Online Course Takes Your Family History to the Next Level

Note: The sale on this course ends Oct. 26, 2017. To get the lower prices, go to www.ordergreatcourses.com. I am not affiliated with that site. I get nothing out of this. But I really do recommend it.

Would you like to jumpstart your genealogical research?

I found a great way for you to advance to a higher level—whether you're somewhat new to family tree research or you've been at it for a long time.

There's always more to learn.

Once in a while I get a catalog in the mail from a company called The Great Courses®. The catalog is like a glossy magazine, and it's interesting to browse through.

The latest catalog had a genealogy course to offer: Discovering Your Roots: An Introduction to Genealogy by Professor John Phillip Colletta. I read the description, and I felt it covered several areas I'd like to learn more about.

I bought the online version so I can watch the 15, half-hour lessons at my computer and at my leisure. The cost was only $22.95—not as much as I might spend to go to a two-hour genealogy seminar.

This low price is a huge sale. The regular price for watching the course on your computer is $169.95. If you go to the website to read about this course you'll see the full price. There's a red tab on the page advertising a 70% off sale—the drastic price reductions are a regular thing. Keep checking back to see when you can score the same deal I did.

My first ancestor left Italy to come to America in 1890. I have no ancestors who fought in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, or the War of 1812. Only one or two fought in World War I. So I have little or no direct experience with early military records and pension records.

That's one area where I know I have a lot to learn. But what is there that I don't know I don't know?

Professor John Phillip Colletta is an interesting and enjoyable speaker. He weaves fascinating tales of ancestors while explaining how to use genealogy resources. He takes individual facts from the census, a ship manifest, or a military record to tell a richly detailed story of that ancestor's life.

This great course gives you a genealogy
education you'll enjoy tremendously.

You can't help but be inspired to discover a fuller history of your own ancestors.

If you take this course, you'll learn about specific websites and how they can help you with your family tree. You'll learn where to go for specific resources. You'll find out about records, maps, and techniques that may be completely new to you.

This is not a dry overview of how to research your family tree. These lessons are engaging stories that will inspire you while teaching you:

• How to interview older relatives to get the best results
• What you can find in a library that you can't find online
• Everything you can learn from ship manifests, military records, and naturalization records
• How to use the Genealogical Proof Standard to fortify your family tree
• Which documents you can find at the state or county level
• How to tell your ancestor's life story through creative writing
• How to create an account of your family history you can share
• What you need to know to research ancestors from another part of the world

So, if you're new to genealogy, this course can help you become a knowledgeable genealogist in a few hours.

If you focus your searches on specific records—like census forms and ship manifests—this course can give you a much broader grasp of genealogy research techniques.

If you've been at this family tree hobby for years, you can still gain a lot from this course. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

The Great Courses. ©The Teaching Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

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How to Build Your Social Genealogy Network

I've spent 90% of my genealogy research time alone. Most of us relish being left alone to sort through the facts and documentation for people in our family tree.

The other 10% of my time used to consist of:

• a couple of genealogy conferences
• emailing relatives and potential relatives
• watching Ancestry's Crista Cowan present extremely helpful lessons on YouTube.

That all changed this year.

I still want plenty of alone-time to dig into the research. But throughout the day, I check in with an extended community of genealogy researchers online.

You'll find a welcoming, generously helpful genealogy community online.

The vast amount of free help fellow genealogists are willing to provide will amaze you. You can:

• Get help translating documents from another language.
• Get opinions on how to read a poorly written name on an old document.
• Get advice on where to search for missing information.
• Be the first to know about a new family history resource.

You'll quickly see who the experts are within any group. If you send them a friend request on Facebook or follow them on Twitter, you can stay on top of their latest advice.

I spent years transcribing facts from Italian birth and marriage records. Then an expert in a Facebook genealogy group showed me that I was reading baptism and marriage dates incorrectly!

In a LinkedIn genealogy group, I learned about a website with thousands of Italian vital records. In a Facebook genealogy group, I learned about free software to make it easy to download those records. Twitter helps me stay on top of genealogy tips and upcoming conferences or seminars.

Here are some of the top platforms for interacting with fellow genealogists:

Facebook

Click the Groups icon on your Facebook homepage and start typing in search terms. Search for "genealogy" or a specific type of genealogy, like "Irish genealogy". Many groups have an administrator who must OK your request to join. Once you're in, read the group's rules of conduct. It's usually the first post on the page.

Twitter

When I first joined, I would search for #genealogy or #familyhistory to see what was happening. Now my Twitter feed is 99% genealogy-related. Why? Because all I do is:

• interact with genealogy posts
• follow other genealogists
• post about genealogy.

