Add Value to Your Family Tree Documents

Prove to everyone that you've done your genealogy homework.

My husband gave me Family Tree Maker software and an Ancestry subscription as a birthday gift in 2002. It was a big step forward from scribbling my family history in notebooks.

Years later Ancestry.com introduced tree synchronization. It was great for people like me who worked on their desktop and wanted their online tree to show their progress.

Because I work in the desktop software, I never used my online family tree the way so many people do. I never accept hints, and I never add online documents to my online tree. That means you can't click a document in my online tree and go see the original for yourself.

I don't want my family tree to give the impression that I'm not doing quality genealogy research. So, when you visit my family tree on Ancestry.com, you'll see my document images offer a ton of information. I give each image (vital record, census sheet, ship manifest, etc.) detailed facts.

The images themselves offer everything you need to view the original and cite the source. If you've ever taken a close look at a potential cousin's tree, I'll bet you wished they gave you more proof.

Let's say you're looking on any genealogy website at someone's family tree. The tree includes a possible member of your family in the 1930 U.S. census, but you need proof. Is it your relative? You'd know for sure if he's your relative if you could read the street address. But it isn't on the page. Maybe it's on the next page.

That's why adding value to your documents is so important. I like to make sure anyone finding one of my documents can see:

• what the document is
• who the document shows
• when the event happened
• where the document came from
• how to cite the document
• how to view the original document

Vital Record Example

Carefully planned document annotations make your online tree highly valuable.

Most of the people in my family tree lived in Italy between the late 1600s and the early 1900s. I find their documents in an online collection of Italian vital records. My Italian vital records use a simple fact format. For example:

• Caption: 1876 birth record for Giovanni Sarracino, recorded in 1898—that tells you what the document is (an 1876 birth record) and who the document shows (Giovanni Sarracino)
• Date: 22 Oct 1876—that tells you when the event (the birth) happened
• Description: From the Benevento State Archives: http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+italiano/SantAngelo+a+Cupolo/Nati/1898/8287/101687791_00079.jpg.html—that tells you where the document came from (the Benevento State Archives, also known as the Archivio di Stato di Benevento), how to cite the document, and how to view the original document (follow the link)

My more recent relatives have the typical U.S. documents:

• census records
• draft registration cards
• ship manifests, etc.

Each type of document has basic facts I add to the image.

Census Record Example

The image file's data carries over to Family Tree Maker. Additional facts carry over to Ancestry.com.

Here is the 1910 census for my great grandfather.

• Caption: 1910 census for Giovanni Sarracino and family, p1 (the family is spread across 2 pages)
• Date: 26 Apr 1910
• Categories: Census
• Description: This is where you'll find a lot of information. I try to follow a format:
  
  • lines 96-100 (where to look on the page for this family)
  • 1910 United States Federal Census (the title of the document collection)
  • New York / New York / Bronx Assembly District 33 / District 1514 (where to find this page in the larger collection)
  • supervisor's district 1, enumeration district 1514, sheet 26B (specific, identifying facts located on the page)
  • image 52 of 74 (the exact location of this page in the collection online)
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/4449901_00057?pid=18419163 (the URL of the image)
  • Source Citation: Year: 1910; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 33, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1000; Page: 26B; Enumeration District: 1514; FHL microfilm: 1375013 (the source citation provided by the website where I found this document)
  • Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006 (more information provided by the website where I found this document)

Ship Manifest Example

Filling in all the details means someone finding your saved genealogy documents has hit paydirt.

Here's the 1898 ship manifest showing my great grandparents' arrival in America:

• Caption: 1899 immigration record for Giovanni Sarracino and Maria Rosa Saviano
• Date: 24 Jul 1899
• Categories: Immigration/Travel
• Description:
  
  • lines 6 and 7 (Maria Rosa was pregnant with Maria Carmina)
  • New York, Passenger Lists, Roll / T715, 1897-1957 / 0001-1000 / Roll 0075
  • image 719 of 1062
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7488/NYT715_75-0719
  • Source citation: Year: 1899; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0075; Lines: 6-7; Page Number: 222

If you find one of my genealogy documents in an online search, I want you to have every last bit of information you need. You can take it as is, or go to the original location, and cite that source.

