4 Steps to Make Your Digital Photos More Valuable

In January I wrote about "12 Genealogy Projects to Put on the Calendar". I'm tackling each job in turn, and I'm so glad to get them done. I rearranged a few of the months, and I had to change one project.

That project was to "Digitize more pages" using HandwritingOCR. It turns your document images into text files. I've done this with a few books written in different languages:

• I photographed the pages with my iPhone or scanner.
• I converted them into text with HandwritingOCR, saving the result in a text file.
• I translated the text with Google Translate, saving that result in the same text file.

But I have nothing left to digitize. So I changed my May 2026 task to "Download and categorize my Google Photos". I hadn't done that since March 2023!

Take these 4 steps to add tons of value to photos and genealogy document images.

Years ago my iPhone ran out of room to store new photos. I'd heard about Google Photos and started using it in 2013. A free account gives you 15 GB of storage, and 13 years of my photos take up one third of that. Since Google Photos is always backing up my photos for me, I can remove them from my iPhone if I want. My current phone has plenty of storage, but I'd rather streamline what's on there.

Keep in mind, anything you store on Google Photos is accessible via an app on your phone or the website. So all your photos are still portable.

I created several albums on Google Photos and assigned every photo to one of them. My albums have names like House, Woofie, Family, Cars, Maine 2021, and more. Then I went through the albums and downloaded everything newer than March 2023. But there's much more to do.

Let's concentrate on the genealogy-related photos today. I have lots of family photos and old photos sent to me by my cousins in texts:

• A typical downloaded photo saved from a text has a file name like 20200406_171047_1648666454076_001.jpg. You can see it begins with a date, but the rest isn't helpful.
• Other photos have names like IMG_3806.JPG. That's useless other than keeping photos in chronological order.
• Still other photos have names like 2592.heic. HEIC?

I found out HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Compression. These don't open on my computer the way JPGs do. For me, they launch Photoshop. I downloaded a free HEIC Viewer from the Microsoft Store, but it keeps asking me to rate it. While it can convert the HEIC files to JPGs, that capability isn't free. So I'm going to use Photoshop to do the conversion.

There are four steps we all need to take with our digital photos:

• Rename your photos to something meaningful. I can identify "DiAnn and Chris Summer 1992" a lot easier than "20211215_115628_1639588924940_001.jpg". I'd know which photo it was without seeing a thumbnail.
• Crop and enhance your photos as needed. Some of my photos from texts are screenshots that a cousin sent. I can crop out the surroundings. And if it's an old damaged photo, I can clean it up.
• Give your photos metadata. Metadata is information you enter into the photo's properties. This information stays with the photo file. It can include a title, tags, a comment, date taken, and more.
• File your photos to make finding them more intuitive. Since I categorized my Google Photos into albums, they're already in good folders. But I can make sub-folders. Then I can keep all the family photos from Bella's 2025 graduation party together.

Let's take a look at these four steps.

1. Rename your photos to something meaningful

I have four photos of my husband Paul and my late cousin Carmine, taken at my cousin Paula's birthday party in 2023. They're all in the HEIC format that iPhones use. My first step is to rename them to include the subjects. I'm keeping it simple: Paul Ohama and Carmine Mollica 1, 2, 3, and 4.

2. Crop and enhance your photos as needed

Opening the photos in Photoshop, I see the color is a bit yellow. When I clicked Image > Auto Color for each one, they looked much better. There's unnecessary space above their heads, so I can crop that out.

With these adjustments, I can save each image in JPG format with its new name. I'll delete the HEIC versions, knowing they're still out there on Google Photos.

3. Give your photos metadata

For years I've been adding metadata to my genealogy document images. I give them a title which carries over to Family Tree Maker when I drop them there. And I add comments that include the source citation.

Not long ago I learned something new about metadata from a video by Thomas MacEntee. You can add metadata to several files at once, as long as they're all getting the same metadata. So I will:

• Select these 4 photos
• Right-click and choose Properties
• Click the Details tab
• Fill in a shared title, the tag "family", a comment about where I took the photos, and the date I took the photos.
• Click Apply to save this metadata to all four files at once.

Having added family as a tag, I can now go to Windows File Explorer (or Finder on a Mac), and type tags:family in the search box. The four photos of Paul and Carmine are at the top of the results list. I'm new to using tags, so I'm keeping it simple for now.

4. File your photos to make finding them more intuitive

These are the only photos I took at cousin Paula's birthday party, so I won't put them in a sub-folder. But I have several photos from cousin Bella's graduation party. I'll give them their own sub-folder. Most of those photos are group shots. I can identify key people in the file name, and identify everyone in the Comments section of the metadata.

I have a lot of work to do, and the plan was to complete this project in May! I'll try to plow through the photos in a few long sessions or commit to an hour or two a day. Then it's on to my June 2026 project (I started it yesterday). That project, "Add more war casualties", was my April project until I reshuffled the deck.