Google+

Search for genealogy on the homepage. You can choose from Posts, Communities, Collections, or People & Pages. I haven't done much exploring yet, but I do maintain a genealogy collection where I post each of my blog articles. (Note: This doesn't exist anymore.)

You may also want to look at Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Search for genealogy topics. Follow the experts you've found on other social networks.

You'll find your fellow genealogists are willing to help, collaborate, and inspire you.

I hope to see you in my Facebook groups: Fortify Your Family Tree and My Italian Family Tree.

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Finding Ancestral Homelands That Are No Longer There

My son is getting interested in his family history! All these years, I'm sure he saw my hobby as "mommy being crazy for dead people".

I sparked his interest when I said he was one-eighth Polish. That gave him something in common with his Polish girlfriend. Now he's pushing me to find out all I can about his father's mother's father's family tree.

The tough part about the Stefaniak family is they came to America so early, their ship manifest doesn't include a town name. I haven't found naturalization papers, so I'm working with less than perfect sources.

I have found:

• An 1890 ship manifest saying Mr. and Mrs. Stefaniak are from Prussia
• A 1900 and 1905 census saying they're from "Poland (Ger)"
• A 1910 census saying they're from "Ger/Polish"
• A 1920 census saying they're from West Prussia and speak Polish
• Their youngest son's 1930 census saying his parents are from Germany
• The same son's World War I draft registration card saying his father's birthplace is Poland (state or province), Germany (nation)

Rough overlay of Prussia (purple) on today's map, highlighting West Prussia in red.

I'm sure my son will push me to find more genealogical documentation. In the meantime, I have to ask: What's the deal with Prussia? What area was called Prussia in 1890. How exactly did the German/Polish border shift between 1890 and 1940?

A website called the International World History Project has an essay explaining the history of Prussia (http://history-world.org/prussia.htm). Here are the highlights as they relate to the Stefaniak family:

• The people known as Prussi lived around the Vistula River that cuts down the center of today's Poland. The Germanic people kept trying to convert the Prussi to Christianity as early as the 10th century.
• Centuries later, there were ongoing tensions between Germany and Poland. West Prussia had become part of Poland. East Prussia became independent of Poland.
• In the 1700s the Kingdom of Prussia became an enormous power in Europe under King Frederick and his heirs.
• In 1890 when the Stefaniak family came to America, Prussia was a kingdom within Germany under the imperial chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Prussia consisted of a big chunk of the northern parts of today's Germany and Poland. On a map of Prussia in 1890 I can see that West Prussia—as the 1920 census noted their birthplace—includes the area around today's Gdansk, Poland.
• After World War I—after the draft registration card said Mr. Stefaniak was from the state of Poland in the nation of Germany—West Prussia was lost to Poland.
• Prussia ceased to exist in 1947.

This world history solves a family mystery over whether this branch of the family was actually German or Polish. Ethnically, they were Polish. They came from the area that is today's Poland. Their only association with Germany is that their kingdom was part of the nation of Germany at various times.

Now my son can confidently tell his Polish girlfriend that he is one-eighth Polish.

When you come from a place that no longer exists, it feels good to finally be able to put a pin in that map and call it your ancestral homeland. How can you apply this type of history lesson to your own family tree?

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When Did Your Ancestors First Use a Last Name?

Your family tree research has a long way to go if your oldest generation has last names.

Mayflower descendants are thrilled to trace their genealogy back to the early 1600s or beyond. I'm thrilled to have traced my Italian peasant ancestors back to the late 1600s.

But you're in a whole 'nother class of family tree research when you've gotten back to ancestors with no last names. And most of us won't get there.

It's the "The Conqueror" family!
(12th century - Lucien Musset's The Bayeux Tapestry
ISBN 9781843831631, Public Domain, Link

Last names, or surnames, or cognomi in Italian, didn't exist several centuries ago. Most people couldn't read or write, and they didn't travel far. So formal last names weren't needed.

Chinese last names are one very big exception. Around 2852 B.C. it's believed the Chinese emperor ordered his people to adopt last names. Those last names had to come from a sacred poem of the time. This would explain why most Chinese people to this day have as few as 60 last names among them. [source: www.lifescript.com]

In the medieval days of Europe (picture "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), last names weren't needed. Once civilizations began collecting taxes from their people, they started recording their names. They needed a way to tell people apart so they knew who to hound for those taxes.

Enter the surname.

There are four basic surname types.

1. Occupational Surnames

Some Western European cultures began using their trade as a last name (Smith, Shoemaker/Schumacher, Wright, Miller).

