Your All-in-One Family Tree Clean-up List

Use this checklist of 7 tasks to scrub your family tree clean.

I want to help you make your family tree better and more professional. That's why I've been writing these genealogy articles twice a week for more than two years.

Today we'll look at 7 types of family tree clean-up tasks. Together they can improve your tree in so many ways.

1. Names

Does every name in your family tree meet your standards?

• Maiden names. It's a genealogy best-practice to record women using their maiden name. Let them have their own identity.
• Unknown names. When you haven't discovered someone's first or last name, consider recording it as _____. This makes it clear you haven't yet filled in that blank. Credit for this goes to Ancestry.com expert Crista Cowan. I used to use the word "Unknown", but a relative of mine misunderstood that. She said, "Oh, I'm sure she knew her name." I was stunned.
• Names only. Some people will record a person's name as Grandma Johnson, or Jane Dad's great aunt. If you put notes on people's names, you're not helping relatives and DNA matches to find you.
• More than one name. I insist on recording everyone's birth name. I'll add other names (nicknames, Anglicized names, and legal name changes) in the description field of a person's birth fact because it's a highly visible spot.

For more on this topic see This Genealogy Policy Takes the Guesswork Out of Names.

2. Places

Make sure the place names in your tree follow a consistent style. Family Tree Maker organizes your place names when they're written the right way. It's easy to click a country, then a state or province, then a town, and find a place. And with a click you'll see every name associated with a place.

For more on this topic see 3 Housekeeping Tasks for a Professional-Quality Family Tree and 4 Types of Family Tree Errors Only You Can Find.

Once I saw how nicely Family Tree Maker organizes place names, I cleaned them all up.

3. Media Files

Remember when you first got started in genealogy? I know I was downloading census sheets and ship manifests as fast as I could find them.

All those media files need a facelift. And it will make them believable and valuable as evidence of your ancestor. Here's how I mark up each document image in my family tree:

• Write a caption. Start with a year to force media items to display in date order. Make it clear what each document is.
• Add the date. Documents will almost always have an exact date on them. Add this to the date field.
• Choose a category. Family Tree Maker lets me pick a category from their list, or add custom categories. Now I can sort my thousands of media files by type.
• Describe everything about the document image. I add enough information to allow myself or anyone else to find the original image again. That includes line numbers on the page, a description of the document collection, and a URL.
• Add a note. There is a notes tab for each media item in Family Tree Maker. You can type any information in there. Maybe you need to record who you wrote to to get this image.

For more on this topic see Add Proof and a Breadcrumb to Family Tree Documents, and How to Increase the Value of Your Family Tree Images.

4. Sources

I like to keep my sources simple. But I've been adding more and more detail to them.

I use a simple title, like "1900 U.S. Federal Census". A short title doesn't clutter up the person view in Family Tree Maker.

I copy the citation details and citation text from the collection. For example, for the 1900 U.S. Federal Census:

• The citation detail is:
  
  Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
• The citation text is:
  
  United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.
• The web address where you find those details and can search this collection is:
  
  https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7602

Having a neat, tight list of sources makes them easy to maintain and make better.

I like that I can click any source in my tree and see every person and fact that's associated with it. I have a goal to get rid of secondary sources—like other people's trees. I need to replace them with primary sources. My source list makes it easy to find the facts I need to work on.

For more on this topic see 6 Easy Steps to Valuable Source Citations.

5. Filing

People seem to worry a lot about their document filing systems. Don't overthink it. Keep it simple and logical. Remember that you may pass your work on to a loved one some day.

What's logical to me is a folder for each main type of document:

• census
• draft cards
• ship manifests
• birth, marriage, and death certificates, etc.

I name my files, in general, LastnameFirstnameYear. Here are some of my file names:

• RignaneseMatteoNaturalization1944-p1.jpg
• CiottiMariaTeresaConcettaBirth1848.jpg
• CoccaAngeloAntonioMontaganoMariaBenedettaGenerosa1stMarriageBanns1833.jpg
• LucarelliGirolamoWW1.jpg

Because I follow a pattern, it's easy to see what a document is.

For more on this topic see 3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents.

6. Backups

How fatal of a heart attack would you have if all your genealogy research disappeared?

Spread things out, but keep them at hand. Use your computer drive, external drives and cloud storage.

Make a backup plan for your genealogy files and stick to it. Remember that two backups are better than one. Many of my files synchronize to my cloud storage the moment they change. For everything else, I make a backup every Sunday morning. Without fail.

For more on this topic see 4 Ways to Protect Your Genealogy Research from Disaster.

7. To-Do Lists

It seems like everyone has their favorite way of keeping to-do lists. Post-It Notes, a special notebook, EverNote. I'm fond of keeping a single text file open on my computer all the time. It's called Notebook.txt. That's where I have my:

• Genealogy To-Do List
• 2019 Genealogy Goals List
• List of important families to work on
• List of files and folders to back up each Sunday
• and more

I don't care how you do it, but find a way to keep track of :

• what you want to do next
• what you were doing when you stopped for the day
• what you'd like to do when you have the chance.

For more on this topic see Start Your Rainy-Day Genealogy List.

That was a lot. And it's a lot of work. But chip away at these ideas and your family tree will grow stronger from your effort.

Make these tasks into a to-do list and tackle it one bite at a time. It's worth it.

How to Become a Genealogy Document Expert

It's the same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.