Here's what's involved in the war casualties project. I have a spreadsheet of the men from my ancestral Italian hometowns who died in World War I. The province of Benevento has their actual military records online for download. I'll check to see which military records I haven't downloaded yet for men who are in my family tree. Then I'll add the record and its source citation to my tree.

Which family tree projects have you been putting off? Why not jump into one now and get the ball rolling?

5 Efficiency Techniques That Fortify Your Family Tree

With so many responsibilities to juggle, your time is precious. When you do find time to work on your family tree, you don't want to waste a second.

That's why you need to focus on your efficiency. Efficiency helps you get more done in less time. Here are 5 different ways for you to reap the benefits of efficiency in your genealogy work. They boil down to: (a) focusing on one thing at a time and (b) not reinventing the wheel.

Efficiency techniques give you a higher quality product: your family tree.

1: One Task at a Time

When you do find time to work on your family tree, don't waste a second. Make your own version of this task list (see "How to Run Your Genealogy Research Like Clockwork"). Then choose whichever one you're in the mood for and get right to it.

Your task list should include a mixture of things you know you need to do and things you want to do. For more ideas of things to add to your task list, see "Work in Batches to Strengthen Your Family Tree".

2: One Process at a Time

When I find a census page that contains a large family from my family tree, I need to go through a whole process. I have to:

• Download the census sheet image.
• Give it a name that follows my chosen file-naming pattern.
• Crop and enhance the image in Photoshop.
• Add metadata to the image.
• Attach it to the head of household in my family tree and share it with each member of the household.
• Add facts from this census to each member of the family.
• Create a source citation and attach it to all those facts.
• File away the original image, or keep it in my holding pen until file backup day. (See "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree".)

Did you realize you're following a process? Does it have a lot of steps? Think them through and make sure nothing got overlooked.

You'll find it's more efficient to complete the entire process in one sitting. Don't go through the steps for the head of household and worry about the rest of the family later. That's so inefficient. Instead, "Get into a Groove to Fortify Your Family Tree".

3: One Record Type at a Time

Last month I completed a task I thought of long ago. I wanted to find images of the ships my ancestors took from the old country to the new one. Somehow I never got around to doing it. Then I made it a priority. I spent part of two days working on nothing but the ship images. Now, after so much procrastination, it's done!

But most days I spend my genealogy time on one thing: Italian vital records. My ongoing project is to add all the missing source citations to my family tree. The bulk of them are citations for the Italian vital records in my tree.

Focusing on that one task makes me very efficient. If you have missing source citations, you'll be more efficient if you tackle one record type at a time. It could be ship manifests, census records, vital records, or anything else you need. To make your source citations shine, see "Add Consistency to Your Source Citations".

4: One Whole Family at a Time

While working on my missing Italian source citations, I've tried different techniques. I needed to see which is most efficient. First of all, it's by far more efficient to work on one town at a time. My missing source citations come from several different towns. By working on one town at a time:

• I save typing. All my source citations are going to use the same town.
• I stay in one section of the Antenati portal (where they keep the vital records). That means I don't have to navigate to another part of the website.
• I avoid picking the wrong town while adding the citation to Family Tree Maker.

But I did try an experiment. I opened the 1812 birth records for this one town. I went through them page-by-page, looking up the people in my family tree. (They're ALL in there.) I added each missing citation to my tree. I did this all the way through the 1819 births. It was nice that I didn't have to do anything in my web browser but turn the page. But I found that I had to move around in my tree so much that I accomplished less in a day.

What's more efficient is to work through an entire family of siblings at a time. There's no moving around in my tree. I can see them all on one screen in Family Tree Maker.

I have a copy of all the vital records on my computer. It's very efficient for me to:

• search for all the siblings at once using their father's name.
• open each set of Antenati records in a new browser tab.
• customize my source citation template for each sibling.

That's how I complete so many in a day. See "How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert".

5: Use Templates

Why waste time retyping something long and complicated from scratch? Let's say you're creating source citations for a specific type of document. You have tons of these documents to cite, and it'd be nice if they all followed the same style.

No problem! Give some thought to how you want these similar citations to look. Then type out and save a template in a text file. I crank out more than 100 source citations a day for my Italian relatives' vital records. I'm sure not going to type each one out in full each time. That's not efficient. Instead, I start from a citation template and make a few changes to match the record. See the Efficiency section of "2 Keys to Tackling a Big Family Tree Project".

I keep a handful of specialized templates in my text file. These ensure consistency while saving time.

Are you using efficiency techniques to maximize your precious genealogy time?

Create a Gorgeous, Custom Family Tree Chart in Minutes

Inspired by a genealogy friend, I tried something the other day that I must share with you. It's an easy way to create a stunning, one-of-a-kind family tree chart. I did it in two steps.