Yes, it's a lot of work. I have 6,647 media items in my family tree, and it grows nearly every day. But you've got to keep the long-game in mind. Your family tree is your legacy. You don't want your legacy to be half-baked, incomplete, or unsubstantiated.

My suggestion is to develop your format and stick to it going forward. Then, when you add a new document to someone in your family tree, revisit their previous documents. Give them a facelift while you're there. You'll be constantly polishing your genealogy work, making it better and better. Now that's a legacy.

And speaking of document images:

• 7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement
• 10-Minute Genealogy Tasks You Can Do
• 3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree

My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives

Attention dead ends in my family tree: I'm coming after you with my new secret weapon. You cannot hide.

A few days ago I felt disappointed with my system for finding vital records. I've got Grandpa's hometown's vital records on my computer, downloaded from the Italian Antenati website. I spent a lot of time renaming each file to include the name of the person who was born, died, or got married on that date. That makes the files searchable with Window File Explorer.

I felt disappointed for a few reasons:

• Windows File Explorer can't do a restricted search. If I search for Pietro Iamarino (Grandpa), the results include files with both Pietro and Iamarino. They're not necessarily together. I can get too many useless results. Adding quotes, "Pietro Iamarino", doesn't help.
• When there are a lot of results, I can't tell them apart. I may be looking for a death record from the 1840s, but many of the results are birth and marriage records. I wish I could tell which is which without opening them all.
• The search term ("Pietro Iamarino") isn't highlighted in the results when I view them as a list.

I needed a better way to search my document collection.

Then I remembered a program called Everything. A couple of years ago, I wanted to search my computer for files to add to my weekly computer backup. I needed to know which files were new or updated since my last backup. Computer professionals recommended a program called Everything. In the end, I developed another system for my backups instead of using Everything. (NOTE: This is a PC-only program, as so many are. Maybe Finder already does what you need.)

Because I knew how I would have names these images, my secret weapon found the photos instantly.

Could I use Everything to search for names in my document collection? I went to the CNET website to download Everything again. My first test worked like a charm. My cousin has been texting me old family photos, and a couple of them looked familiar. I wondered, did she give me these already? There was a photo of my Uncle Al leaning on a car, and a pigeon coop on the rooftop of my mom's old building. I searched Everything for "SarracinoAlfredo" (that's how I would have named it). I found SarracinoAlfredoLeaningOnCar.jpg. That was it! I searched for "pigeon" and found "PigeonCoop260E151stStreetBronxNY." That was it, too!

Then came my Aha moment. Could Everything give me the search features that were missing from File Explorer? Yes, it could!

If I put an exact name in quotes, Everything gives me only that exact name, highlighted in bold. Better yet, I can see the full file path of each document. I can click the Path column to sort by the file location. Then I can pick out, say, the death records between 1815 and 1830. What a time saver!

This PC program solves the problem, giving me precise search results.

I'm still working hard on the family tree of my latest DNA match. I found that both her parents are my 6th cousins on my dad's side, and she is a DNA match to both my parents. I desperately want to find one of her ancestors with some connection to my mom's family.

Now I can focus on each dead-end branch in her tree. I can use Everything, my secret weapon, to find every document for a particular person. I've been looking at one family name, hoping it may lead to my mom. It's an uncommon name in the town. I can quickly generate a list of every document with that name and track them down.

I can search across all my genealogy documents and find exactly who I need.

There's no need to use quotation marks when searching for a single name. And sometimes I'm not sure the name on a death record will match the name on a birth record. If she's Maria Iamarino on her death record, she may be Maria Teresa Iamarino on her birth record. A search for "Maria Iamarino" (with quotes) won't show Maria Teresa Iamarino, but a search for Maria Iamarino (without quotes) will.

In a couple of days I used Everything to find tons of documents that were missing from my family tree. I'm breaking down brick walls left and right. I'm inspired to keep renaming the files from my other towns, not just Grandpa Iamarino's town.

I know you don't all have Italian ancestors. And you may not have huge collections of vital records available to you. But I'll bet you have photos and genealogy records scattered across your computer. Every time my mom asks me for a specific family photo, I struggle to find it. Now it's so much easier.

I've just scratched the surface with Everything. I'm sure there's much more it can do for me and you. Meanwhile, I've got so many loose ends I can tie up!