Guess what happened after I spent hours and hours reading vital records from the 1800s. I became something of an expert on the subject.

A foreign language, squiggly handwriting, and countless abbreviations don't slow me down a bit. I'm used to it. And that made me practically a pro.

Sue me. It was the '80s.

How to Make Yourself a Pro

Do you fall into one of these 3 camps?

1. You climb one branch of your tree, adding people and facts from whichever document you just found.
2. You don't move on until you've searched for every document for a particular family.
3. You enjoy going off on tangents and plan to return later for the documents.

All those methods are fun. But you can become an expert on any one type of genealogy document if you make this one change.

Choose a single document type. It could be any one of these:

• census sheet
• ship manifest
• draft registration card
• birth record
• death record
• marriage record
• or some other type of document.

Commit a good chunk of time to searching for only this type of document. I'm in the midst of searching for every census sheet I don't yet have.

You'll need some way of seeing who in your family tree is missing their census sheet and for which year. I've got my Document Tracker and its "Need to find" column. I can go down the alphabetical list of names and search for every missing census. I'm up to last names beginning with L, and I'd like to knock off another letter or two this weekend.

You may not have a separate tracking sheet. But maybe your document image filing system can help you figure out what you have and what you're missing. The free program Family Tree Analyzer can help you keep tabs on your census sheet finds.

If all else fails, start with your parents and fan out. Go generation by generation, looking for missing censuses.

What to Learn

As you repeat your searches for this one type of document over and over, you will be learning. Here's the type of thing to keep in mind:

• Which search tricks are giving you a lot of success?
• Searching for a group of first names but no last name?
• Using Stephen Morse's tools to find the right set of census pages and going through them one at a time?
• Narrowing your search to a county rather than a town?

As you try out different ways of searching, they'll become second nature. You'll waste less time.

• What facts are you seeing on the documents that you've overlooked before?
• The native language on the 1920 census?
• The place of residence in 1935 on the 1940 census?

Here's a cheat sheet to show you what new questions the government asked in each U.S. Federal census.

• What conclusions can you draw by comparing documents?
• Can you tell that a certain relative died between the date of this census and the date of that census?
• Did the family move right before one of the children was born?
• Was one of the censuses wrong about the year of immigration or naturalization? Which one?

Follow your ancestors through each census to track family changes.

After you spend enough time with one type of document, you will be an expert on that type of document.

Where do you want to start? The moment you begin downloading those new files, take a moment to add valuable facts to the image file. In whatever way makes you comfortable, keep track of what you've found and what you need.

Go on now, expert.

Use Cousin Baiting to Expand Your Family Tree

A new cousin took the bait and contacted me with details about his branch.

Filling out the branches of your family tree
will help attract more cousins.

You know those long ancestral scrolls you see on the ancestry TV shows we all love? The straight-up family trees that always end with the king of England? That may look great on a wall. But you'll never connect to your DNA matches if you don't look beyond your direct-line ancestors.

What can you do to help unknown cousins find you?

Add Their Branches

"Cousin baiting" is a term used by genealogy bloggers. It's a way to attract distant relatives to yourself. When bloggers write about their ancestors, they drop plenty of names, dates, and places. They're putting out bait to attract new cousins. New cousins may have old photos, a family bible, or papers a genealogy fan would treasure.

But cousin baiting isn't only for bloggers. You can attract DNA matches and other cousins by filling your family tree with bait. Go way out onto the branches of your tree. Add as many facts as you can find. Your 3rd great grandparents' 4th child may be exactly the right person to attract an important cousin to you.

Recently I chose 3 of my DNA matches to work on. I used a bit of the information from their family trees, but not much. They each had very few facts to offer.

With your own research library, you can choose almost anyone and fit them into your tree.

I, on the other hand, have an insane amount of data to work with. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I've put together an enormous genealogy research library on my computer.

I know which Italian towns my ancestors lived in as far back as the late 1600s. (Knowing the exact town is critical!) I've downloaded and organized all the vital records currently available from those towns.

With my collection of documents, and my knowledge of the last names found in each of my towns, I can quickly find the facts my DNA match doesn't know.

Make the Connection Clear

I'm baiting my DNA matches by offering them:

• exact birth, marriage and death dates for their ancestors
• images of their ancestors' documents with a link to the original file online
• details of their ancestors' siblings, other marriages, and other children.

I'm building out my tree one DNA match at a time. And while I'm doing that, I'm no doubt adding bait for my other DNA matches to find.

How are you handling your DNA matches?

• Are you waiting for them to contact you?
• Are you looking only at the closest relatives?
• Are you giving up on a match with a small family tree?

Make your family tree thicker and richer by adding more and more relatives. While you're working on one DNA match, several others may see the connection and contact you.

I photographed this man's grave many years ago, not yet knowing who he was.

Reap the Benefits

Each new cousin I figure out adds a couple of dozen people to my tree. Each time I do this, I make more connections. For instance, the Teresa Ciotti belonging to one DNA match turned out to be the Maria Teresa Concetta Ciotti already in my tree. I added 4 more generations to that DNA match instantly.

Because of my very bushy family tree, I heard from the great great great grandson of my great great grandfather in Italy. He gave me lots of details about his branch of the family. I never knew they had lived in America.

I hope this inspires you to creep further out onto the limbs of your family tree. The answers you need may be in the hands of a cousin you've never met. Lay the bait and help them find you.