What To Do When Your Last Name Is So Common

All my direct ancestors had Italian last names. I'm lucky to know in exactly which small towns they were born. And the hometown is the key to everything.

My name of Iamarino is found in only 10 towns.

Some of my Italian last names (or cognomi, in Italian) are rare. They're specific in origin to a small geographical area. The name Iamarino barely existed outside of my ancestral hometown of Colle Sannita.

But some of my Italian last names are about as rare as Smith or Brown in America. According to an Italian surname search site I like to use, you can find my family names of Leone and Caruso EVERYWHERE.

It would be impossible to identify my Leone or Caruso lines without knowing where my great grandparents were born.

There may not be a word strong enough to emphasize how important it is to know your ancestor's hometown. Critical. Crucial. Imperative. Nope—it's more important than that.

If your foreign ancestors emigrated to the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., etc., cross your fingers and hope they arrived at a good time. Early ship manifests didn't capture much information about the passengers.

My name of Leone comes from a couple more places.

If your ancestor arrived at Ellis Island, which was open to immigrants from 1892 to 1954, you're in luck. If you find your ancestor, you should be able to learn the name of their hometown.

I may tell you I'm from New York City, but that's because I'm pretty sure you've never heard of the exact town where I grew up. But my grandfathers never said they were from Naples. They let us know very strongly that they were not Napolitani.

They were very proud of their small towns of Basélice and Colle Sannita. Both towns are in the middle of nowhere, about a 90-minute drive from Naples.

So before you begin chasing the wrong family, you must nail down that hometown.

Find out how. Read about other ways of finding your ancestor's hometown in Where Did Grandpa Come From?

You may also enjoy:

• Searching for the Missing Link in Your Family Tree
• Who Are These People?
• Does Independence Day Make You Think of Your Ancestors?

Finding Your Ancestor's Lost Babies

When I began documenting my grandfather's Italian hometown—every single birth, marriage and death record between 1809 and 1860—one thing saddened me time and time again.

So many of the babies died within days, months, or a couple of years. I mourned for each one of them. It seemed even sadder that the next baby born was given the same name as the one who died.

Trying to be an optimistic genealogist, I focused on the upside. I was finding previously unknown children. Here's an example. I found that my great great grandparents Antonio and Colomba tried three times to name a child after Antonio's father: Raffaele.

My great uncle Raffaele was the third sibling named after his grandfather.

The first Raffaele died as a child, so none of my cousins were aware of him. Last night I found another baby! This time it was a girl they named Raffaella. She died, too, leaving that name to the great uncle we know: Raffaele Saviano.

When you're researching a family in the 1800s, expect to find a child born almost every year beginning a year after a marriage.

If an ancestor's family has several years between births, keep looking. There's a strong chance that other babies were born who didn't grow up.

My great great grandfather Nicoladomenico Leone married twice and fathered 12 children. About half of them survived to adulthood. See When I'm Sixty-Four I'll Still Have Only Two Children.

I don't know about you, but I want to know about and appreciate all the lost babies.

You may also enjoy:

• My 5th Great Grandfather: A Random Act of Kindness?
• Married Thanks To Royal Decree
• When Is a Marriage Not a Marriage?

Organize Your Genealogy Research By Choosing Your Style

Develop and stick to your own style and naming conventions to achieve better organization.

When my husband and I were planning our Italian honeymoon in 2003, my imagination ran wild.

What if I find an old house with my maiden name on it? What if I meet a distant relative who looks like me?

These thoughts propelled me into the obsessive hobby of genealogy.

Early disarray

My first discovery was the Ellis Island website where I found ship manifests for my two grandfathers.

I found other people on other manifests who may or may not be relatives. I began filling a notebook with facts on potential relatives—pages and pages of scribbled, disconnected information.

Taming the chaos

Then I graduated to family tree software and learned some of the recommended conventions. For example, when recording dates:

• dd Mon yyyy, as in 24 Sep 1959 or 01 Jan 1856, is a versatile format that anyone can understand. If I told someone in England that my brother's birthday is 6/11/1955, they would read November 6, not June 11.
• When estimating a date you can use Abt. (about), Bef. (before), Aft. (after), Bet. (between). For example, my great great grandfather was still alive at the end of 1860, but he was dead when his grandchild was born on 12 Mar 1870. To record what I know, I've listed his death date as Bet. 1861–12 Mar 1870.
• If I don't know someone's birth year, but I know when one of their children was born, I use a placeholder date. This helps me see the general time in which they lived. I subtract 25 from their oldest child's birth year (e.g. 1800 minus 25) and record their birth year as Abt. 1775.