Focus on Goals for a Better Family Tree

Your reasons for dabbling in genealogy can change over time.

My family tree has almost 24,000 people. You may think I'm swallowing up other people's family trees. Nope. Never ever would I do that.

Two years ago I wrote about how and when to cut a branch off your family tree. I cut my sister-in-law's entire family out of my tree because:

• I didn't intend to work on them anymore.
• People kept asking me about them—and they're not mine.
• I had a new focus for my family tree.

Trimming that big branch off my family tree let me sharpen my genealogy focus.

Having a clear reason for doing genealogy makes it more rewarding.

You see, all my ancestors came from a 10-mile radius in Italy. They came from small towns with windy roads leading in and out. I soon found that the families intermarried. Almost everyone in these little towns had a connection to me.

I discovered this by reading the vital records from my grandfather's hometown. (They ranged from 1809 to 1860). When I began my research, I knew almost nothing about his family. His parents were Giovanni Leone and Mariangela Iammucci, and he had a brother Noah and a sister Eve. (That's pretty funny since his name was Adam.)

The only way to tell which Leone and Iammucci families were mine was to document everyone. In the end, I identified some of my grandfather's 4th great grandparents. And I had added 10,000 people to my family tree.

I spent 5 years researching the town (2007–2012). The whole time, I was thinking, "I can't wait to do my other grandfather's town!"

Fast-forward to 2017. The vital records I documented by viewing terrible-quality microfilm were online. Their quality was fantastic. And the documents went way beyond the 1860 limit of the microfilm I saw. My other ancestral towns were available, too. It's all free and downloadable. (See "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives.")

The availability of these records sharpened my focus. My mission is to document all the connections among the people in my ancestral hometowns. My paternal grandparents were 3rd cousins. Now I have the vital records to back up that fact. My parents share DNA. Right now I'm exploring every branch of a DNA match's family tree because she matches both my parents. Each of her parents is my 6th cousin. Most of them come from my Iamarino hometown—my dad's side. Can I find a marriage in her family tree that draws in someone from my mom's ancestral hometowns? That's the goal.

Much like the little tree my husband pruned 2 years ago, my family tree is thriving. Cutting out the excess and putting energy into my priorities is key.

Trimming my family tree sharpened my focus and my goals.

Here are some focus-finding ideas to consider.

Goals Can Drive Your Research

Do you have specific goals for your genealogy research? One of my goals is to learn the names of all the families from my ancestral hometowns. These towns are my heart and soul. Learning their names, and finding their life events, gives me a joy I can't describe.

You Have More Cousins Than You Know

Are you interested in finding your ancestors' descendants? My 2nd great grandfather, Antonio Saviano, was my first ancestor to come to America. He had 4 children who lived to adulthood. Those 4 children had 21 children who lived to adulthood. That makes a ton of cousins, many of whom I've never met.

Imagine tracing the descendants of your 3rd or 4th great grandparents. Where will their descendants lead you?

DNA Unlocks Unknown Relationships

Do you want to figure out your relationship to your DNA matches? I've gotten in touch with cousins I never knew—or whose names I knew but I'd never met.

You need to make your tree as wide as possible to find the connection. Don't add your great grandparents to your tree and move on. Find their siblings. Who did they marry? What were the names of their children? Those families will tie you to your DNA matches.

I mentioned that both my DNA match's parents are my 6th cousins. That means we share 5th great grandparents. I needed to work all the 5th great aunts and uncles into my family tree. A wider tree will give you far more connections.

If you focus on your reasons for building your family tree, that focus will guide your process.

My focus is to connect everyone I can by using available Italian vital records. When it comes to my family in America, I have an in-law rule to keep me on track. Let's say my second cousin's husband is in my family tree. I'm not going to document him (the in-law) beyond his birth and marriage dates and the names of his parents. I'm not putting his siblings or his grandparents in my tree—even if I know their names. Unless my cousin asks me to research their spouse, they get cut off at their parents.

That's why I cut out my sister-in-law's 600-person branch. (I made them a separate tree.) It's why I removed the siblings and grandparents from more distant cousins' spouses. Focus.

Genealogy is a never-ending puzzle. An interesting, entertaining, educational hobby. Find your focus—your purpose—and you'll have a stronger family tree.