One platform did a beautiful job. Another invented an entire family.

Step #1: Print an Ancestor Chart as a PDF or Image

Decide which person you want to be the subject of your custom family tree chart. For this exercise, I'm choosing my grandfather, Adamo Leone. Here are the steps to follow:

• In your family tree software, select the person you want.
• Depending on your software, choose to create an ancestor or pedigree chart.
• Customize the chart as needed, but keep it simple. The websites we'll be using tend to make typos. You may choose to include:
  • name and lifespan
  • 3 generations of ancestors
  • their spouse
• When you're satisfied with the chart, print it as a PDF or an image.

If you can't generate an ancestor or pedigree chart from your family tree, you can create it as a text file. Here's a text format you can follow:

Generation 1: Your Subject's Name (dates) married Spouse's Name (dates)
Generation 2: Your Subject's Father (dates) married Mother (dates)
Generation 3: Your Subject's Paternal Grandparents; Maternal Grandparents
Generation 4: Your Subject's Paternal Great Grandparents (both sets); Maternal Great Grandparents (both sets)

Mine looks like this:

Generation 1: Adamo Leone (1891-1987) married Maria Carmina Sarracino (1899-1992)
Generation 2: Giovannangelo Leone (1850-1942) married Marianna Iammucci (1856-1929)
Generation 3: Nicola Domenico Leone (1796-) married Caterina Pisciotti (1819-); Antonio Luigi Maria Iammucci (1814-) married Annamaria Bozza (1815-)
Generation 4: Giuseppe Leone (1772-1830) married Maria Zarrelli (1772-1804); Giovanni Pisciotti (1793-1842) married Dorodea Petruccelli (1792-); Leonardo Iammucci (1783-1835) married Mariangela Palumbo (1784-1823); Antonio Bozza (1784-) married Angela Cece (1779-1850)

Now you're ready to generate your work of art.

These were my first attempts in NotebookLM, and I adore them.

Step #2: Ask for What You Want

Go to your platform of choice and drop the ancestor chart you created into the conversation. I'm using NotebookLM from Google because I've had good results.

Here's an example of what you can request. Tailor it to meets your needs. You may want to add a photo of your own to use as a background (although this didn't quite work in NotebookLM). Be sure to describe what you want in detail. And tell it what you want the title at the top of the chart to be. I didn't think to do that.

Based on this PDF, create a family tree diagram for Adamo Leone that uses the red, white, and green colors of the Italian flag. Use the photograph named baselice.jpg as a background image.

Give the website a bit of time to create your masterpiece.

After a couple of tries, I got a beautiful chart with no typos that looked the way I wanted. It never used the photo I supplied, but it did create something that matches the feeling of my photograph.

Try Out Other Platforms

Let's see how this works on a platform other than NotebookLM.

1. ChatGPT. I went to ChatGPT for the first time ever. I gave it the same PDF and photograph. I used the exact same prompt. IT MADE UP EVERYTHING. It used my photograph, so that's one good thing. But it made Adamo Leone the ancestor of a bunch of made-up people who are not in my family tree. It used the wrong dates for my grandfather. It said everyone in the chart died in Youngstown, Ohio. That's weird because Youngstown does appear in my family tree, but not for this side of my family.

Since ChatGPT offered me the option to correct the image, I typed in this:

In the PDF I supplied, Adamo Leone (1891-1987) is the descendant, but you made him the ancestor of a lot of people who do not exist. Can you make this an ancestor chart that matches the facts I provided?

More hallucinations. Who are these people? Well, that was the first and LAST time I'm going to use ChatGPT.

2. Copilot. I went to the AI platform I always use: Copilot from Microsoft. I've had sessions with Copilot where I asked a question and learned a lot about a topic. I've also asked Copilot to analyze photos for me, with great results.

I dropped the ancestor chart PDF and the photograph into the chat window and used the same prompt as before:

Based on this PDF, create a family tree diagram for Adamo Leone that uses the red, white, and green colors of the Italian flag. Use the photograph named baselice.jpg as a background image.

It asked me which format I want the result in, and if I want to add portraits to the chart. It said it would use a vertical format, so I asked it to use landscape. There was a button I had to click to get it to run this task.

After several minutes, it looked as if I could click to download the file, but there was nothing there. I asked Copilot, "Where's the PDF?" It asked me for the two input files again, my PDF and photograph. Then it said it was working on it. It listed the four steps it was going to follow. I stepped away and had breakfast. Copilot appeared to have quit after finishing the first step. I asked it what happened, and it told me it was ready to continue with steps 2–4.

I must say, Copilot doesn't usually give me such a hassle, but this is the hardest thing I've asked it to do. OK, steps 2–4 are complete. It's generating files for me to download.