2. Patronymic (or Matronymic) Surnames

Some cultures used surnames based on male names (Johnson, Ericson, MacDonald) or female names. The form of a surname meaning "son of the father" takes on a different variation in different cultures:

• Fitzgerald means son of Gerald
• Ivanovich means son of Ivan
• DiGiovanni means son of Giovanni
• Stefanowicz means son of Stefan

3. Topographical Surnames

Some cultures used place names (Palermo, Napoli). Place names might also be a description of a place (Hill, Ford, Glen[n]). The last name Church is common in multiple languages (including Léglise, Iglesias). Place names are also why many Polish names end in -ski. Someone from Gryzbow might be named Gryzbowski.

4. Descriptive Surnames

In some cases the noble class of a society imposed an unflattering surname on someone of a lower class. As time went on, the bad meaning of the surname became accepted as a name and not an insult. Descriptive names can be friendly (Young, Good, Brown/Braun/Bruno) or based on an undesirable characteristic (Basso means short, Grosso means fat). A redhead might be called Russo or Rubino.

As early as the 11th century, people decided to pass this assumed surname to their children, making it a family name. [source: http://forebears.io/surnames]

These basic formations of names explain many of the last names in our family trees.

To learn about name variations, plus surname prefixes (Mc, Mac, Del) and suffixes (etti, ella) in various nationalities, see:

• Australian names
• English names
• French names
• German names
• Italian names
• Polish names
• Scottish names
• Spanish names

It's easy if you're Valerie Bertinelli and a big TV show traces your tree back to William the Conqueror. But for the rest of us, the paper trail may never get us back that far. So don't believe the genealogy fan who tells you their tree goes back to Adam or Noah.

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Family Mystery Solved! Two Lost Boys Found

Months ago I wrote about a family story that's not at all uncommon among immigrant families. (See Searching for the Missing Link in Your Family Tree.)

My great aunt Stella and her husband Attilio had the same last name—Sarracino. Stella told me they had permission to marry because they were absolutely not related.

That wasn't quite true. They weren't closely related, so it was OK for them to marry. But they were indeed cousins.

Attilio Sarracino's 1907 U.S. birth was recorded in Italy in 1909.

I discovered this when I traced Attilio's parents to the same little hamlet in Italy where my great aunt's parents were born. It's the frazione of Pastene in the comune of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo.

I'd already collected the Pastene birth records for Stella Sarracino's parents—my great grandparents. (See How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives.) Then I found the Pastene birth records for Attilio's parents, Carmine and Maria Rosa dell'Aquila.

Carmine and Maria Rosa's story is interesting:

• Carmine came to New York City in 1891 at the age of 25.
• He returned to Pastene and married Maria Rosa in 1898.
• They had a son Equilino in 1899. He was born while Carmine was spending another year in New York City.
• He returned to Pastene and had a son Carlo in 1902, and a daughter Stellina in 1903.
• In 1904, baby Carlo had died, but the rest of the family came to New York City in April.
• In 1905 their son Enrico was born in the Bronx.
• In 1907 their son Attilio was born in the Bronx.
• Between Attilio's June 1907 birth and October 1909, Carmine and Maria Rosa returned to Pastene.

Let me stop right there. In my extended family, it's rare to see a family come to America for a while, and then return to Italy.

When my genealogy research showed me that Carmine and Maria Rosa continued having children in Italy after Enrico and Attilio were born in the Bronx, I thought they had abandoned their boys. I thought they must have left them with relatives.

But why?

They continued:

• In October 1909, daughter Iolanda was born in Pastene.
• In 1911 Carmine made another trip to New York City.
• In June 1911 his daughter Antonia was born in Pastene while Carmine was in New York City.
• In 1916 Carmine was back in Pastene and his son Guido was born.

Attilio's passport photo.

I know that Enrico, born in the Bronx, died in the Bronx at age 80. His brother Attilio, born in the Bronx, died there, tragically, at age 33.

Were they ever reunited with their parents? Or did they only see their father on his occasional trips to America?

The answer was hiding in my downloaded collection of Pastene vital records.

I've been recording the facts from thousands of birth, marriage, and death records in a spreadsheet for easy searching and eventual sharing. (See How to Create Your Ancestral Hometown Database.)

While going through the 1909 birth records for Pastene, I found two records detailing the U.S. births of Enrico in 1905 and Attilio in 1907. These late entries for their births may have been required by the comune of Sant'Angelo to have a record of their inhabitants.

These late birth records are so detailed, they include the address of the house where the boys were born—458 East 150th Street. The records include the names and Bronx addresses of the witnesses to the births.

