How to Build a Broad Family Tree and Unite Strangers

Results of Following Genealogy Best Practices, Part 1

A year and a half ago I didn't know I had a genealogy philosophy. That after years of working on my family tree, I'd developed sure-fire methods I rely upon. When I realized how crucial these methods are to my family tree, I decided to blog about it.

Now I'm putting my own philosophy to the test. Today let's take a look at one method I write about a lot.

Collect All the Documents

A tiny sampling of the Leone's
from my grandfather's hometown.

I believe in examining every available vital record from your ancestor's town. The benefits of this method are unbeatable.

First you'll need to find out if records from your ancestral hometown are available. They may be on FamilySearch.org or you may need to visit the collection in person. If you're Italian like me, you may find your town's documents on the Antenati website.

You may find the language and handwriting tough on documents from a different country. That problem can almost entirely disappear as you go through many, many documents.

Several years ago I set out to gather information from every vital record from my grandfather's hometown of Baselice, Italy. I visited my local Family History Center countless times to scroll through the microfilmed documents from 1809 through 1860.

I realized the only way to know who my relatives were was to document everyone.

It took me years! I sat there with a computer in my lap and typed the information I saw. I developed an efficient shorthand so I could go home with my text file and record everyone in Family Tree Maker. The result: a town-wide tree of almost 16,000 people, more than 10,000 of which had a connection to me by blood or marriage. (See Families of Baselice.)

You see, in the 1800s, people couldn't travel as easily as we do today. They married someone in town. The same families intermarried a number of times. Everyone was related!

I began posting my enormous town tree on several websites. To this day, people with roots in that town are contacting me and adding 4 or 5 generations to their own family trees.

Here's how going through an entire town's records can help you:

Name recognition

In small towns, or city neighborhoods, you'll see a lot of the same names repeated. You wouldn't believe how fast I got at typing names like Mariantonia, Michelarcangelo, Lapastoressa and Gianquitto because of the repetition.

But speed isn't the benefit. It's knowing the town's names so well that you can read them no matter how bad the handwriting or how damaged the document.

Language comprehension

I see lots of people on Facebook asking others to interpret old records because they don't understand Italian. They don't know yet that you don't have to speak the language to understand the names, dates and facts on a vital record.

The more foreign-language records you view, the more that language becomes second nature. You'll learn the words for born, married, died, spouse, all the numbers and months of the year. And you'll know where on the document to look for them.

Scope of relationships

When I started looking at Baselice records, I was searching for anyone named Leone. Right away I realized I couldn't tell how any of them were related to me unless I spread out. I had to find other children born to the couple I learned was my great grandfather's parents. Then I had to see who those other children married. And then I went back more generations.

It was documenting everyone that gained me 10,000 relatives. And that's why my tree continues to find delighted Baselice descendants to this day.

Today I can download those Italian records to my computer. The clarity blows those ancient microfilm projectors out of the water. So I am doing for my other ancestors' towns what I did for Baselice. In one weekend I added 4 generations to my cousin's tree. It was amazingly easy.

So I will continue to recommend you don't stay on the straight and narrow path of your direct-line ancestors. Your family tree has an endless amount of rich data to gain by spending time with all the documents you can find.

Learn more about the Italian records collection:

• Why I Recorded More Than 30,000 Documents
• Step-by-Step Discovery of My 5th Great Grandparents
• Finding the Siblings Your Ancestor Never Mentioned

How to Prepare for Your Visit to Your Ancestor's Hometown

The first time I visited my grandfather's hometown in Italy, I got stranded there. My husband and I went there without a plan. We boarded a train to the city of Benevento. Then we asked for help in getting to my ancestral hometown of Colle Sannita. We got on a bus to Colle with a bunch of college students.

The church some of my ancestors attended
in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, Italy.

The students were so helpful. They told us what time we needed to catch the last bus back to Benevento. They gave us the name of a nice hotel in Colle in case we wanted to stay. They bid us "Arrivederci" at our stop.

