Taking the Time to Take Care of Our Own

With so many family tree projects to tackle, a combo plan may work best.

While I'm in isolation, I'm turning my attention to my closer relatives. Sure, they lived in Italy in the 1800s. But those are the souls I live with day in and day out.

In past articles I've written about dozens of projects to clean up, beef up, and improve your family tree. Some of my favorite ongoing projects are:

• improving my source citations
• documenting entire Italian towns in a spreadsheet
• renaming image files to create a searchable database
• finding missing documents to "close out" individual families
• scanning, enhancing, cataloguing, and properly storing my family photos

There can never be enough hours in the day for me to complete these tasks. At least, not until I give up my corporate job.

But this past weekend I had a revelation. I was going line-by-line through my spreadsheet of vital records from my ancestral town of Colle Sannita. I was up to 1812 birth records. For each new baby, I check my family tree to see if I have the parents already. If I do, I add the baby, its facts, and the birth record. Of course I give it a source citation in my newly adopted style. I also add the baby to my document tracker. And I make the whole line green in the vital records spreadsheet. Green tells me this document is in my tree.

I can juggle all my family tree projects while working only on close relatives.

I was adding lots of babies. In some cases, I already had the baby, but not the birth record. And in some of those cases, I knew who they married and when. But I hadn't added the document to my tree yet.

When I found people missing documents, I finished them off. This took quite a bit longer, but it was worth the time to do it right.

And that's when I had my revelation. With limited time, wouldn't it be better to focus on my closer relatives and take a holistic approach? I can combine many of my different projects in one, starting with my great aunts and uncles.

You see, when my source citations broke, I developed a better way of handling them. Then I decided to fix the citations for my direct ancestors first. I have about 290 (n) great grandparents (n=1st through 9th). So I did that. I enhanced the source citations for my direct ancestors.

Now I want to move on from there. I knew exactly where I wanted to focus first: my Grandpa Leone's relatives. Why him? Because his relatives come from the town of Baselice. I documented that entire town by viewing vital records on microfilm. For 5 years I visited a Family History Center. I looked at each record, typing my own shorthand into a text file on my laptop.

Since the source of all those facts was one of several rolls of microfilm, I have tons of citations that are useless now. You can't get the microfilm anymore. But all those documents and more are accessible on the Italian Antenati website.

So my holistic approach goes like this.

I began with my grandfather's 4 siblings. For each one I:

• Fixed their source citations. I deleted the old microfilm sources and created new ones based on the Antenati URL of their vital record.
• Added missing documents. If I knew when and whom they married, but I hadn't added the documents, I added the documents.
• Renamed each document image I looked at until I found the one I needed. When I rename the file, I keep its identification number and add the name of the person in the document.
• Fixed the citations of their spouses and children. I have cases where a man's occupation fact comes from the birth record of his child. So, to cite my source for his job, I had to go to the child and cite my source for their birth. Then I copied that citation and pasted it to the dad's occupation.
• Made the spreadsheet line green if I added a birth record that was in my town spreadsheet.
• For any new documents, I added a notation in my document tracker spreadsheet. For many of the people I work on this way, I get to put an n/a in the "Need to find" column. That feels great.

Soon I began climbing the Leone family tree. I had done my great grandfather's wife and children and then his siblings. Then it was time to move on to his father. My 2nd great grandfather had lots of siblings and half-siblings. I was creating a source citation for the birth of his half brother Giovanni Leone. I noticed that I had him marked as having died in another town in 1864. I'm not sure where that fact came from, but I didn't have his death record.

I checked the Antenati website for 1864 death records for the town of Aversa. That's more than a 2-hour car ride from Giovanni's hometown of Baselice. Imagine how long a trip it was before cars and highways. Why was he there? I knew the date of his death, so it was easy to find the actual death record. I saw the word celibe after his name, so I knew my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone had never married. He was 51 years old with no occupation. Most of the Italian death records I've seen say the person died in his own house, or in his father's house. This one says he died in the Reale Stabilimento dei Matti. I needed my Italian friend to confirm what I thought. And it does mean what I'd feared. Giovanni died in the insane asylum in the city of Aversa.

