4 Steps to Break Through Your Brick Wall

To paraphrase "The Matrix", only try to realize the truth. There is no wall.

Every genealogy fan has at least one brick wall that drives them crazy. And we all want to know the secret: How do I break through my brick wall?

Since everyone's brick wall is different, we've got to take a few steps before we can start to break through.

1. Define a Specific Problem

The first step in breaking through a brick wall is clearly defining one specific problem.

When I was starting to build my family tree, I got pretty far on my dad's side. But his mother's mother—Maria Rosa Caruso—quickly became my brick wall. I couldn't get anywhere on her line.

Is that when we decide something is a brick wall? When we can't move beyond this one person?

Not long ago, I couldn't even find her parents' names. Look at her branch now.

You can define the problem by stating one key fact you're missing. What is it that's holding you back?

My Brick Wall Definition: I can't find Maria Rosa Caruso on a ship manifest because I don't know her hometown in Italy.

My definition isn't "I can't fill out her branch of my family tree". It's smaller. It's the next step I need to take but can't. I need to find her coming to America, but I can't positively identify her without her hometown.

2. Build on What You Can Find

Many years ago, a cousin-in-law found me on an Italian genealogy message board. Her husband is also the great grandchild of Maria Rosa Caruso. But he had the advantage of growing up with her and the Ohio part of my family.

My new-found relatives told me the name of Maria Rosa's hometown: Pescolamazza. (See what to do when your hometown isn't on the map.)

Now I could find her on a ship manifest. And I learned that she came to America—4 months before marrying my great grandfather—to join her brother Giuseppe. So I searched for Giuseppe, too.

I began to piece together several Caruso siblings and the places where they lived. Some of the siblings' ship manifests told me their father's name. My great great grandfather was Francesco Saverio Caruso.

3. Compare Available Documents

It was Maria Rosa's brothers' documents that gave me clues to my great great grandmother's name.

One record transcribed their mother's name as Maria L. Gilardo. Another record transcribed her last name as Girandiu. My great uncle Giuseppe Caruso's death certificate Americanized his mother's name as Marie Gerard. (See This Expanded Resource Provided an Elusive Maiden Name.)

When I compared the 3 versions of the name—Gilardo, Girandiu, Gerard—I had a hunch her name was Girardi.

That felt like a victory, but I still didn't know for sure.

4. Seek Out New Documents

Then a glorious day arrived. The Italian genealogy archives website (Antenati) posted the vital records from Pescolamazza. I found my great grandmother Maria Rosa's 1880 birth record, and the surprise birth record of her twin brother.

This revelation came about 14 years after my search began.

Her birth record confirmed, finally, my great great grandmother's name: Maria Luigia Girardi. I admit, I got lucky when those Italian vital records from the town went online.

Her hometown was the one brick that brought down the wall.

You can chip away at your brick wall by breaking it into smaller problems.

"I can't get beyond this one relative," you say.

What clues can you find about where they came from? Can you discover more about their relatives whose names you do know? Which documents might hold a clue? Immigration records, death records, wills, applications, pension forms?

If you can knock out enough individual bricks, your brick wall can collapse. And what a wonderful mess that will be.

Ask One Question for Better Genealogy Results

I followed this basic research advice and made an absolute genealogy killing.

Last week I watched YouTube videos by Crista Cowan, a chief genealogist at Ancestry.com. Crista recommends you start each genealogy research session with a question.

What do you want to know? Form a question, then figure out which documents might hold the answer. As you search:

• keep that question in mind
• think about what other documents might help.

Yesterday I realized I was doing exactly what Crista described. I'd heard from a new DNA match whose paternal grandparents' last names were familiar to me. Her grandmother's name seemed like a misspelling of my grandmother's name, Sarracino.

Here's what my thought process looked like.

My 1st Question: Was Concetta Saraceno really Concetta Sarracino?
Documents to search: U.S. and New York censuses

I needed to find Concetta and her husband in the U.S. census. All I had were their names and approximate birth years. A census can tell you an immigration year. An immigration record can tell you a hometown.