We wandered around town for a while, but we had only 45 minutes until the last bus of the day! On our way to the bus stop we stopped at a bank for some cash. That's where we were stranded. You can read that crazy little story on my honeymoon website.

Two years later I had become an amateur genealogist, and I did a much better job of planning my trip to Italy. Somehow the webmaster of the Colle Sannita website gave me contact information for one of my Colle Sannita cousins in America! So when my husband and I returned to Colle, we met almost three dozen relatives. I documented that visit on my website, too. Please don't judge me for my fanny-pack. I don't know what I was thinking.

Twelve years later, we're finally planning another visit to my ancestral homeland. This time I have a few more things I want to see besides the cemeteries.

If you're American, Australian, or Canadian, chances are your ancestors were somewhere else a few generations or a few hundred years ago. If you're lucky enough to visit your ancestors' homeland, you can experience the feeling I had. The welling up of emotion. The feeling of a deep connection.

You know where you've seen that feeling? On most episodes of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

So when you go, here are some of the places and people you can plan to visit.

Your Ancestor's Home or Neighborhood

If you've collected vital records for your ancestors, see if they show an address or a neighborhood. I didn't have these documents and addresses before. But on this trip, I want to stand outside the house where my other grandfather was born, the other house where his father died, and a bunch more.

Your Living Relatives

I've found a few more of my Italian relatives on Facebook. Someone recommended a Facebook group for people from my other grandfather's town of Baselice. I posted an image there of my grandfather's house and started a conversation about him. Two of my Italian cousins saw the conversation and said hello to me. It turns out I already know their brother with whom I've corresponded for several years.

On this trip I hope to meet these relatives as well as visiting those I met 12 years ago.

The Town's Cemetery

In 2005 I visited three cemeteries in Italy. We photographed every grave with a name I knew, but I didn't know who the people were. Later, with help from cousins and my research, I discovered my relationship to nearly every one of the people whose graves I'd visited.

This time I would like to see three more cemeteries. I never went to the Colle Sannita cemetery because I had so many living relatives to visit. But I'd like to see it. I've since discovered two neighboring towns where my great great grandparents had two children who died young. I don't expect to see their graves after so many years, but I do expect to see the last name of Consolazio.

The Town Center

One of my biggest regrets about my two visits to Colle Sannita is how little time I spent in the town piazza. There's a statue there, dedicated to the town's fallen World War I soldiers. I took two photos of it, but I should have carefully photographed the names carved into the statue's base.

I want to experience being in the piazza from each of my Italian hometowns. I want to feel what my life might have been if my ancestors hadn't come to America for a more prosperous life.

So now I need to get busy. Busy making lists of the places I want to be. Plotting them on a map. Reaching out to the people I want to visit.

I want to have that tears-in-the-eyes feeling you see on every subject of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

You may also enjoy:

• How I'm Methodically Finding My Missing Ancestors
• How I Tracked Down My 4th Great Grandmother's Parents
• Grandpa's Journeys Shed Light On My Own

4 Ways to Decide Where to Spend Your Family Tree Research Time

The more time you spend on this exciting adventure we call genealogy, the more branches your family tree has.

Your parents form two branches. Your grandparents form four branches. And if you've been lucky, your great great great grandparents form 32 branches.

Thirty-two branches! On my paternal grandfather's branch, I've identified the names of four of my 9th great grandparents. That gives me several hundred branches to explore.

Yeah, I've got a lot of branches to work on.

Oh dear. I think I need to lie down a moment.

So how do you decide where to focus your energy when you sit down to work on your family tree?

Here are four tactics you can use to focus your family research for better results. Better results equals more enjoyment!

1. Choose an Ancestor with Special Meaning to You

Marianna Iammucci

I have a photo of my great grandmother Marianna Iammucci, and it is striking how much I look like her. Once I found her 1856 birth record, I wanted to find all her siblings and work my way up her family tree. I've used available vital records to work back to my 6th great grandfather, Giovanni Iammucci, born about 1698. To go any further on that branch, I'll need access to very old local church records.

Which of your ancestors intrigues you the most? Which do you feel a strong kinship with?