I know from Attilio's passport records that he returned to New York City in 1924. (See Your Family Tree Needs Your Ancestor's Passport Application.) I also know Enrico was in the Bronx in 1924. He testified that he recognized his brother's passport photo. He hadn't seen his brother since they were together in Italy two years earlier.

Finally this family mystery makes sense. Young Enrico and Attilio were not left behind. They did return to Italy with their parents and siblings. They each lived in Pastene until, like most young men at the time, they were old enough to make their own way in America.

I'm still piecing together facts from my downloaded vital records to discover the exact relationship between my great aunt Stella Sarracino and her dashing young husband, Attilio.

How to Plan an Efficient Genealogy Research Trip

An online genealogy friend recently asked if I needed any New York City vital records. He was heading to the city and offering to do some lookups for me.

Luckily I use the Task planner in Family Tree Maker to keep a list of items I need to find. I categorize this list by the location of the record, if it's found in a specific repository.

Family Tree Maker includes a Plan tab and this Task list.

So in scanning my list of items categorized as "Archives", I was able to pick out the one document I wanted the most. A few minutes later, my friend emailed me the birth certificate I wanted!

My Task list sure came in handy, but I haven't been keeping it up to date. Let's all prepare ourselves to make the most of any genealogy research trip.

The first step is to fill in your Document Tracker with what you have and what you're missing. For a detailed look at how to use a spreadsheet as your document tracker, see Haven't I Seen You Before? and Case Study On 'Haven't I Seen You Before?'.

For documents you can't access online, make note of where you need to go to access them. That location may be in another state or at a particular library.

For example, most of my family lived in New York City in the past. I need to go to the New York City Municipal Archives for their vital records. Or I may be able to access them at a Family History Center.

When planning to visit a particular library or archive, do your homework first! Your research trip will be much more productive.

For example, last year I vacationed in an area close to where my grandmother Lucy was born. I carved out time for a side-trip to her town and set three goals:

1. See the house where Lucy lived as a baby and was probably born.
2. See the railroad yard where her father Pasquale worked.
3. Visit the town library to see old city directories.

Once my great grandparents' house.

Before my trip, I visited the library's website and corresponded with a librarian. I confirmed that the library had city directories for the years around my grandmother's birth.

My first stop on this side trip was the library's cabinet of city directories. I combed through those books for up to an hour without finding a single listing for my great grandfather Pasquale, no matter which variation of his name I used.

What I failed to do was work with the librarian to see if any other documents from the early 1900s might be useful to me. Was there an old map or photographs showing Pasquale's house at the time of his marriage? That address is a baseball field now. Did they have books about the local railroad station from the time Pasquale worked there?

After the library, I drove to the house where my grandmother Lucy and her parents had lived. I got out of the car and walked up and down the sidewalk to get a good look at the house and the yard. I could picture Pasquale there, tending to his garden.

Pasquale's train station is a museum now.

Next I drove to the train station where Pasquale worked. The station is no longer active, and the depot is now a museum. That was great news! The only problem was it was closed that day.

If I'd done more homework, I could have timed my visit so I could tour that museum. Now I need to make another trip there.

On the way to the train station I passed the Catholic church, St. Ann's. I knew that one of my great grandmother's brothers was married in that church.

Somehow it didn't occur to me that my great grandparents were probably married there, too! I should have gone inside! Months later I learned that the church graveyard contains many people named Caruso—all my cousins.

I enjoyed that side trip tremendously. Standing in front of my ancestors' house, and walking along the tracks where Pasquale worked—that was a wonderful feeling!

But I didn't learn very much, and I didn't do enough to strengthen my family tree.

Here's what I'll do before my next research trip. I hope you'll learn from my mistakes, too.

• Start with the list of items you need to find for your family tree.
• Expand that list to include the basic facts you know about the ancestor in question. For example, on a recent visit to a Family History Center to view several rolls of microfilm, I brought a list of what I hoped to find on each different roll. The list includes when I expected to find my great great grandparents' marriage. It includes when I believe they were born. And it includes other names I want to confirm.
• Get familiar with what's available at the archives, library, or museum you're planning to visit. You don't want to miss out on a collection because you were focused only on another collection.
• Think beyond the dates and names you're seeking. If you're visiting an ancestor's hometown, where did they work? Where did they worship? Where were they buried?

My father has a saying that we kids are tired of hearing, but we know he's right. He calls it the 5 P's: "Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance".

Before I go off on another family history adventure 5 hours from home, I will do my homework and remember my 5 P's.

Now it's time to start my Prior Planning for my next visit to my ancestral hometowns in Italy. I don't want to waste a second of that trip!

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