Search by Town Alone for Unexpected Discoveries

On my last trip to Italy, I took tons of cemetery photos in my ancestral hometowns. At home I uploaded them to Find a Grave. Today I decided to see who might have had the same idea as me.

I started my search on Ancestry, choosing the database "Italy, Find a Grave® Index, 1800s-Current". I didn't enter any names or dates. Instead, I selected a town I haven't visited yet. Santa Paolina, in Avellino, Italy, was the birthplace of my 2nd great grandmother. She and her husband are my earliest immigrant ancestors, settling in New York City in 1898.

Last year I tried a wide search on Ancestry. (See "Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections".) I used Grandpa's hometown and focused on Ellis Island records. This yielded a ton of results because so many people from that town came to America.

This time I'm looking at Italian Find a Grave results and choosing a different town.

This search expanded a dead end in my family tree. They were in a town I couldn't have imagined.

There are two search results for Santa Paolina, and I have no faith in the first one. It claims this woman was born in Santa Paolina on 22 Nov 1869, but she wasn't. I checked all available birth records from the town. (See "How to Create Your Ancestral Hometown Database" to find out how I did that.) She wasn't born in Santa Paolina on that date or any documented date, even though her last name comes from the town.

The second result is for a woman who is in my family tree—Maria Felicia Spinelli. She was born in 1836 in Santa Paolina. When I followed the link to Find a Grave, I found the names of her husband and three children. I didn't know their names before because she married a man from another town and moved there. I never would have looked for her in a town that's a 90-minute drive away on today's roads. Unless she could afford to take the train, she may never have seen her family again.

This is the type of discovery I love. Most of the time it takes a DNA match's family tree to show me what happened to someone who left the towns I know. (See "Why Care About Your DNA Matches?") Using the Find a Grave entries as clues, I had no trouble at all locating:

1. Maria Felicia's marriage to Leonardo Capozzi in her adopted town of Faeto in 1856
2. her husband's birth in that town in 1832
3. their son Giovanni's birth in 1857 and death in 1860
4. their son Donato's birth and death in 1859
5. their son Donato's birth in 1860. Find a Grave says this son and two of his siblings died in Chicago, so that opens up more search possibilities.
6. their son Giovanni's birth in 1862 and death in 1864
7. their daughter Raffaela's birth in 1865. Her birth record includes an extra document saying she died in Faeto in 1948.
8. their son Vito Antonio's birth in 1869
9. their son Michele's birth in 1872

Here's an entire branch of someone's family, someone who may share DNA with me, that was hiding. I needed this one search result to break it all wide open.

But what is my relationship to Maria Felicia Spinelli? I've added a lot of Santa Paolina people to my family tree, but many of them are not my actual relatives. Maria Felicia has four different connections to me. She is the:

• niece of the wife of the husband of my 5th great aunt Maddalena Consolazio
• 1st cousin of the husband of my 1st cousin 5 times removed Carolina deGuglielmo
• 1st cousin of the wife of my 1st cousin 5 times removed Carmine Alessandro Ricciardelli
• 1st cousin of the wife of my 1st cousin 5 times removed Ponziano Luigi Ricciardelli

All four of those relationships involve my 2nd great grandmother, Colomba Consolazio, from Santa Paolina.

If you know your family has deep roots in one town, try searching for only the town in a limited database. This research technique can help if you think someone left their hometown. Or if you're wondering why their trail went cold. It can be a great way to find more family members. This works especially well with smaller towns. And it always helps if you're familiar with the last names from your ancestral towns. (To learn how to get familiar with the last names in a town, see "Searching for Family in a New Town Takes Practice".)

So, who's been hiding from you? Can you find them by their town?

What Makes You Crazy About Genealogy?

I watched "Psycho" the other night. Anthony Perkins, in the role of Norman Bates, said one thing that got me thinking. When talking about his taxidermy hobby, he said, "It's more than a hobby. A hobby's supposed to pass the time, not fill it."

If that's true, Norman, what should I call genealogy? I retired because work was cutting into my genealogy time. I spend about eight hours a day on my family tree. I don't pass the time with genealogy. I fill the time with genealogy. And I couldn't be happier.

Oh, so that's what Norman means to say. He devotes so much time to taxidermy, and cares about it so much, that it's more than a hobby. Hobby isn't a strong enough word. I'd say devotion is a better word. I have a strong devotion to genealogy. That's what drives me to achieve more and more each day.

Once you understand your motivation to do genealogy, your goals become clear. Let them drive your family tree research.

What Drives You?

If spending all your free time on your family tree sounds too much like work, there's one element you may be missing. Call it a goal, a motivation, or a purpose. It's a driving force that will keep you excited by your genealogy "hobby" every day.

My earliest family tree goal was to gather all the census records for my closest family. Then I discovered I could view vital records for my Italian ancestors. After exploring one of my ancestral hometowns, I had a new goal. I wanted to document and connect everyone from that town. After finishing with that town, I moved on to the next. I have a handful of towns where I can connect almost everyone.