It did what I asked, but I don't like it. The background image is very dark. It put in generation labels and a key that are making things look crowded. And I see at least one incorrect date.

The output does include an SVG file that I could edit if I had the right software. Even if I did, it seems like a lot of work when NotebookLM did such a beautiful job for me.

3. Claude. Now I'll have to try one more platform I was planning to avoid for the rest of my life: Claude. When I tried to create a chart without creating a free account, things did not go well. It created a chart using Courier font and ignoring the lifespan dates. It told me it can't use my photo as a background. But it complemented me on the choice of a photo that shows the Campania region of Italy.

Each AI platform has its strengths. I didn't find Claude's strengths.

I created a free account to see if it would treat me better. It did. Like Copilot, Claude made my background photo very dark. And it put each person's information in white text on a black background. It was all too hard to read.

I asked it to do three things:

1. fade the background instead of making it dark
2. remove the generation labels that were cluttering things up
3. put people's info in black text with a white background.

It did all that in no time. The output is an HTML file—a webpage that resizes as you change the size of your browser. There's a slight shadow that appears when you hover over any person.

I have more edits I'd like. The fonts are hard to read, the image is too faded, and it's upside-down for an ancestor chart. That's when I must have run into a free-account limit. It told me I'd have to start a new chat to do what I wanted. I started over and give it all the specific instructions I wanted it to follow. But it balked and said I gave it too many instructions. Because that's what computers say???

Instead of the text-based chart I wanted to test, I gave Claude the PDF version of the tree and the photograph. I said:

I want to generate a family tree chart from this PDF using this photo, as is, as a background. Do not include generation labels or a footer.

The progress report it was giving me was funny. It said things like "Planting family roots" and "Branching out generations". But it had a problem with the photograph this time, and it couldn't make all the ancestors fit on the page. It was a bust.

Farewell, Claude. We hardly knew ye.

Stick with the Winner

NotebookLM is the clear winner for this family tree project. But a free account limits you to generating three of these charts (which it calls infographics) a day. I wanted to test it using the text-based ancestor chart instead of a PDF, but I hit the daily limit. The next day I did use the text-based ancestor chart to create the image at the top of this article. Love it!

To make sure my text-based chart format is good, I asked NotebookLM to create a table based on the text. Is it OK to separate ancestor couples in the same generation with a semi-colon? It is. The table turned out correct.

I hope you'll have fun with this project. Give careful thought to what you want it to look like, and be specific in your request. Don't try to add to many generations. When you come up with a winning format, copy and save your request so you can use it for other family charts tomorrow.

How I Brought this Ambitious Genealogy Project to Life

Last week I wrote about a genealogy project we can all use to supply answers to our families' questions. I'm in touch with one group of cousins more than the others. So I decided that creating a "book of life" about our shared ancestors was the best place to start. We all call them Babanonno and Mamanonna—my maternal grandmother's parents.

A couple of weeks ago, for the first time, I saw what Google's NotebookLM can do to generate content. (Thanks, Liz!) I dropped the biography I wrote about my grandfather into a notebook. Then I let NotebookLM generate an infographic and a slide deck. The results were impressive, though not perfect.

With the right tools and your own collection of family tree documents, you can create a "book of life" to share with your relatives.

Getting Started

Here's what I did to create content about my great grandparents—Giovanni and Maria Rosa:

1. Created a new notebook in NotebookLM.
2. Searched my computer for all the saved document images belonging to the couple. I dropped several images into the notebook as sources. These include:
   • birth and marriage records
   • censuses
   • a ship manifest
   • a photograph of the ship they took to New York
   • a photo of their grave marker
3. Used Family Historian software to create a descendant chart and family group sheets. Then I added them to the notebook as sources.
4. Created a Timeline Report in Family Tree Maker for both Giovanni and Maria Rosa. Saved them as PDF files, and added them to the notebook's sources.
5. Asked NotebookLM the following in its chat window. "Based on the Timeline Reports, use these 10 sources to tell me about the lives of Giovanni and Maria Rosa."

This produced a narrative of their lives. Here's a little snippet of the narrative. I like how it pulled certain facts from my sources to generate this summary of his employment:

Giovanni's work history reflected a variety of roles to support his large family. He was a bartender and saloon store-keeper in the early 1900s, a building painter for many years, and the proprietor of a beer garden by 1940.

Trying More Options

When you click the Reports option in NotebookLM, you need to choose a format type or create a custom report. I chose Biographical Narrative which produced a report that included historical context. I copied the result to a Word document.

I clicked the Mind Map option, which looks wonderful, but the text got cut off when I tried to download it as an image. I thought if I clicked on Giovanni's birth date in the Mind Map I could attach his birth record. Instead, it generated a new narrative for me, focusing on his birth and key events in his life. It points out that Giovanni's grave marker has a different date than his birth record. It's off by 4 days.

