Six 2025 Articles to Elevate Your Family Tree

Whenever I review the articles I've published in this blog, I discover tips I've forgotten. My own tips—forgotten! As I explore a new resource or technique to share with you, I often say in the article that I need to do this, too. Then I forget to follow my own advice.

I have to imagine this happens to you, too. You read lots of family tree articles, but you don't always put what you've learned into use. So let's do this together. Let's review 6 articles from 2025, pick the ones that apply to us, and get to work!

Here's your chance to put 6 kinds of genealogy tips to work to fortify your family tree.

5 Steps to Making a Cousin Connection

If you've taken a DNA test, you'll have many matches you can't place in your family tree. If they are a decent match sharing 30 cMs or more with you, don't give up! Even if they don't provide a family tree, you can use your research skills to get some traction. In this article you'll find 5 steps to help you turn that interesting DNA match into a documented cousin.

You Must Find Your Ancestor's Hometown First

When our ancestors came from another country than ours, we have a disadvantage. We don't know enough about their country. Until we have a good understanding of their homeland, our research may be at a standstill.

This describes my earliest days of family tree building. My grandmother's generation said the family came from two places. The first was a town that had a soundalike. They were from Pastene, but I started looking into Pastena. That was a wild ride because both town have our family name of Sarracino.

The other place was Avellino, but I soon found out that's like saying you're from New York. The city or the state? Avellino is both a city and a province in Italy. It took a lot of research to find the real town: Santa Paolina.

This article has 5 tips you can use to pinpoint your ancestor's hometown, the same as I did. And that's the key to finding their vital records. Once you know the town, and you see it on the map, you can identify your relatives.

4 Reasons to Digitize All Your Genealogy Work

Have you digitized your genealogy assets yet? If you're a huge fan of color-coded binders, that's fine. But if your work isn't digitized, too, it's at risk. Fire, flood, and other disasters could destroy your tremendous discoveries.

This article explains 4 important reasons to digitize your work. Find the tips and techniques you need to get the job done.

How to Share Your Family Tree With Cousins

Genealogy is all I do and all I want to do. I get so deep in the weeds that the bulk of my family tree isn't going to interest my 1st and 2nd cousins. But sometimes those close cousins have questions. They want me to share my tree with them.

My 84,000-person family tree would overwhelm them. There isn't a printout I can share. But I have found ways to give them exactly what they each need. Find out how you can create a self-serve option for the cousins who want to see "their" family tree.

5 Discovery Techniques for Your Family Tree

Has your family tree research has stalled? Are you unsure how to fill those empty branches? Then this is a good article for you. Looking back at my research, I can identify 5 discovery techniques that made my family tree grow to such a big size.

Take a look at these 5 techniques, and find out which ones can help you grow and fortify your family tree.

How Reliable Is Your Family Tree?

Wouldn't it be amazing if every distant cousin and DNA match shared a robust family tree? Well, the first step in reaching that ideal is to publish your own reliable family tree for others to find.

In this article are several tips to help your family tree attract those cousins and DNA matches. Be the ideal and they'll strive to do the same.

I encourage you to explore my blog for your specific needs and questions. Use the search feature on this page to find what you need. If there's a topic I haven't covered yet, please let me know!

Get Familiar with Your Ancestral Homeland for Free

If you're over 21, you probably had your last world geography lesson a long time ago. How many details can you remember about countries other your own? For example, I'm from the USA, and I realized I can't name more than half the provinces in neighboring Canada.

There's an easy way to learn about your immigrant ancestors' homeland. Understanding the regions, states, and cities will inform your genealogy research.

How to Use This Free Resource

The FamilySearch Wiki offers a free, easy-to-use guide to the country of your choice. On the Wiki's main page you'll see a map of the world. Start by clicking a continent, then choose a country. I'm going to start with England.

This free genealogy resource makes those overseas homelands seem closer and more familiar.

When I click the continent of Europe, I see an alphabetical list of its countries. I'll click England. Then I see an alphabetical list of all the English counties. Since I'm not sure which county I need, I'll click the country name at the top of the list.

Once you choose a country, you'll see a more detailed map. This map divides the country into its sections. These may be counties, provinces, prefectures, states, regions—it depends on the country. Beneath the maps is a list of the sections, each with a link to more detailed information.

There are people in my family tree from Derbyshire, so I'll start there. The detail page tells me there are 132 parishes in the county. I know this family lived in Spondon. In the list of Derbyshire parishes, I'll go to the letter S and click Spondon.

At this town level, you can find links to document collections, maps, and many references. I like the country map showing all the counties. In my family tree, one English group is from Derbyshire, and another is from Lancashire. Seeing this map, I learn that Derbyshire borders Lancashire. That's quite a coincidence.

When I click the continent of Asia and the country of Japan, I see a list of the 47 prefectures within the eight regions. My husband's ancestors came from Hiroshima, and I see that's in the Chūgoku region. (I didn't know that off the top of my head.) The Japan section of the Wiki doesn't have much detail. But it does have a link to a very detailed Wikipedia page. There I found that Hiroshima is on the island of Honshu, which is where you'll find Mount Fuji.

I have cousins whose Italian ancestors emigrated to Brazil. (See "How to Make the Most of an Intriguing Genealogy Lead".) I'm not at all familiar with the geography of that country. I'll click the South America continent and the country of Brazil on the FamilySearch Wiki. First I see a map breaking down the five regions and 27 states. Did you know Brazil has 27 states? I didn't.