The fate of my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone was a shocker.

With a bit of research I learned this establishment used caring, humane methods. There was no harsh treatment of the inmates. Maybe Giovanni's family sent him that far away because it was the kindest thing they could do for him.

Poor Giovanni's fate is a silver lining to this holistic approach. By sticking to closer relatives and tying up loose ends, I made this sad discovery. Instead of wondering why Giovanni left town and never married, I now know exactly why.

In the end, this approach means I'll make slower progress on my individual projects. But I'll make deeper, more complete, and more meaningful progress on my blood relatives.

How can you combine your family tree projects into more fulfilling genealogy research sessions?

My Aunt's Photos Tell the Other Side of the Story

Your photos are only part of the story. Imagine seeing the rest of it!

I received an amazing gift this week. My 1st cousin on my dad's side of the family sent me a carton filled with her late mother's old photos. I never saw this collection before. But I'm familiar with many of the photos because I've seen other photos taken at the same time.

It's the gift every genealogy fan dreams of getting.

Location Shots

My aunt's photographs are the companions to individual photos I got from my mom, my dad, and my grandfather. For example, I have one photo of my grandfather and his 1st cousin. They were both named Pietro Iamarino. Written at the top are the words "Lonesome Pals."

Imagine my amazement when I found in this collection several photos taken in the exact same spot! They appear to be standing on a sidewalk, but in the background there's nothing but bare trees. I imagine my grandmother pasted them into this photo album with others taken in Ohio in about 1930.

Grandpa's photo had no backstory. Suddenly I discover it was only one photo in a series.

Familiar Buildings

I have a photo of my dad and my aunt from the early 1950s. My dad said it was taken in Cleveland when the family moved back to Ohio. Now, in my aunt's collection, I've got an entire series of photos taken in the exact same spot. In the background of all the photos is the brick house where they lived. Several photos show my grandmother and the family car. I was always lacking photos of my grandma Lucy. Now I have so many!

There are lots of photos I recognize as being taken on the roof of my dad's apartment building in the Bronx in the 1940s. Dad's building is still standing, and you can see it on Google Street View. I recently asked him which door he used to enter. He said it's the one to the right of today's 99-cent store. But at the time, that storefront was my uncle's family's bar.

My uncle's bar is to the left as my grandparents stand outside their front door.

I now have several photos taken in that doorway. And I can see the awning of my uncle's bar at the edge of the photos. From these photos I learned that my Ohio great grandmother came to visit my dad's family in the Bronx. I never knew that before.

Then there's a photo of my great grandfather swimming. On the back of the photo it says, "This is on Lake Erie. We had Pa out while Ma was in NY." Was this what great grandpa was doing while great grandma was visiting my dad?

Family Legends

The first photos I took out of the box happened to include my mom and her sister. My parents came from a tight-knit neighborhood where everyone knew each other. So, as it happens, my mom's sister went to her prom with my dad's sister's future husband (my future uncle)! And my aunt and another young man once went on a double date with my mom and that same future uncle. I've heard the story of that night a million times. Now I have a beautiful souvenir photo in a cover that's signed by my mom and her sister.

In a small album filled with Bronx photos I found 2 pictures of what looks like Frank Sinatra. I texted my mom, is it him? She texted me, "OMG Yes! This must be from the day your uncle and I played hookey." That's another family story, brought to life in these 2 little photos of Old Blue Eyes.

The House I Can't Remember

Another series of photos finally shows me my great grandparents' house in Girard, Ohio. I'd only been there as a little girl, and I don't remember anything about it. I have Ohio photos from before I was born, but they don't show the house. Now I know how lovely it was. I texted a couple of the pictures to my dad and asked, "Is this the house on Dearborn Street?" Yes, it is!

