These Genealogy Projects Can Chase Away the Boredom

Would you get bored with your genealogy research if you were at it for 8 hours a day?

Last Friday was my first vacation day of 2020. As obsessed as I am with genealogy, I have a corporate job that keeps me away from it. The day after Thanksgiving was my first day off that wasn't a national holiday. At last I was able to spend hours on end doing genealogy!

If you have the time, and you want to make progress on your family tree, there's a secret to keep it from getting tedious. Projects.

If you have a variety of genealogy projects to work on, you won't get bored. You may be thinking, "If you're bored, stop doing genealogy." Sacrilege, I say!

Here are my favorite projects I turn to whenever genealogy is becoming a chore.

Before I go on, here's a programming note: I've been publishing a new article each Tuesday and Friday for 4 years. I've published 432 articles! This labor of love has taken over my life, so I'm dropping it down to once a week. I'll publish a new article each Tuesday, starting today.

Fit Everyone into My Tree

My family tree is going to be THE resource for any descendant of my grandfather's hometown. I've got tens of thousands of the town's vital records beginning in 1809. And I have a book that documents everyone who lived there in the year 1742.

I'm laying a solid foundation by fitting people from the 1809 vital records into my tree. In some cases I can connect them to people who were alive and documented in 1742.

Here's how it worked this long weekend:

• Check an 1809 birth record to see if the baby is already in my family tree.
• If not, check my tree for the parents.
• If none of the people are in my tree, search my extensive database of the town for them.
• Other records, like the death records of the parents, usually help me place them in my tree.
• Then I can add the baby and search for their marriage or death records.

The whole process can take a long time, but I added dozens of townspeople to my tree for each 1809 baby.

Using all my tools, I can fit nearly the whole of Grandpa's town into my family tree.

Share My Research Database

I have all the town's available vital records on my computer. I've renamed them to include the subject(s) of the document. For example, "007853875_00496.jpg" is the first 1809 birth record. I renamed it "007853875_00496 Carmine Pasquale d'Agostino di Giuseppe.jpg" because it's the birth record of Carmine Pasquale d'Agostino, the son of Giuseppe. Keeping the number in the file name helps me tie it back to the file's original location online.

Now I can search for ANYBODY on my computer with a program called Everything. My plan is to share this amazing database with anyone with roots in the town. Before I do so, I need to finish renaming the extra documents that come with a marriage. These can include:

1. the groom's birth or baptism record
2. the groom's father's death record
3. the groom's grandfather's death record
4. the groom's mother's death record
5. the groom's first wife's death record
6. the bride's birth or baptism record
7. the bride's father's death record
8. the bride's grandfather's death record
9. the bride's mother's death record
10. the bride's first husband's death record

What a treasure trove! The only problem is, I haven't renamed ALL the files. I still need to do this for the marriage records from 1834 through 1860. I'll get there soon enough.

If I get bored with fitting each baby into my tree, I keep on renaming these marriage documents.

Once each vital record has a name, I can make them all searchable for other descendants.

Fill in Missing Dates

One quick-shot project is to find exact dates of birth when all I have is a year. This happens when I have a birth record that includes one or both parents' ages. I can say, for example, that the father was born in 1830.

If I sort the Family Tree Maker index by birth year, it's easy to see all the people with missing birth records. Then I can use the Everything program to search for and fill in their missing birth dates. On Thursday I was up to people born in 1830. Now I'm up to 1850.

Pick Up a Forgotten Genealogy Goal

Each December I write down specific genealogy goals for the new year. Then 2020 happened. I tried to keep up with my 2020 goals in January and February. But when everything fell apart in March, I had bigger things to worry about.

Now I've settled into a groove (a deep groove that led me to take one day off this year). I can always look at my goals and pick whichever one interests me at the moment.

Return to An Old Research Thread

I like to work off lists that I type into a text program. I do this for my corporate job, and it works so well that I use it for genealogy, too.

To that end, I have a text file named Notebook filled with genealogy information. It tells me where I left off on my marriage document renaming project. It has my genealogy goals for the last few years. It has a list of rainy-day genealogy tasks, like "sort out my photos and add more to my family tree." It also has research notes, like: "Did Gregorio Liguori and Apollonia Grazia Caruso have a child before 1809? Search the Circello marriages starting in 1825 looking for other children. (I'm up to 1843.)"

There are details on projects I've completely forgotten. But each one is something I can turn to if I get bored with whatever I'm doing.

You can always make progress on your genealogy research. Even if you can't visit that library you need, there are tons of ways to fortify your family tree. What excites you today?