Next I clicked his wife Maria Rosa's name in the Mind Map. This generated a narrative about her immediate family. I did the same for each of Giovanni and Maria Rosa's children and copied them all into the same Word document.

It's important to review everything before putting it in your final product. Be sure to remove anything that's wrong or not what you want to share. For instance, I'll make the historical context more brief.

Then I tried the Slide Deck option. The deck looks wonderful, other than obvious errors in a map of the Bronx, New York. I downloaded the result as a PowerPoint file then saved that as a PDF.

Finally, I generated an Infographic, asking it to use exact dates for everyone's birth, marriage, and death. I also asked it to include the document images I uploaded when appropriate. While it looks beautiful, it didn't use my images, it used only a few exact dates, and it made several typos.

I spent decades working in marketing communications. So I can use this infographic as a guide and create my own. I can use the images I want, the dates I want, and not have typos. But I haven't tackled that yet.

I happen to have my own website and a long work history of creating and maintaining websites. It makes sense for me to take these materials and create web pages to display it all. I'm not including birth dates for anyone living. And I'm preventing search engines from crawling and indexing the pages.

While I took all the text and images to create a series of web pages, you can use paper printouts or whatever computer software you find most comfortable.

I shared the website link with my family, and right away they discovered a few things they didn't know:

• One of our great aunts didn't marry in the church, but in the courthouse.
• Some of the original, Italian first names of our ancestors had been unknown to some cousins.
• My mom didn't know about her father's unusual job in the 1950 census. None of us did!

Who's Next?

These steps are easy to reproduce when it's time to focus on another branch of the family. This project can get your relatives more excited about your family tree work. I like the idea of having a self-serve website that lets the cousins find the answers to their questions. And I can use their feedback to make this, and future websites, more useful to all my cousins.

Next up I need to do my mom's paternal grandparents, and both sets of my dad's grandparents. I've got the template now, so I can crank these out. How about you?

Looking for some more genealogy projects? Type project in this blog's search box, or click this link.

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!

What Makes You Crazy About Genealogy?

I watched "Psycho" the other night. Anthony Perkins, in the role of Norman Bates, said one thing that got me thinking. When talking about his taxidermy hobby, he said, "It's more than a hobby. A hobby's supposed to pass the time, not fill it."

If that's true, Norman, what should I call genealogy? I retired because work was cutting into my genealogy time. I spend about eight hours a day on my family tree. I don't pass the time with genealogy. I fill the time with genealogy. And I couldn't be happier.

Oh, so that's what Norman means to say. He devotes so much time to taxidermy, and cares about it so much, that it's more than a hobby. Hobby isn't a strong enough word. I'd say devotion is a better word. I have a strong devotion to genealogy. That's what drives me to achieve more and more each day.

Once you understand your motivation to do genealogy, your goals become clear. Let them drive your family tree research.

What Drives You?

If spending all your free time on your family tree sounds too much like work, there's one element you may be missing. Call it a goal, a motivation, or a purpose. It's a driving force that will keep you excited by your genealogy "hobby" every day.

My earliest family tree goal was to gather all the census records for my closest family. Then I discovered I could view vital records for my Italian ancestors. After exploring one of my ancestral hometowns, I had a new goal. I wanted to document and connect everyone from that town. After finishing with that town, I moved on to the next. I have a handful of towns where I can connect almost everyone.

Before I do, though, my number one goal now is to create all the source citations I skipped in my giddy excitement. I have a spreadsheet that still contains more than 40,220 people who have no source citations. The documents are all downloaded to my computer, so I went for it, adding facts without sources. But my mission is to create a family tree that will be a treasure for anyone with roots in my ancestral hometowns. And that requires source citations so they can go see the documents for themselves.

Define Your Genealogy Motivation

I became interested in my family tree while planning my honeymoon in Italy. I did make it to my paternal grandfather's hometown on that trip, but I didn't know where to look.

Walking around Grandpa's hometown, I felt a physical pull deep inside me. I needed to discover my ancestors. I wanted to know all their names. Once I discovered the availability of Italian vital records, I made myself an expert on their towns.

What question or desire got you interested in genealogy? There are many reasons people spend time and money on genealogy, including:

• Finding a missing ancestor or birth parent
• Discovering where the family came from
• Solving a case of misattributed parentage
• Applying for dual citizenship
• Proving or disproving family lore
• Working on a personal, never-ending puzzle
• Bringing history to life in a meaningful way
• Preserving family history for future generations
• Sharing your findings with distant cousins

Once you define your genealogy motivation, you're ready for the next step.

Set Your Goals

Now that you've put your finger on what motivates you, what goals do you need to reach?