On the 1915 New York census, Concetta and her husband and kids live with her parents. Their names are Mike and Antonia Sarracino. Mike Sarracino was born in 1858. I needed to check other census years.

I found Concetta's father's name as Angelo more than Mike. And there's always a different misspelling of Sarracino. On the 1900 census he's Angelo M Sarracino. He's married, but alone.

Based on census records, I do think Concetta Saraceno is Concetta Sarracino. They even lived on the same Bronx street as my grandmother and her family. But it's only circumstantial evidence.

Each document you find will hold some sort of clue.

My 2nd Question: Where did Concetta and her father come from in Italy?
Documents to search: Immigration and naturalization papers

I searched for Angelo Sarracino's immigration and naturalization papers. I found his U.S. passport application.

Was he from the same little hamlet as my Sarracino ancestors? They were from Pastene ending in an E. There's a different town of Pastena ending in an A.

In fact, there are a few towns named Pastena ending in an A. But none of them are in my family's Benevento province.

He signed his passport application as Angelo Michele Sarracino. The document states the following:

• Angelo Michele Sarracino was born on 29 Sep 1858 in Pastena, Benevento. If it didn't say "Benevento" I would think it was the wrong town.
• His wife is Mariantonia Bianchini. She is Antonia on the 1915 census, but that's very common.
• He has a daughter Concetta who was born on 5 Feb 1886 in Pastena, Benevento.
• He has a daughter Rosaria who was born on 22 Sep 1888 in Pastena, Benevento.

The document also has some immigration dates I can research. But what made me light up was his witness. The signature is a name I know well. It's a name from my family's town. He signed the paper:

Pastore Carmine
Pastene

...ending in an E.

With Concetta and Rosaria's birth dates, I can check my collection of Pastene vital records.

Of course, they're not there.

My 3rd Question: Did Angelo Michele Sarracino return to Italy to bring back his wife and daughters?
Documents to search: Ship manifests

Angelo's passport application says he was in the U.S. continuously from 1890 to May 1904.

He went home to Italy on 31 May 1904. Now, in June 1904, he's preparing to return to New York.

I searched passengers lists for Angelo Michele Sarracino in 1904. No luck. I searched for Concetta Sarracino, his daughter. No luck. I searched for Mariantonia Bianchini, his wife. And I found the whole family.

Who else is with your people when you find them?

The ship manifest says Angelo was in America from 1894–1904, but his wife and children were not. Because Angelo was a U.S. citizen, the whole family gets discharged on the pier.

Their hometown is still infuriatingly written as Pastena. But there's a welcome surprise on the next line. It's Angelo Muollo and his family from just outside Pastene. This is my family. My great grandfather Giovanni Sarracino's mother was a Muollo.

The ship manifest doesn't list a family member in Italy. So I can't connect Angelo—and my DNA match—to other Sarracino family members. The birth records for Pastene are not available before 1861.

My 4th Question: How can I connect Angelo to my family?
Documents to search: Vital records

I couldn't find Concetta and Rosaria's birth records. But then I remembered what happened with my great grandfather. He was born in Pastene in 1876. But his father didn't officially declare the birth until 1898. He had to do it so Giovanni could legally marry.

Maybe Concetta and Rosaria's births were filed late, too. Maybe they were registered just in time to sail to America.

I searched the town's birth records year-by-year, starting in 1904 and going backward. I found 3 other Sarracino's whose birth were reported years late. What was up with my family?

Finally I found the goods. On his 1904 passport application, Angelo got his daughter Rosaria's birth date wrong. I found her exactly one year later. She was born on 22 Sep 1889, not 1888. And I learned that Angelo's father-in-law was Giovanni.

Gasp! Does that mean I might find Concetta's birth record in the wrong year, too? Yes it does! Concetta Maria Domenica Sarracino was born one year later than it says on her father's passport.

This is why I keep all the vital records on my computer!

Now I'm sure my new DNA match is a Sarracino from Pastene like me and my mom. I still don't know who Angelo's father was, so I don't know the exact relationship.