This is crucial in a tree like mine where about 10,000 Italians have a combination of what seems like 10 names.

I've also developed my own format for annotating documents such as census forms and ship manifests. For example, in my family tree software I will put a note on a census sheet and include the following:

• the line numbers for this family
• City, County, State 1920 census
• enumeration district #, supervisors district #, ward of city #, block #, sheet #
• image 3 of 300 (if found in an online collection)
• a link to the original document on ancestry.com, familysearch.org. antenati.san.beniculturali.it. etc.

This amount of detail allows anyone to verify my facts and see the document for themselves.

Owning the facts

When I first subscribed to ancestry.com, I knew I wanted to have every important document stored on my computer. So I download everything I find.

Almost from the start, I chose my style—how to name the files and where to keep them. I name the files LastnameFirstnameYear.jpg, in general. If it's a census form, it's named for the head of household. If it's a two-page ship manifest, the file names end in -p1.jpg and -p2.jpg. The folder names are simple and clear.

A consistent file-naming style leaves no room for error.

This consistency became second nature. It helps me spot what I'm looking for in no time.

Finally, my document tracker spreadsheet is my ongoing catalogue of every document I have. This spreadsheet tells me at a glance what I have and what I still need to find for any given person.

If genealogy is your obsession, you know how easy it is to go wild gathering facts, photos and documents. Take the time to develop your style.

Your consistency will pay rich dividends.

You may also enjoy:

• How To Squeeze Everything Out of the Census
• 27 Key Facts to Extract From a Death Certificate
• How To Run Your Genealogy Research Like Clockwork

How to Avoid Searching for Non-Existent Genealogy Records

Don't waste time searching for an ancestor in a document collection that will not contain their name.

Genealogy is a thriving industry overflowing with documents and databases. If you subscribe to any ancestry sites, you've got a never-ending supply of databases to browse.

But don't waste time. Learn exactly what a document collection holds before you start your search.

These men in my tree had military records for me to find. But not my paternal grandfather.

Here's a prime example of how I've been wasting time hunting for a document that can't even exist.

My maternal grandfather, Adamo Leone, fought in World War I. He was in the Italian army and became a prisoner of war. Obviously I'm not going to find a United States World War I draft registration card for him.

I do have a copy of his World War II registration card when he was 51 years old. This is called the "Old Man's Draft" and was more a database of skills than prospective soldiers. These men were never intended to go to war.

My paternal grandfather, Pietro Iamarino, was still living in Italy between 1914 and 1918. He was only 16 when World War I ended.

But I had no World War II record for him. I spent a lot time examining images of registration cards, one by one. I figured the name "Iamarino" was misfiled, so I hoped to find it myself.

Then one day it struck me. Maybe his 1902 birth year excluded him from this set of records.

Here's what I should have researched in the first place.

Men who were drafted for World War II were age 18–35 in 1942. If they were between 35 and 45 and unmarried, they were also eligible for the draft.

Grandpa was 40 years old and married in 1942. He was beyond the cut-off for military service.

Then there was the "Old Man's Draft" where I found my other, older grandfather Adamo. This registration included men born between April 27, 1877 and February 16, 1897.

Grandpa, born in October 1902, didn't fall into this category, either. As an able-bodied 40-year-old man, Grandpa Pietro was left to continue his work and take care of the home front.

This tiny bit of research could have saved me lots of time.

So here's the moral of my story. Before you search for a particular ancestor in a document collection, stop. Find out exactly what that collection contains. Decide if your ancestor should be there or not.

On ancestry.com, each collection has its details listed below the search area. On familysearch.org, the descriptions are above the search area.

Find out what you're looking at before you spend hours looking at it.

I can put an "n/a" in the draft card field of my document tracker spreadsheet for Grandpa.