2. Choose Your Most Stubborn Brick Wall

You may be sick of banging your head against that brick wall, but document everything—thoroughly. Document what you have found, which facts are uncertain, and where you've looked. This can help you get a more focused research plan when you're:

• taking advantage of a professional consultation session at a genealogy event
• deciding to hire a pro.

3. Focus on a Surviving Relative's Branch

Don't squander the chance to learn names and places and stories from an elderly family member. I got my first taste of genealogy when I brought my first baby to visit my grandmother. I asked Grandma to tell me about her family because there was a family tree page in my son's keepsake baby book.

Years later, genealogy became my full-fledged obsession. I found my notes from that conversation with Grandma. Everything she'd told me was correct, and now I had a bunch of documents to prove it all. Make good use of your priceless resources while you can.

4. Exhaust Available Resources

Many of my ancestors' names are waiting for me in my collection of downloaded Italian records. You may have found one or more of your ancestral hometowns' records on the Antenati website. (Learn How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives.) Or you may have a different resource from wherever your ancestors were born.

Whatever place-specific resource you have access to, harvest it! Search for your people generation by generation. Search for siblings' births. Search for marriages and deaths. Uncover every fact the collection holds for your family tree.

Last week I downloaded every available vital record from the town of Circello, Italy. I've known for a long time that this is the town my uncle's (on my mother's side, not by blood) family came from. But that research was on the back burner.

Then I discovered a few things that made Circello more important to me:

• My 3rd great grandfather, who married and died in my grandfather's town, was born in Circello.
• My uncle, whose ancestors are from Circello, may be related to my father's side of the family by blood. This discovery comes from several DNA tests.
• I've met two people with Circello ancestors who share my uncle's last name, and some of my last names.

Now I'm more eager to build out my uncle's family tree, and explore the trees of the two people I've met with his last name. My goal is to connect as many people as possible. Exhausting the records from Circello may connect us all.

I still enjoy following tangents now and then. I'll fill out a distant relative's branch because it's easy and interesting. But it's more fulfilling to focus on one area at a time—breaking your way through generation after generation.

Do you have different techniques you use to focus your research? Please share them in the comment section below.

You may also enjoy:

• Free DNA Analysis Finds Kissing Cousins
• A Resolution You'll Want to Keep
• First-Year Genealogy Highlights

4 Ways to Fit Genealogy into Your Busy Day

Don't stress about it. Do your
genealogy in stolen moments.

Does this sound familiar? You haven't worked on your genealogy in a while because you're busy at your new job. Or your kids had the flu. Or you haven't had a weekend to yourself in months.

It's easy to postpone your family history research, even though you love it so much. But if you put it off, your research plans are no longer fresh in your mind. It gets harder and harder to pick up where you left off. You can feel as if you're not getting anywhere.

You can break that cycle! By carving out even the smallest amount of time each day, or several days a week, you can keep your head in the game.

Here are 4 things you can do in a small block of time that will strengthen your family tree research.

1. Work on One Person

Choose one family member that's of great interest to you and look at their timeline of facts. What's missing? Do you need to find a birth record, death record, military record? Choose one type of record and do an online search. Important: Make note of where you searched and where you plan to search. Then you can pick up where you left off next time. (See Where Did Grandpa Come From?)

2. Stop Ignoring Sources

Take a look at your source citations. Are they good enough to be useful when someone has inherited your family tree research? Work your way through and improve them. If you tackle them alphabetically, it'll be easy to make a note of where you stopped so you can continue the next time. (See Trade Up to Better Family History Sources.)

3. Get Consistent

Are you consistent in the way you record facts? Would you rather record last names in all capital letters? Do you wish you'd started with a different date format (I like DD Mon YYYY)? Choose one item and work your way through correcting or changing them. This can be an enormous task if you have several thousand people in your tree. But won't the consistency make your work so much better? (See Organize Your Genealogy Research By Choosing Your Style.)