Don't Let Latin Church Records Scare You

I spent the weekend with the type of genealogy records I hate: Latin church records. Normally I'm knee-deep in Italian vital records. It's second nature to locate and pull out the facts I need:

• dates
• names
• relationships

But I would cringe when faced with a church record written in Latin. Reading an Italian document is as easy for me as reading an English document. That took practice. Complete immersion in Italian vital records made them easier and easier to understand.

Now I'm more comfortable with Latin records after a weekend of immersion.

The town I was researching had very brief church records. They didn't include anyone's age. That did simplify things, though. All I needed to translate was the date and names.

Here's a breakdown of the 3 things you need to know to get over any fear of Latin documents.

Talk about facing your fears. After a weekend of non-stop Latin church records, I have no problem translating these genealogy documents anymore!

1. Latin Dates

Nearly all the documents I was reading wrote the day of the month as numerals, not words. Some records did spell out the day of the month. When that happens, I consult the Latin Genealogical Word List on FamilySearch.org.

I got stuck on one document where the writing was faint, and they wrote the day of the month as an ordinal number (first, second, third, etc.).

There were a lot of birth records on the same page. The records before this one had the Latin words for 23rd, 25th, 26th, and the records after it said the 28th and 29th. That narrowed things down. I compared the numbers on the page. Then I consulted the Numbers section of the Latin word list. I decided this date said vicesimus octavus, the 28th.

The Latin months are very close to English and Italian months. They're easy to understand. But sometimes the documents use a shorthand I know from Italian records. They abbreviate September through December as:

• 7bre. Forget that it's the 9th month of the year. The beginning of September means seven. In Italian it's Settembre. Sette means 7, so 7bre for short.
• 8bre. In Italian the word is Ottobre, and otto means 8; 8bre.
• 9bre. Novembre; nove means 9.
• Xbre. They use a Roman number in most cases, but you may see 10bre. In Italian it's Dicembre, and dieci means 10.

They wrote the year as numerals in the documents I was reading. But you're probably viewing these documents in a collection for a particular year. You should already know which year you're viewing. If your document isn't in a collection, or it mentions another year, check the Latin genealogical word list.

2. Vital Record Words

You'll get used to the other key words you need to focus on:

• Die. Often the first word on a document, die means on the day. The document may begin Die 24 9bris 1814, meaning on the 24th day of November, 1814.
• Nomen. When you're looking at a baptism record, try to find the word nomen. Right after it is the first name given to the baby.
• Natus/Natu/Nata, ex, et. A bit above the baby's name, look for a variation of natus ex. This means born of, and right after the ex you'll see the baby's father's name followed by et, which means and. Then comes the baby's mother's name.

Here is an example of the key sentence in a baptism record, dissected for translation:

• nata (if it ends in an a, the baby is a girl) means born
• ex Joseph [last name] means of Joseph, as in the baby is born of Joseph, its father
• et Rosa [last name] means and Rosa, so the baby is born of Joseph and Rosa
• cui impom est nomen [impom is an abbreviation of impositus] Rosaria means they give to the baby the name Rosaria

The full sentence would look something like: Nata ex Joseph et Rosa cui impom est nomen Rosaria.

Now that you know the construction, it isn't so intimidating.

Marriage documents have keywords, too. Look for matrimonio tra near the beginning of the document. This means marriage between. Then find the groom's name and his parents, followed by the bride's name and her parents.

These compact little marriage records pack a lot of info into a small space. And the Latin genealogy words are nothing to be afraid of.

The marriage documents I viewed stacked 3 dates in a row. These were the dates when the couple posted their intention to marry, or their marriage banns. Then, in different handwriting, I saw another date and several names. This was the date on which the couple married in the church.

3. Latin Names

The last piece of the puzzle is the names. On these documents from an Italian church, the last names were in their original Italian. Most first names were in Latin. Once I got used to them, it wasn't a problem. Know that male names often end in -us or -ius, while female names end in -a. Here are some examples:

• Antonius = Antonio or Anthony or Anton; the female is Antonia
• Dominicus = Domenico or Domenick; the female is Dominica
• Franciscus = Francesco or Francis or Frank; the female is Francisca
• Joseph = Giuseppe or Josef; the female is Josepha
• Joannes = Giovanni or John or Johann; the female is Joanna
• Sebastianus = Sebastiano or Sebastian; the female is Sebastiana
• Vincentius = Vincenzo or Vincent; the female is Vincenta

For some Italian names, they change an f to ph. Epiphanio is Epifanio and Philippo (sometimes shortened to Pho) is Filippo.