Before I do, though, my number one goal now is to create all the source citations I skipped in my giddy excitement. I have a spreadsheet that still contains more than 40,220 people who have no source citations. The documents are all downloaded to my computer, so I went for it, adding facts without sources. But my mission is to create a family tree that will be a treasure for anyone with roots in my ancestral hometowns. And that requires source citations so they can go see the documents for themselves.

Define Your Genealogy Motivation

I became interested in my family tree while planning my honeymoon in Italy. I did make it to my paternal grandfather's hometown on that trip, but I didn't know where to look.

Walking around Grandpa's hometown, I felt a physical pull deep inside me. I needed to discover my ancestors. I wanted to know all their names. Once I discovered the availability of Italian vital records, I made myself an expert on their towns.

What question or desire got you interested in genealogy? There are many reasons people spend time and money on genealogy, including:

• Finding a missing ancestor or birth parent
• Discovering where the family came from
• Solving a case of misattributed parentage
• Applying for dual citizenship
• Proving or disproving family lore
• Working on a personal, never-ending puzzle
• Bringing history to life in a meaningful way
• Preserving family history for future generations
• Sharing your findings with distant cousins

Once you define your genealogy motivation, you're ready for the next step.

Set Your Goals

Now that you've put your finger on what motivates you, what goals do you need to reach?

If your motivation is to apply for dual citizenship, you need specific documents. You must discover the place and date of birth of the ancestor through which you will ask for citizenship. How can you break that goal down into steps? Let's say you don't know Grandpa's town of birth in the old country. You have to seek out as many of his records in his adopted country as you can. Many records may include his town of origin. Make a list of every type of record that should be available for him. Censuses, a ship manifest, naturalization papers, draft cards, an obituary, a death certificate. Your goal is to find them and learn all you can from them.

If your purpose is to discover your birth parent, you need to take at least one DNA test. Then upload it as many places as possible. You'll have to spend your time taking online webinars to learn discovery techniques. Then explore your closest DNA matches. You may need to create family trees for important DNA matches. On any given day, your goal can be to solve one more DNA match and see how they connect to any of your other matches.

If your motivation is the never-ending puzzle, you'll never lack something to do. Your goals can be to document all your ancestor's siblings. Then find out who they married and document their families. Then move up a generation and do the same thing. If I hadn't found all the siblings, I wouldn't be able to see that my paternal grandparents were third cousins.

If your purpose is to help your distant cousins, publish your family tree online. Make your family tree as reliable and accurate as possible. Your individual goals can be to:

• Check your tree for errors and correct them
• Make sure your facts have source citations that any interested party can verify
• Seek out new record collections that may hold information for you
• Maintain a consistent, professional style in how you present names, dates, and places

Track Your Progress

Almost two years ago, I used Family Tree Analyzer to spot everyone in my family tree who had no source citations. About 87% of my people had no source citations. It was more than 70,000 people. Today I've got that number down to 40,220. It could take me another two years to finish this important project! And that's why I push myself so hard. My daily goal is to remove 100 people from that list. I've had days where I completed citations for more than 150 people. Those days usually end with a sore wrist from working my mouse so hard.

The point is, I always know where I stand with this goal. Seeing that huge number of unsourced people go down each day drives me to do more.

Does your family tree pass the time or fill the time? Are you lacking motivation? Would you be more productive if you had specific goals? Being productive makes me feel fulfilled. It can do the same for you.

And why was Norman Bates so devoted to his craft of taxidermy? Ask his mother's 10-year-old corpse.

This Free, Elegant GEDCOM Analyzer Is a Wonder

How does your family tree measure up? When I tried out Ancestry Pro Tools almost two years ago, I didn't care about its Tree Checker feature. I had free Family Tree Analyzer software to help me find all kinds of mistakes.

Even without subscribing to Pro Tools, my tree on Ancestry has a rating of 8.3 ("Very good"). What's keeping me from scoring a 10? A few data errors, lots of missing source citations, and what they think are 10,398 duplicate people. (They're not.)

But I found a new tool for improving your family tree rating called GEDminer that's outstanding! You've got to take a look at this thing. There's nothing to download, but you need to export your family tree's GEDCOM file first.

The instant, deep analysis of your family tree is worth a ton, but this genealogy tool is free.

GEDminer is a web-based program that's a very friendly way to see how your family tree measures up. If you're skeptical or want to see it in action first, you can view an analysis of their sample GEDCOM. Please understand your file is NOT uploaded to a server. The data processing happens in your web browser, and all the results go POOF! when you close your browser. (Your data may stay in your computer's cache memory for a while.)

Go to https://gedminer.com and drop your GEDCOM file in the box on the webpage. (The link to see sample data is beneath the box.) I dropped in my latest GEDCOM with 85,360 people. I know I'm missing tons of source citations—I'm always working on that. So where do I stand?