If your motivation is to apply for dual citizenship, you need specific documents. You must discover the place and date of birth of the ancestor through which you will ask for citizenship. How can you break that goal down into steps? Let's say you don't know Grandpa's town of birth in the old country. You have to seek out as many of his records in his adopted country as you can. Many records may include his town of origin. Make a list of every type of record that should be available for him. Censuses, a ship manifest, naturalization papers, draft cards, an obituary, a death certificate. Your goal is to find them and learn all you can from them.

If your purpose is to discover your birth parent, you need to take at least one DNA test. Then upload it as many places as possible. You'll have to spend your time taking online webinars to learn discovery techniques. Then explore your closest DNA matches. You may need to create family trees for important DNA matches. On any given day, your goal can be to solve one more DNA match and see how they connect to any of your other matches.

If your motivation is the never-ending puzzle, you'll never lack something to do. Your goals can be to document all your ancestor's siblings. Then find out who they married and document their families. Then move up a generation and do the same thing. If I hadn't found all the siblings, I wouldn't be able to see that my paternal grandparents were third cousins.

If your purpose is to help your distant cousins, publish your family tree online. Make your family tree as reliable and accurate as possible. Your individual goals can be to:

• Check your tree for errors and correct them
• Make sure your facts have source citations that any interested party can verify
• Seek out new record collections that may hold information for you
• Maintain a consistent, professional style in how you present names, dates, and places

Track Your Progress

Almost two years ago, I used Family Tree Analyzer to spot everyone in my family tree who had no source citations. About 87% of my people had no source citations. It was more than 70,000 people. Today I've got that number down to 40,220. It could take me another two years to finish this important project! And that's why I push myself so hard. My daily goal is to remove 100 people from that list. I've had days where I completed citations for more than 150 people. Those days usually end with a sore wrist from working my mouse so hard.

The point is, I always know where I stand with this goal. Seeing that huge number of unsourced people go down each day drives me to do more.

Does your family tree pass the time or fill the time? Are you lacking motivation? Would you be more productive if you had specific goals? Being productive makes me feel fulfilled. It can do the same for you.

And why was Norman Bates so devoted to his craft of taxidermy? Ask his mother's 10-year-old corpse.

This Free, Elegant GEDCOM Analyzer Is a Wonder

How does your family tree measure up? When I tried out Ancestry Pro Tools almost two years ago, I didn't care about its Tree Checker feature. I had free Family Tree Analyzer software to help me find all kinds of mistakes.

Even without subscribing to Pro Tools, my tree on Ancestry has a rating of 8.3 ("Very good"). What's keeping me from scoring a 10? A few data errors, lots of missing source citations, and what they think are 10,398 duplicate people. (They're not.)

But I found a new tool for improving your family tree rating called GEDminer that's outstanding! You've got to take a look at this thing. There's nothing to download, but you need to export your family tree's GEDCOM file first.

The instant, deep analysis of your family tree is worth a ton, but this genealogy tool is free.

GEDminer is a web-based program that's a very friendly way to see how your family tree measures up. If you're skeptical or want to see it in action first, you can view an analysis of their sample GEDCOM. Please understand your file is NOT uploaded to a server. The data processing happens in your web browser, and all the results go POOF! when you close your browser. (Your data may stay in your computer's cache memory for a while.)

Go to https://gedminer.com and drop your GEDCOM file in the box on the webpage. (The link to see sample data is beneath the box.) I dropped in my latest GEDCOM with 85,360 people. I know I'm missing tons of source citations—I'm always working on that. So where do I stand?

• My Tree Health Score is 75.33%. It says that's better than 55.56% of other users.
• I scored 74.09% in Completeness (defined as names, dates & places filled in). When I click on Completeness, it breaks this down into terrifying numbers:
  • 50,805 non-living people missing a death place
  • 47,995 non-living people missing a death date
  • 10,007 people missing a birth place. I have been putting a state or county into the birth and death place fields when I see they're empty. I have a long way to go.
• I scored 52.42% in Sourcing. This says I still have 40,616 people with no source citations. The spreadsheet I'm using for this huge task agrees!
• I scored 99.9% on Consistency (defined as free of errors & warnings). It lists 5 people with "data errors" for me to fix, but these are only a taste. They include people who were too old or young when their child was born. But the full, detailed list of data errors is in the next section.

Beneath these scores is a section called Quick Wins. This tells me my family tree has:

• 23 data errors (I worked on it and got it down to three errors, two of which are supported by the documents: an 88-year-old father and a 56-year-old mother.)
• 10,007 people without a birth place (I got it down to 9,953.)
• 40,616 unsourced people

The last two are also found above in the Tree Health Score section. But under Quick Wins, you can click these problem types and go to a new page filled with the exact details.

Click a type of error to see complete details about what you need to correct. Then export the full list as a spreadsheet and get busy.