You can get used to Latin by looking for the key words you need and dissecting the sentences. This is exactly how I recommend people get used to Italian documents. Find the key words that help you understand:

• Birth records: who is the baby and who are the parents
• Death records: who died and who were their parents and spouse
• Marriage records: who is getting married and who are their parents

This is an article I never thought I'd write because Latin documents made me cringe. But now I see how they work. Just pick out the dates names you need. Don't let them scare you.

Are You Sure They're the Same Person?

I got an email from Geni.com where, unfortunately, I uploaded my family tree years ago. I say "unfortunately" because I didn't know people would try to correct me and want to "take over" people in my tree.

The email said it found duplicates and wanted me to merge some people. I checked them out, and each one was clearly the same person in different family trees. I approved them all. I really don't care.

What I do care about is MY tree. My living, constantly developing family tree I build in Family Tree Maker and synchronize to Ancestry.com. In my tree, I make no assumptions. I base every fact on available documents.

It was a coincidence to get the Geni email about mergers the same day I was considering a merger within my own tree.

Should These People Be Merged?

Recently I've been examining the earliest available vital records from my grandfather's hometown. I can fit nearly every person named in the early 1800s birth, marriage, and death records into my tree. It's kinda easy when all the families intermarry over and over again.

I'm examining the earliest vital records so I can identify more people in this amazing book I bought. The book contains a detailed description of each of the 560 households in Grandpa's town in the year 1742. (That's the year the town did a complete census for tax purposes.) I've tied into about a quarter of these families so far.

Imagine a set of marriage documents that tells you the names of the bride and groom's great grandparents!

The town's marriage records get more valuable in the mid-1820s. That's when they include:

• the groom's birth or baptism record
• the bride's birth or baptism record
• the death record (if it applies) for the bride and groom's deceased parents
• the death record (if their father is dead) for the bride and groom's deceased grandfathers

The death records show why a parent or grandparent can't give consent for the marriage. They're dead.

Imagine finding the marriage of a couple born in 1800, and learning the names of their paternal great grandparents! It's a genealogist's gold mine.

In these records I found 2 brothers named Cocca who married 2 sisters named Cocca. I knew they fit into my family tree. So I started processing all the documents from their 1827 and 1830 marriages.

Because the brothers' and the sisters' fathers were dead, there were lots of records. I was able to connect both families to households found in the 1742 census.

That's when I had a decision to make. You see, the Cocca brothers' paternal grandmother was Colomba Lombardo. Her 1816 death record says her parents were Domenico Lombardo and Cristina Pilla. And that couple is in the 1742 census. Domenico was born in 1696; Cristina in 1704. Awesome!

Colomba fit into a family listed in the 1742 census. But hold on. There's already a Colomba there.

As I added Colomba to this family, I noticed Domenico and Cristina already had a child named Colomba. Was she the same person? Should I merge them?

Let's look at the facts:

• In the 1742 census, there is a 1-year-old girl named Colomba Lombardo. That tells me she was born in 1741.
• In the 1816 death records, there is a 68-year-old Colomba Lombardo from the same family. According to this death record, she was born in 1748.

Now, we all know death records can be inaccurate. And I know that at this time in history, my townspeople weren't 100% sure of their age. They didn't have to put their exact birth date on forms all the time like we do.

So maybe the Colomba who died in 1816 wasn't 68 years old. Maybe she was 75 years old and is the same baby from the 1742 census. If she were born in 1741, she'd be 8 years older than her husband. That's a little unusual in this town, but not out of the question.

Then again, there's always the possibility that baby Colomba found in the 1742 census died as a child. It would be customary for the couple to give their next baby girl the same name.

Because I know this custom, I cannot assume that the Colomba who died in 1816 is the Colomba who was born in 1741. For now, I will leave them both in my tree as sisters.

How can I ever prove they were sisters and not the same person? The answer may be waiting in more of the town's marriage records. So far, I've found only one child for Colomba and her husband. As I work through more marriages, I may find more. Those extra documents may give me more facts about Colomba's birth year.

The moral of this story is never make assumptions. Learn the traditions and customs of your ancestral hometowns. Seek out every possible document. Build on the evidence only, no matter how tempting it may be to "merge" people in your family tree.

For now, I'll add a note to each Colomba Lombardo in my family tree, explaining why they both exist. This way, anyone who finds them in my tree on Ancestry will understand that this was a choice, not an error.