• My Tree Health Score is 75.33%. It says that's better than 55.56% of other users.
• I scored 74.09% in Completeness (defined as names, dates & places filled in). When I click on Completeness, it breaks this down into terrifying numbers:
  • 50,805 non-living people missing a death place
  • 47,995 non-living people missing a death date
  • 10,007 people missing a birth place. I have been putting a state or county into the birth and death place fields when I see they're empty. I have a long way to go.
• I scored 52.42% in Sourcing. This says I still have 40,616 people with no source citations. The spreadsheet I'm using for this huge task agrees!
• I scored 99.9% on Consistency (defined as free of errors & warnings). It lists 5 people with "data errors" for me to fix, but these are only a taste. They include people who were too old or young when their child was born. But the full, detailed list of data errors is in the next section.

Beneath these scores is a section called Quick Wins. This tells me my family tree has:

• 23 data errors (I worked on it and got it down to three errors, two of which are supported by the documents: an 88-year-old father and a 56-year-old mother.)
• 10,007 people without a birth place (I got it down to 9,953.)
• 40,616 unsourced people

The last two are also found above in the Tree Health Score section. But under Quick Wins, you can click these problem types and go to a new page filled with the exact details.

Click a type of error to see complete details about what you need to correct. Then export the full list as a spreadsheet and get busy.

• When you click to see your data errors in detail, the new page gives you the option of seeing:
  • All data errors
  • Date issues only
  • Age issues only
  • Relationship problems only (for me, these were all mothers who were too young)
  • Duplicate Facts only (for me, most of these are cases where I have two very different death records for people, so I recorded both)
  • Quality issues only (this would be key missing facts; I have none!)
• When you click to see your missing places or unsourced people errors in detail, the new page gives you the option of seeing:
  • All missing items
  • Line Origins only (these are the people you're stuck on—you can't ID their parents)
  • Missing Dates only
  • Missing Places only
  • Unsourced people only
  • People with no spouse (if we knew the spouse, they'd be in there, right?)
  • Missing Deaths only

Best of all, after you scroll to the bottom of a long list and click Show All, you can scroll back up and choose Export CSV. This gives you a spreadsheet to use to complete your fixes. You can tackle them one-by-one and delete them from the spreadsheet or mark them done.

I won't export my list of unsourced people since I'm already working on that. But when I'm finished with that project, I can use GEDminer again to see who slipped through the cracks.

While you're on that detail page, look close to the top of the page for four links:

• Suggestions
• Errors
• Vital Sharpener
• Tree Structure

Now:

• Click Vital Sharpener to see all the incomplete dates in your family tree. Sometimes we can't do anything about these because no records are available. But if the people are from the 1900s or later, try a new search on a site you don't use all the time.
• Now click Tree Structure right next to Vital Sharpener. These results have different categories to view:
  • Hidden Cousins tries to group together people with the same last name. That doesn't work well for my tree. Welcome to small towns in Italy.
  • Unlinked Individuals shows you the unattached people floating in your family tree. I have 184 people with zero connection to me. But they're in there on purpose. If more vital records ever become available, I may be able to connect them.
  • Duplicate Finder says I have 409 people with the same (or almost the same) name and birth year. I don't have enough information to be sure some are the same person. I'll review them and see if I can find a few that I should merge. You'll see that the list ranges in match-i-ness from 100% on down. My lowest duplicate is a 57% match, but they're worth looking into. They have the same name, same hometown, same father's name, and very close birth years.

The bonus facts this free tool displays about your family tree can be real eye-openers. And it's all interactive. Click around!

Still Not Sure? Here's the Old Way.

Before I found GEDminer, I planned to show you how you can use Family Tree Analyzer to find these errors. I'm so impressed with GEDminer, but you know I appreciate the heck out of Family Tree Analyzer. So here's what to click. You won't get your score, but you will get lists of what needs your attention. Get your GEDCOM file and open it in Family Tree Analyzer.

To find data errors, click the Errors/Fixes tab and under Data Errors select:

• Birth before father aged 13 and mother aged 13
• Birth after father aged 90+ and mother aged 60+
• Birth after mother's death and more than 9m after father's death
• Marriage before aged 13 and spouse aged 13
• Marriage after death and after spouse's death
• Facts dated before birth
• Birth after death/burial
• Birth after baptism/christening
• Facts dated after death
• Burial/cremation before death
• Child born too soon after sibling
• Child likely born too soon after sibling
• Male Wifes and Female Husbands
• Duplicate Fact
• Possible Duplicate Fact

One way to find duplicate people in your family tree is to go to the Errors/Fixes tab, choose Duplicates? then sort by Birth Date.

To find unlinked individuals, click the Main Lists tab. In the Relation column of the Individuals table, filter to select "Unknown".

Here's the report I used to make a spreadsheet of all my people who had zero source citations. Go to the Main Lists tab and find the Num Sources column in the Individuals table. Click the down arrow for that column and Sort A to Z. Filtering doesn't work, although it should. I exported the full list, then deleted everyone who didn't have zero source citations.

I hope you find this breakdown of problems inspiring and not discouraging. After you've made a good amount of corrections, go back and see the improvement in your family tree.