• When you click to see your data errors in detail, the new page gives you the option of seeing:
  • All data errors
  • Date issues only
  • Age issues only
  • Relationship problems only (for me, these were all mothers who were too young)
  • Duplicate Facts only (for me, most of these are cases where I have two very different death records for people, so I recorded both)
  • Quality issues only (this would be key missing facts; I have none!)
• When you click to see your missing places or unsourced people errors in detail, the new page gives you the option of seeing:
  • All missing items
  • Line Origins only (these are the people you're stuck on—you can't ID their parents)
  • Missing Dates only
  • Missing Places only
  • Unsourced people only
  • People with no spouse (if we knew the spouse, they'd be in there, right?)
  • Missing Deaths only

Best of all, after you scroll to the bottom of a long list and click Show All, you can scroll back up and choose Export CSV. This gives you a spreadsheet to use to complete your fixes. You can tackle them one-by-one and delete them from the spreadsheet or mark them done.

I won't export my list of unsourced people since I'm already working on that. But when I'm finished with that project, I can use GEDminer again to see who slipped through the cracks.

While you're on that detail page, look close to the top of the page for four links:

• Suggestions
• Errors
• Vital Sharpener
• Tree Structure

Now:

• Click Vital Sharpener to see all the incomplete dates in your family tree. Sometimes we can't do anything about these because no records are available. But if the people are from the 1900s or later, try a new search on a site you don't use all the time.
• Now click Tree Structure right next to Vital Sharpener. These results have different categories to view:
  • Hidden Cousins tries to group together people with the same last name. That doesn't work well for my tree. Welcome to small towns in Italy.
  • Unlinked Individuals shows you the unattached people floating in your family tree. I have 184 people with zero connection to me. But they're in there on purpose. If more vital records ever become available, I may be able to connect them.
  • Duplicate Finder says I have 409 people with the same (or almost the same) name and birth year. I don't have enough information to be sure some are the same person. I'll review them and see if I can find a few that I should merge. You'll see that the list ranges in match-i-ness from 100% on down. My lowest duplicate is a 57% match, but they're worth looking into. They have the same name, same hometown, same father's name, and very close birth years.

The bonus facts this free tool displays about your family tree can be real eye-openers. And it's all interactive. Click around!

Still Not Sure? Here's the Old Way.

Before I found GEDminer, I planned to show you how you can use Family Tree Analyzer to find these errors. I'm so impressed with GEDminer, but you know I appreciate the heck out of Family Tree Analyzer. So here's what to click. You won't get your score, but you will get lists of what needs your attention. Get your GEDCOM file and open it in Family Tree Analyzer.

To find data errors, click the Errors/Fixes tab and under Data Errors select:

• Birth before father aged 13 and mother aged 13
• Birth after father aged 90+ and mother aged 60+
• Birth after mother's death and more than 9m after father's death
• Marriage before aged 13 and spouse aged 13
• Marriage after death and after spouse's death
• Facts dated before birth
• Birth after death/burial
• Birth after baptism/christening
• Facts dated after death
• Burial/cremation before death
• Child born too soon after sibling
• Child likely born too soon after sibling
• Male Wifes and Female Husbands
• Duplicate Fact
• Possible Duplicate Fact

One way to find duplicate people in your family tree is to go to the Errors/Fixes tab, choose Duplicates? then sort by Birth Date.

To find unlinked individuals, click the Main Lists tab. In the Relation column of the Individuals table, filter to select "Unknown".

Here's the report I used to make a spreadsheet of all my people who had zero source citations. Go to the Main Lists tab and find the Num Sources column in the Individuals table. Click the down arrow for that column and Sort A to Z. Filtering doesn't work, although it should. I exported the full list, then deleted everyone who didn't have zero source citations.

I hope you find this breakdown of problems inspiring and not discouraging. After you've made a good amount of corrections, go back and see the improvement in your family tree.

Taking the Next Step in Family Tree Analysis

Last week I showed you how to use a spreadsheet to gain insight into your family tree. If you're a Mac user, be sure to see the useful comments beneath that article from Mac user Mick.

In the article I challenged myself to tackle a bigger project. I wanted to use Microsoft Power BI Desktop software to further dissect the data and look for trends. I've always been a frustrated programmer, meaning I want to be good at it, but I get so frustrated! This time I got clear step-by-step Power BI instructions from Microsoft Copilot—what a lifesaver.

Working with the Data from Your Family Tree

The first step was to import my spreadsheet of everyone in my family tree into the program. The spreadsheet I exported from MyHeritage Family Tree Builder last week had problems. It wasn't possible to use that file because several rows didn't follow the format. So I exported my people from Family Tree Analyzer (old reliable). Once I imported the spreadsheet, I could see all the category names in Power BI Desktop. These include ID, LastName, FirstName, BirthDate, BirthLocation, etc.

How many ways can you think of to analyze your family tree?