The Old Neighborhood

One more. I found a little photo that shows my aunt and her future husband together as school kids. I like how my aunt has her hand on my uncle's shoulder. They're in a group of kids wearing hats and the letters OLP on their sweaters. Behind them is one football player and another young man in plain clothes. I knew OLP stood for Our Lady of Pity, the name of their church and grade school in the Bronx. I noticed they were in front of an undertaker's building with the number 273. The church address was 274. So I was guessing this funeral parlor was across from the church. I sent my dad the photo. He said they were the cheerleading squad for the football team my other uncle (the one with the bar) played on. And yes, this undertaker was directly across the street from the church.

Next Steps

I've divided the photos into groups on my kitchen table: Bronx, Ohio, photos from Italy, cousins, portraits. Many are permanently glued into paper albums. Now begins the work of scanning and enhancing them. Then I'll reach out again to my parents and others, hoping to identify more people.

Finally, it's time to invest in some safe containers to store all my old family photos. I have a metal file cabinet/safe combo in the garage. That may be the best place for me to protect these treasures from fire. That sounds like a future blog topic, doesn't it?

It pays to tell all your relatives about your genealogy hobby. My cousin knew I would appreciate these photos more than anyone else. And she says she has more to send!

Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener

Want to appreciate your family tree software? Check out the competition.

Have you ever considered changing your family tree software program? I've used Family Tree Maker since 2002 when I began this obsessive hobby. Industry-leading software tends to have the best programmers and the biggest budget. I have no problem paying for an update every few years. Even if I were on a tight budget, I'm sure I could cut back on something else to scrounge up $50 or $80.

Blog reader Nancy C. sent me her list comparing the features of several family tree programs. I'll admit I've thought about having a look at other programs. And now I want to see why she loves the Family Group Sheet feature in Legacy 9.0. You can download the free standard edition of Legacy 8. I don't know how different Legacy 9 may be.

I installed the program and fed it a brand new GEDCOM file with 23,305 individuals. It is taking forever to load.

My first impression is that Legacy has a 1980s low-budget look and feel. I'm hating every second of this experience. Isn't is funny how we get so used to our preferred software that everything else is impossible to figure out?

As a computer pro, I know a bad software interface when I see it.

I'm finding that most features are not available in the free version of Legacy. When I'm viewing one family, it lists the children in no apparent order. I found a File Maintenance option called Set File Sorting Order. Maybe that will put the children in age order. Nope. I don't know what that did, but it didn't fix the completely random order of the children.

I did find one report I like that I've never seen in Family Tree Maker. It's a timeline of the ancestors of whichever individual you choose. The chart is a grid showing the lifespan of each of the person's ancestors. You can see how their lives overlap. If you don't know when a person died, you have the option of keeping or changing the default 70-year lifespan. People with an estimated birth or death date have a dotted line.

One feature I liked in Legacy 8 is this timeline chart.

It's interesting to see which of my ancestors had very short lives. I'm also seeing a lot of dates that don't make sense. Like parents who weren't old enough when their child was born. I'll have to check these people in my tree and see what the problem is. Did I make a mistake, or is this chart using an estimated date that doesn't make sense?

You don't know how good or bad your software is until you look at another program.

Since I truly despise what I have seen of this software, let me tell you about some of the Family Tree Maker features I love.

• The index with a search box at the top, various sort options, and custom filters, lets me find anyone in a heartbeat.
• The tree view lets me see a few generations at once.
• Color-coding makes my direct ancestors (and which line they belong to) immediately visible.
• The side panel for any given person holds a lot of information and is customizable.
• A new feature of the Notes, Media, and Sources tabs lets me know how many items are there before I click to see what they are.

I'd love to be a great programmer and create the ultimate family tree software. But I can't think of anything better or more useful than Family Tree Maker and the tree view on Ancestry.com. Please share in the comments section below why you love your family tree software. See if you can persuade me.