My 5th Question: How can I find the names of Angelo's parents?
Documents to search: More vital records

An Ancestry search tells me Angelo died in New York on 7 Feb 1931. His Manhattan death certificate is number 4251. But I can only see it by visiting the New York City Municipal Archives. I'm not able to do that.

My last resort is to go through all the vital records I have from Pastene. I may be able to piece together Angelo and his wife's families. Only then will I know my exact relationship to my DNA match.

I didn't even mention how I tracked down my match's grandfather with only his name and birth year. Census forms and ship manifests led me to a town called San Nicola Manfredi. Would you believe it's the town next door to Pastene?

So, to make your genealogy research more productive, follow Crista Cowan's advice. Ask the question and figure out which records can get you the answer.

And speaking of research efficiency:

• Work in Batches to Strengthen Your Family Tree
• How To Run Your Genealogy Research Like Clockwork
• 3 Ways to Find Your Ancestors in a Huge Pile of Documents

Don't Rely on Your DNA Match to Do the Work

Want to get your money's worth out of your DNA test? Build up your tree.

When I look at my long list of DNA matches, most of them fall into the 4th-6th cousin level and further. You connect to your 4th cousins through your 3rd great grandparents.

If you haven't identified your 3rd great grandparents yet, that should be your goal. But that's only the beginning. You need to find the names of all their children. Then find as many of the kids' marriages and children as possible.

These 3 DNA matches link together
my mother and father.

That's where you'll find your match to your DNA cousins. And then, hopefully, you'll learn a lot more about those branches.

Ancestry DNA identifies most of my DNA matches as Mother's Side or Father's Side. And then there are my glorious three labeled Both Sides.

My "Both Sides" matches are my best bet for figuring out the answer to a big question: How are my parents related? Their DNA connection is at about the 4th-to-6th cousin level.

One of these uber-DNA matches has no tree. So I'm working on the other two. Here's how.

1. Find a Familiar Name

One of my matches has a tree with 220 people. She and I don't have any last names in common. But I looked for her Italian names, hoping to find a familiar one. And I did. The tree contains a father and son with the last name Zerrillo. I recognize that name. And my match knows the father was born in Colle Sannita, Italy. That's my paternal grandfather's hometown.

My other match has a tree with more than 1,300 people. We share one last name: Pozzuto. Pozzuto is a Colle Sannita name, too. There must be thousands of Colle Sannita descendants all around the world.

I haven't linked them to my family yet, but give me time.

2. Use the Clues to Build the Branch

My Zerrillo match knew the birth date of the father, Dan Zerrillo. Always keep an open mind and use your genealogy knowledge. An Italian in 1896? I knew "Dan" wasn't his name. I was betting on Donato.

So I went to the collection of Italian vital records I keep on my computer. I opened up the 1896 birth records and went to the index. And there he was. Donato Zerrillo. Then I began to climb.

Donato's 1896 birth record lists his parents as Francesco, born about 1855, and Libera Piacquadio. Piacquadio is one of my family names. I found Libera's 1855 birth record.

Now I had her parents: Francesco, son of Giovanni, born about 1830, and Maddalena Zeolla, born about 1832. (Another family name.) I found Francesco's birth record in 1829.

Now I had his parents: Giovanni Piacquadio, born about 1803, and Annaelena Totaro, born about 1804. At this point, I'd gone back far enough to be able to search for this couple's marriage record. Not every year's marriage records are available.

Their son was born in 1829 when they were still pretty young. I started in 1828 and searched year after year of marriage records until I found them.

Giovanna and Annaelena married in 1823. Now I have their parents: Francesco Piacquadio and Maria Iamarino (hey, that's my name!), and Carlo Totaro and Donata Nigro.

But Italian marriage records don't stop there. The groom's father, Francesco, was dead. So I have his death record with his parents' names. And the bride's father, Carlo, was dead. So I have his parents, too!

In almost no time, I turned one name in my match's tree into 16 names. And I have more leads to follow.

3. Dig Until You Find a Match in Your Tree

My personal research library gives me an edge my DNA matches don't have.

So far, though, I haven't connected any of these people to my family tree. But I will.