Next, in Power BI Desktop's Report view, I created a table to hold all the data. I gave it some visual formatting to make it easier for me to understand:

• Bold column headers with a color background.
• Alternating white and light green rows like some ancient, pleated computer printout paper.

Note: I'm using the town of Colle Sannita in these examples because it's so complete in my family tree. About 95% of the available vital records are in my tree. The other 5% are records of people from out of town or who I can't identify.

Then I used the Filters column to the right of my table and added one data field: BirthLocation. I chose Advanced filtering, not Basic filtering. This let me filter down to any birth location that contains a certain town name, like Colle Sannita. When I click Apply filter, I can see that it's working. Hurray!

But I want to see how many people that filter includes. How many people in my family tree have I documented as being born in Colle Sannita?

I consulted Copilot to find out how I can do this. First I had to add a new function to my data fields to count the rows. The Copilot guidance used the generic title of RowCount for this. Next, to show the row count, I had to add a "card" to display it on. I did that and formatted it until I got what I wanted: a whole number with a comma to show thousands. My total count before applying a filter is 85,362 (bigger than it was last week). To make it more straightforward, I changed the function's name from RowCount to People. Now my card says 85,362 People.

Let's put it to use!

• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Colle Sannita, I have 25,120 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Baselice, I have 17,335 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain New York, I have 902 People.
• When I filter BirthLocation to contain Bronx, I have 293 People.

I can do this with MarriageLocation and DeathLocation. I can do it for last names. I'll clear out my filter and drag LastName into the Filter section. I'll type my name, Iamarino, in the search box, and I see right there that I have 815 people with that last name. When I click Apply filter, the main screen shows the filtered list of people and the card says 815 People.

Getting More Specific

Now let's try two filters at once. I know there was an earthquake in Colle Sannita in 1805 that killed many people. I'm going to drag both DeathLocation and DeathDate into the Filters area. Using Advanced filtering, I'll choose:

• DeathLocations that contain Colle Sannita, and
• DeathDates that contain 1805.

Combining these filters leaves me with 54 people. I know the earthquake happened on 26 Jul 1805, thanks to Colle Sannita expert, Dr. Fabio Paolucci. I see people in this list who died well before the earthquake. I'm going to change my DeathDate filter to "contains 26 Jul 1805" or "contains 27 Jul 1805". This brings the list down to 28 people. (I can't add more than two dates, but a visual scan of the dates showed that all the victims seemed to die on these two dates.)

I created another filter to find years with very high or low death counts. I added a filter for DeathLocation that contains Colle Sannita, and one for DeathDate. I can keep changing the year and clicking Apply filter to see how many deaths there were. Here are a few results:

• 1810 had 113 deaths
• 1811 had 165 deaths
• 1812 had 145 deaths
• 1813 had 88 deaths
• 1860 had 126 deaths

I wanted to find a way to export or graph these numbers, but FRUSTRATION! My only choice would be to keep changing the filter and jot down the results in another spreadsheet. (Any programmers reading this are laughing their heads off.) I tried creating a dashboard that could show the results of various filters, but it didn't work. If I do make a separate spreadsheet, I can use Excel to turn the data into line graphs and bar charts. I have started doing this. See the image below.

It didn't take long to enter facts into a new spreadsheet to make these line graphs.

Going Deeper

Next let's try a 3-part filter. I'm wondering if the girl babies outnumbered the boy babies in my ancestral hometowns. I'll create a filter that contains a BirthLocation of Colle Sannita and a BirthDate of 1810. I'll include Gender, which shows me the Female/Male split without my having to touch it. Then I'll keep changing the year.

• In 1810 there were 199 births: 103 female and 96 male. Girls win.
• In 1820 there were 170 births: 79 female, 91 male. Boys win.
• In 1830 there were 177 births: 93 female, 84 male. Girls win.
• In 1840 there were 139 births: 71 female, 68 male. Girls win, but it's a close one.
• In 1850 there were 210 births: 114 female, 96 male. Girls win.
• In 1860 there were 206 births: 113 female, 93 male. Girls win.
• In 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910 the boys win. Change in the water?

Now let's take a quick look at the marriages I've documented in Colle Sannita. There are two main churches, but the one in the heart of town is much older. I'll filter the MarriageLocation to those containing the older church: San Giorgio Martire. Wow! I've got 4,119 people who I know married there. I'll change the filter to show the location of the newer church in the area called Decorata. I've got 245 people who married there.

How are these both odd numbers? My guess is because of people who had more than one marriage. Only the preferred marriage appears in this database.

One more filter for the road. Italians have a tremendous reverence for the Virgin Mary, so they use the name Maria a LOT. Even the boys got Maria for a middle name. So, how many people in my family tree from Colle Sannita have a first name that contains Maria? 21,491 people!

I'd love to hear your suggestions for other ways to dissect the facts in my family tree.