And speaking of tracking your found documents:

• Haven't I Seen You Before?
• Case Study On 'Haven't I Seen You Before?'
• Track Your Genealogy Finds and Your Searches

Take a Genealogy Vacation This Summer

I take the most exhausting vacations known to mankind. There's no sitting by the pool. There's no lying on the beach.

There's tons of sightseeing and a painful amount of walking. But I love it that way.

My major vacation for 2017 ended on Monday. Now I want to map out some shorter-distance, shorter-length genealogy vacations for this summer. And you should, too.

Last summer my husband and I planned a trip to the Finger Lakes of New York, knowing that my grandmother was born in Hornellsville, 45 minutes west of Cornell. So we booked a hotel in Cornell and made our sightseeing, winery-touring plans.

On the way west, we drove past Cornell and went straight to the house where my grandmother lived as a little girl. It's most likely where she and her brother were born. We visited the local library searching for evidence of my great grandfather. And we walked along the railroad tracks by the station where he worked.

Here's what I learned from that side-trip: Plan better!

Using my family tree software, I can find nearby places I should visit.

We discovered that my great grandfather's railroad station is now a museum, but it wasn't open that day. We drove past the church where one of my great grandmother Caruso's brothers got married, but I didn't think to go in. My great grandparents were probably married there, too. I later discovered on FindAGrave.com that many of my Caruso relatives are buried in that churchyard.

Oh, the horror! I have to go back and spend a couple of days there sometime.

My grandmother's house was almost a five-hour drive away. What can I do that's much closer—that I may be able to do in one long day or short weekend?

Think about your family tree. Which of your ancestors lived or spent any time in a place that's not too far from where you are now?

Is there a graveyard you should visit? Does an ancestor's place of business still exist? Are any of your ancestors' homes still standing? (To find out, see "How to Visit Your Ancestral Hometown at Your Desk".)

If you use family tree software that can plot your ancestors on a map, you've got the basis for planning your genealogy vacation. (See "Mapping Your Ancestors Can Answer Questions".)

In Family Tree Maker, I can drill down from the USA to New York state, to nearby counties. I see lots of houses and cemeteries I want to visit.

Does Independence Day Make You Think of Your Ancestors?

I never met my Uncle Johnny—my mother's brother. He was a Staff Sergeant, a tail gunner, shot down in battle during World War II.

Growing up we heard nothing more than that Uncle Johnny's plane crashed into a mountain, maybe in Yugoslavia.

Then a few years ago my first cousin found an astonishing video on You Tube. The son of one of my Uncle Johnny's crew mates went to the town of Hum, Croatia. There he interviewed an old man named Nikola Tomic who witnessed my uncle's crash in 1944. Nikola was a boy on July 7, 1944.

Nikola describes what he saw at the site of the crash of the B-17G Bomber shot down by Nazis. The bomber crashed about 1 kilometer from his farm near the border of Hungary and what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Knowing this date of July 7, 1944, it didn't take long to realize Uncle Johnny's mission—flying out of the same Italian airbase used by the legendary Tuskegee Airmen—was part of that summer's Battle of Normandy. The battle famously began with D-Day on June 6.

Johnny's plane was headed north to their bombing site in Austria when they were hit. My mother, a young girl at the time, remembers being told that five men parachuted out and five went down with the plane. She said none of them were ever found.

So on this Independence Day I'd like to honor 10 men who fought for our freedoms—my Uncle Johnny and his crew:

• 2nd Lt. Carl C. Sorensen, pilot, Wabasha, Minnesota
• 2nd Lt. Kingsley B. Enoch, co-pilot, Springfield, Massachusetts
• 2nd Lt. Albert L. Berrie, navigator, Belmont, Massachusetts
• 1st Lt. Thomas V. Platten, bombardier, Modesto, California
• T/Sgt. Kenneth E. Sharp, engineer/top turret gunner, Campti, Louisiana
• S/Sgt. Danny Delio, right waist gunner, Mishawaka, Indiana
• S/Sgt. Harold R. Kennelley, radio operator, Spring Mills, Pennsylvania
• S/Sgt. Ernest R. Rossi, left waist gunner, Oakland, California
• S/Sgt. Donald L. Nye, ball turret gunner, Tiffin, Ohio
• S/Sgt. John R. Leone, tail gunner, Bronx, New York