Many of these cousins went to Itapira in São Paulo, but I don't have a feel for where that is on a map. On the FamilySearch Wiki page for Brazil, I'll click the São Paulo state. First I see that the state borders the Atlantic Ocean, and it's pretty far south in the country. When my cousins arrived, the city of São Paulo was a convenient location, populous and not too far from the shore.

The state has tons of municipalities. I'll click the only one I can tie to these cousins: Itapira. This page links to document collections that can be very useful to my research.

It should be fun to look at a more familiar location, like the place where I grew up. (See also "Discover Your Ancestral Hometown's History".) I'll click the North America continent, the United States, New York, and Rockland County. Here I find a list of populated places. It's divided into towns, villages, hamlets, census-designated places, and one ghost town!

They created the ghost town in 1928 by submerging a settlement of 30 houses to create a lake I visited as a kid. I never heard about this before!

The place I lived for most of my school years (age 5–19) is a "census-designated place" that covers only 2.2 square miles. But my old house sits in a village that didn't exist until four years after my family moved away. The information about the village led me to a collection of historical photos that blew my mind.

When I was in school, I used to ride my bike to a beautiful street nearby called Wesley Chapel Road. I brought a camera along and photographed some of my favorite old houses. The village's website features one of those farm houses in a photo. The house dates back to 1896. There's also a 1904 photo of a little house my family passed all the time. It shows a big family standing by the picket fence.

I learned they named one of the main streets nearest my old house, Forshay Road, after W. Spencer Forshay. He established a cigar manufacturing shop there in 1851. I never thought about the area being that old. I can relate to the photo of a snow-covered street near the school where I attended 1st and 2nd grade. It seemed to snow all winter long when I was a kid.

If I can find fun new facts about the place where I grew up, imagine what you can find about the places your ancestors lived.

Whichever country you choose to explore, be sure to look at the right column on the map page. This can contain:

• beginning research tips
• types of records kept
• historical and cultural background
• local research resources, and more.

Where does your genealogy research tell you to explore first?

Get In-Depth Answers to Your Genealogy Questions

Recently I told you about my grandfather's journey to America. First he had to get from Southern Italy to Northern France. There, not in Napoli, he boarded a ship bound for New York. That huge overland distance has puzzled me ever since I found his 1920 ship manifest.

There were about 300 other Southern Italians on the ship with him. That leads me to believe the Red Star Line gave them an incentive, like a deep discount, to come to France to sail. Now I've decided to use my favorite AI search engine, Microsoft Copilot, to help map out his journey.

Using a conversational search engine that cites its sources, you can discover the answers to your burning genealogy questions.

Unlike AI search engines that seem to hallucinate, Copilot cites its sources. That lets you use that source and search further. (Choose the Think Deeper option rather than Quick response.)

Crafting Your Query

Here's what I typed into Copilot:

I'm curious about the types of transportation used in rural Southern Italian towns in 1920. My grandfather traveled a long way to the north of France to sail to America that year. How would he have done that?

The answer confirmed what I thought. The most common methods of travel were walking, riding a horse or mule, or riding in a cart pulled by a horse or mule. Then he would take trains to his port of departure.

Copilot suggested I provide more information for a more specific answer. What was my grandfather's hometown and from which port did he sail? I typed:

My grandfather lived in Colle Sannita, in the Benevento Province. He sailed from Cherbourg, France.

The answers were more specific now. Grandpa would have to walk, ride an animal, or ride in an animal-drawn cart to get to the Benevento train station. He may have ridden the train first to Napoli, then way up north to Genoa or Torino, then to Paris and on to Cherbourg. Wow, does that sound like an ordeal.

The entire trip, before setting sail, may have taken Grandpa about a week. One of the sources Copilot cited is one I used before to form my theory about this trip.

Mapping it Out

I used Google Maps to further imagine Grandpa's journey. To get to the nearest train station in the city of Benevento in 1920, he could walk for almost 8 hours. Or he could walk half that distance to the town of Reino. It's possible that in Reino, he could hire someone to take him in a cart to the Benevento train station. Or, and this is a long shot, he could hire a car or take a bus. On today's roads, that only a half hour drive from Reino to Benevento.

I've been to the Benevento train station, which dates back to 1868. It's large, and from there, Grandpa could have taken a train, or a series of trains, all the way to Cherbourg.

More examples of using Copilot for genealogy:

• How to Use AI to Analyze Family Photos
• Use History to Fill In Your Ancestor's Story
• How to Get Useful Answers to Your Genealogy Questions
• How to Get Useful Answers to Your Genealogy Questions
• The Dangerous Jobs Your Ancestors Endured

Was This Event So Unique?

I wondered if anyone else in my family tree had sailed from Cherbourg. In my Family Tree Maker file, I went to the Places tab and clicked France. Then I chose the Basse-Normandie region, then the Manche department, and then Cherbourg. What a surprise! There were 8 people, including Grandpa, who made a similar journey. Six of them came from Grandpa's town, one came from a bit further north, and one came from Sicily. Even more surprising is that all 8 traveled in 1920.

These 8 people are the tiniest fraction of my family tree. But I'll bet there was one hell of a promotion going on in 1920 to attract them. I'll have to look at some Italian newspapers for that year. How great would it be to find a Red Star Line advertisement to solve this mystery once and for all?

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When you think about your own family tree, what questions do you have that no one in the family can answer? Are there facts that strike you as odd? Is there anything you wish you could talk to someone about? Talk to my friend, Microsoft Copilot. I've seen it give reliable answers to many of my questions—even medical ones.

Keep it in mind when your next mystery comes up.