4. Add Value to Documents

Look at your media collection. You may have photos of people and lots of images of documents. Does each image, on its own, contain facts that make it more valuable? I've gone through each of my hundreds and hundreds of census images and annotated them. People borrow my images from my Ancestry.com tree all the time. They're getting a lot of information about where the image came from and which line numbers to look at. (See Who's Borrowing Your Family Tree?.)

These are tasks that don't demand you spend several uninterrupted hours. If you're disciplined and take research notes, you can make progress on the big picture each day. In small blocks of time.

So where will you find that small block of time? You could:

• wake up a few minutes earlier each day
• give up one TV show you don't care that much about
• bring your laptop or tablet with you when you're waiting to pick up the kids or see the doctor. Or while you get someone else to clear away the dinner dishes for a change.

Genealogy is a fascinating, time-consuming hobby that we love. But don't think of it as requiring six hours at a time.

With some planning, you can keep up your momentum and make progress. You only have to try.

How to Connect the Dots to Your Possible Relatives

You've got your DNA matches. You've got people who share a bunch of your last names. You've probably ID'd a lot of possible relatives.

How will you find your connection to them? How will you connect those dots and figure out if and how you're related?

I've got a handful of these challenges on my plate right now.

Your roots probably spill over to the next town. Don't overlook them!

All my ancestors came from a small area in Italy, not much bigger than my home county here in New York. So when someone has a family tree filled with last names I know well, we're probably distant cousins.

Discovering that one marriage from long ago that connects you to your leads will be tough. It'll take a lot of time. You'll need to examine a ton of documents.

That's why you must follow the first rule: Enjoy the search! If you're not pursuing this mystery because it gives you pleasure, you may as well skip it.

To work with my possible relatives, I ask for details at their grandparent and great grandparent level. What names and dates do they have?

Last year I downloaded every available vital record from my ancestors' four Italian towns. Now I'm branching out. I'm downloading a neighboring town and looking at still another.

With these document collections on my computer, I can try to find birth and marriage records for the names I know. Then I can look for their siblings' births.

I can piece together that family while checking familiar names against my own family tree. If I'm very lucky, I may find a set of marriage documents that includes death records.

In Italy in the 1800s, if a couple married and any of their four parents were dead, that death certificate was included in the marriage records. If either of their fathers was dead and their grandfathers were also dead, the documents include the grandfathers' death certificates. You know what's on their grandfathers' death certificates? Their grandfathers' parents names.

Think about that for a second. A couple's marriage records can give you the names of their great grandparents!

The wider you expand the family of your possible relative, the more likely you are to find a connection. There's a good chance you'll provide them with names and documents they don't have.

Right now I'm searching the documents from that neighboring town because:

• A contact with my great grandmother's last name has roots there.
• My first cousin, whose DNA matches him to BOTH of my parents, has roots there.
• A contact with my first cousin's last name (and ancestors with my maiden name) has roots there and in my grandfather's town.
• One branch of my father's tree has roots there.

There's a good chance I have some relationship to a big chunk of that neighboring town.

And the search does make me happy. I'm connecting myself to thousands of people across the world.

If you enjoy this hobby, cast a wide net. The genealogy community is a friendly, sharing, welcoming network of people. In the end, we've got more in common than meets the eye.

You may also enjoy:

• How I Tracked Down My 4th Great Grandmother's Parents
• When to Cut a Branch Off Your Family Tree
• Free DNA Analysis Finds Kissing Cousins

How to Turn a Hunch into Facts for Your Family Tree

I rarely come up with a hypothesis about my family tree. An idea that might be the truth. But this week I formed a logical theory.

A theory gives you some facts to work with when you have little or none. Then you can do the work to prove your theory true or false.

Here's an example for you. See if this can apply to your family tree research.

Work through the details of your theory to prove it true or false.

In 2008 I discovered the location of several of my third cousins outside Pittsburgh. Soon after my discovery, my husband and I were heading to Pittsburgh for his cousin's wedding. The stars aligned, and my newfound cousin invited me to her home on the day of a big family party.

One of my third cousins is very interested in genealogy. She and I worked together for weeks to build out her portion of the family tree. She gave me facts and photos, and I gave her an amazing tree to print out.

