to Valuable Source Citations" for help with this task.)

Need help creating your source citations? Don't stress out about it.

• Develop strong habits for creating source citations as you go: "Step-by-Step Source Citations for Your Family Tree"
• Decide which types of sources make your family tree more reliable: "Choosing and Using the Most Reliable Sources"
• Follow a pattern when building your citations: "Add Consistency to Your Source Citations"

Take these steps and show the world that there's solid research behind your family tree.

3 Spring Cleaning Tasks for Your Family Tree

Two months ago I presented 5 cleanup projects, but there are always more ways to scrub your family tree.

Most days I forge ahead with my project to connect everyone from my ancestral hometowns. When working on that, I can add 100–200 people to my tree in a day. With my family tree approaching 79,000 people, it's important to keep up with my cleanup tasks.

Here are 3 areas every family tree needs some cleanup: Names, Dates, and Places.

These are the 3 most basic things you need to get right in your family tree.

Note: If you build your family tree online rather than desktop software, download a GEDCOM to your computer. Then open that GEDCOM in Family Tree Analyzer so you can see everything in one place.

1. Use Real Names

As I've said many times, your family tree is your legacy. Even if you aren't sharing it online, I'll bet you're sharing it with your family. And you must want it to live on after you've gone.

I've seen online trees use nicknames (e.g., Uncle Curly) and women's married names instead of given names. You're doing the research. You know their real names. Use them!

My whole family called my grandmother's brother Uncle Army. As a kid, I never questioned why. Then I found his given name on his birth certificate. Amelio, pronounced ah-may-lee-oh. I can remember hearing my grandmother call him ah-may—short for his full name. It was ah-may that my generation and my mom's generation heard as Army.

Am I going to record his name in my tree as Uncle Army or Army Sarracino? Hell no. Any relative seeing Amelio Sarracino's spot in the family tree can see he's Uncle Army. Likewise, I'm not going to record his wife (my Aunt Sophie) as Sophie Sarracino. I've recorded her by her birth name—the beautiful name I had to do a lot of research to discover—Serafina Eufemia.

For more tips on recording names and preserving those nicknames, see "4 Rules for the Names in Your Family Tree."

2. Use the Universal Date Format

In the 1990s I found out my business colleagues in Europe don't write dates the way we do in the USA. Today is April 2, 2024 in the USA, or 4/2/2024. But in Europe (and so much of the world) 4/2/2024 is February 4—actually it's 4 February. I adopted their style because I worked for an international company.

I never use the date style I grew up with (4/2/2024) anymore. I use the much more universal DD Mon YYYY. That's 2 digits for the day, 3 letters for the month (the first 3 letters), and 4 digits for the year: 02 Apr 2024. There's no misunderstanding that date. It's the standard for genealogists.

If your family tree has dates that aren't in the preferred DD Mon YYYY format, you're not doing anyone any favors. My son's birthday is 5/6. Will you send him a card on May 6 or June 5?

Check your dates and use the preferred format to avoid any misunderstandings.

And don't forget to use estimated dates when you don't know someone's birth date. See "When to Use Estimates in Your Family Tree."

3. Make Addresses Consistent and Accurate

When I'm entering a marriage in my family tree, I like to use the exact name and address of the church where the couple wed. I noticed I had used 2 different address variations for the church in San Marco dei Cavoti, Italy. I corrected any instances of the wrong address, and now they all match exactly.

If your addresses aren't consistent, you can't get a correct view of everyone in your tree who was there. As you scan your alphabetical list of addresses, you may find typos or slight differences.

In Family Tree Maker, you can check to see if an address is pinned properly on the map. I spotted one street address, Via la Costa, linked to one fact. When I zoomed in on the map within FTM, I saw that the street is actually Via Costa. To be fair, it was Via la Costa in 1812, but it isn't now. I want to use the current address whenever I can. If I'm visiting the town, I want to be able to go to any ancestor's address I choose. I updated Via la Costa to Via Costa to match today's map.

Take a look at your alphabetical list of addresses. Check for outliers, typos, or two seemingly identical entries listed separately. With up-to-date addresses, you can "Visit Your Ancestral Hometown at Your Desk."

Congratulations! You've made a tremendous step forward.

Are you up for more cleanup tasks?

• It's Time to Revisit & Improve Your Earliest Family Tree Research
• 3 Ways to Keeps Strangers Out of Your Family Tree
• How to Use Proper Genealogy Style