One fact she provided didn't sit right with me. It was her grandmother's name. The family knew her as Louise Villnaci deBellis.

Since she was born in Italy, I was sure her given name was Luisa, not Louise, but that's no big deal.

The part that bothered me was her middle name. Villnaci? That's not a proper Italian name. And it isn't a middle name. Something was wrong there.

Fast forward ten years. Now I have the Antenati (ancestors) website that offers Italian birth, marriage and death records dating back to 1809. I've downloaded every record for my ancestral hometowns.

One of my towns is Sant'Angelo a Cupolo in the province of Benevento and it's smaller hamlet of Pastene. That's where my grandmother's first cousin Giuseppe—Luisa's husband—came from. I began to notice in those records that deBellis was a bit common and Villanacci was a bit common.

Aha! Villanacci. That's a proper Italian name. Surely that's what "Villnaci" was supposed to be.

So I figured Luisa deBellis' "middle name" was Villanacci. That makes sense.

But the concept of a surname as a middle name doesn't fit this period in Italy. So where did Luisa's Villanacci come from?

Luisa was born in 1895, and of course that one year is missing from the Antenati records. Searching records around 1895, I found a baby born to Luigi deBellis and Luigia Villanacci.

Ooooh. Now that sounds like a theory! What if Luisa, who left her family to come to America, wanted to make sure her descendants didn't forget the Villanacci name? What if she was holding onto her mother's last name to preserve it?

Based on my theory that Luisa was the child of Luigi deBellis and Luigia Villanacci, I went through the records to find all their children:

• Maria Carmela, born 1881
• Assunta, born 1882
• Filomena, born 1884
• Saverio, born 1886
• Carmine Vincenzino, born 1888

I found no other children for this couple, but they could have had Luisa in 1895.

On most of her children's birth records, Luigia Villanacci's father's name is Angelantonio. Luigia was born around 1862, so I found her birth record on 14 February 1862. Her father was Angelantonio and her mother was Maria Maddalena Sarracino.

Bonus! Luisa's husband—my grandmother's first cousin—was also a Sarracino. It's a small town. I found one sister for Luigia Villanacci named Mariassunta, born in 1864, and their grandfather was Giuseppe Villanacci.

So that is my theory. That "Louise Villnaci deBellis" was Luisa deBellis, born to Luigi deBellis and Luigia Villanacci.

Now, to prove it. Without her birth record!

Where would you begin?

I've added the five children above, Luigi and Luigia, and Luigia's parents and sister to my tree. I included a note that this is a theory under investigation.

I did that yesterday, and today Ancestry.com gave me a hint. It's for Filomena deBellis, the possible sister of Luisa deBellis. Filomena came to America, married Vincent Ragognetti.

I know she's the right Filomena because her Social Security Application and Claims Index names her parents, Luigi de Bellis and Luigia Villanacci. And it calls her Filomena Ragognetti. In the 1925 New York Census, Filomena is in Manhattan with her husband Vincent and their three kids. In 1939 Filomena died in the Bronx.

This is how I will prove or disprove my theory. Now, I could buy Luisa's death or marriage record online and hope they give her parents' names.

But first, I can search for every possible fact about the five people I think are her siblings. Maybe one of them will have a document that ties them to my Luisa.

Luisa married Giuseppe Sarracino in Manhattan in 1918. Maybe she lived with one of her siblings before her marriage. Maybe her immigration record will mention her mother's name.

This is how you can turn a theory into facts.

Take a look at one of the dead-ends in your family tree. Someone for whom you have no parents, no immigration record, no siblings. Can you form a theory?

Maybe it's a theory based on facts from their hometown. Or maybe it's a theory based on where they lived and those who lived near them.

Pick your theory apart, fact by fact. Verify everything you can. Add to the puzzle. Prove or disprove parts of your theory.

Investigating everyone around your ancestor can unlock their mysteries.

You may also enjoy:

• How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives (the Antenati)
• Becoming Italian Was a Long, Hard Journey
• Start Your Rainy-Day Genealogy List