For my Pozzuto match, I took one person from her tree and found his birth record. Two generations later, they tied into a family that's in my tree, but not connected to me yet. You see, I know the name Pozzuto will connect me to many of my DNA matches. So I've been piecing together Pozzuto families from the town's vital records.

4. Contact Your DNA Match

They usually don't answer, right? But if you write to say, "I just added 20,000 people to your family tree," they might write back!

And if you have done some successful work on their branch, you should definitely let them know. But remember. Some DNA testers are only in it for the pie.

Have you seen these?

• 4 Tips to Help You Find that Missing Ancestor
• Do These 3 Things Before You Add Another Name to Your Family Tree
• How to Understand Your Ancestors' Marriage and Remarriage Customs

Your All-in-One Family Tree Clean-up List

Use this checklist of 7 tasks to scrub your family tree clean.

I want to help you make your family tree better and more professional. That's why I've been writing these genealogy articles twice a week for more than two years.

Today we'll look at 7 types of family tree clean-up tasks. Together they can improve your tree in so many ways.

1. Names

Does every name in your family tree meet your standards?

• Maiden names. It's a genealogy best-practice to record women using their maiden name. Let them have their own identity.
• Unknown names. When you haven't discovered someone's first or last name, consider recording it as _____. This makes it clear you haven't yet filled in that blank. Credit for this goes to Ancestry.com expert Crista Cowan. I used to use the word "Unknown", but a relative of mine misunderstood that. She said, "Oh, I'm sure she knew her name." I was stunned.
• Names only. Some people will record a person's name as Grandma Johnson, or Jane Dad's great aunt. If you put notes on people's names, you're not helping relatives and DNA matches to find you.
• More than one name. I insist on recording everyone's birth name. I'll add other names (nicknames, Anglicized names, and legal name changes) in the description field of a person's birth fact because it's a highly visible spot.

For more on this topic see This Genealogy Policy Takes the Guesswork Out of Names.

2. Places

Make sure the place names in your tree follow a consistent style. Family Tree Maker organizes your place names when they're written the right way. It's easy to click a country, then a state or province, then a town, and find a place. And with a click you'll see every name associated with a place.

For more on this topic see 3 Housekeeping Tasks for a Professional-Quality Family Tree and 4 Types of Family Tree Errors Only You Can Find.

Once I saw how nicely Family Tree Maker organizes place names, I cleaned them all up.

3. Media Files

Remember when you first got started in genealogy? I know I was downloading census sheets and ship manifests as fast as I could find them.

All those media files need a facelift. And it will make them believable and valuable as evidence of your ancestor. Here's how I mark up each document image in my family tree:

• Write a caption. Start with a year to force media items to display in date order. Make it clear what each document is.
• Add the date. Documents will almost always have an exact date on them. Add this to the date field.
• Choose a category. Family Tree Maker lets me pick a category from their list, or add custom categories. Now I can sort my thousands of media files by type.
• Describe everything about the document image. I add enough information to allow myself or anyone else to find the original image again. That includes line numbers on the page, a description of the document collection, and a URL.
• Add a note. There is a notes tab for each media item in Family Tree Maker. You can type any information in there. Maybe you need to record who you wrote to to get this image.

For more on this topic see Add Proof and a Breadcrumb to Family Tree Documents, and How to Increase the Value of Your Family Tree Images.

4. Sources

I like to keep my sources simple. But I've been adding more and more detail to them.

I use a simple title, like "1900 U.S. Federal Census". A short title doesn't clutter up the person view in Family Tree Maker.

I copy the citation details and citation text from the collection. For example, for the 1900 U.S. Federal Census:

• The citation detail is:
  
  Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
• The citation text is:
  
  United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.
• The web address where you find those details and can search this collection is:
  
  https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7602

Having a neat, tight list of sources makes them easy to maintain and make better.

I like that I can click any source in my tree and see every person and fact that's associated with it. I have a goal to get rid of secondary sources—like other people's trees. I need to replace them with primary sources. My source list makes it easy to find the facts I need to work on.

For more on this topic see 6 Easy Steps to Valuable Source Citations.

5. Filing

People seem to worry a lot about their document filing systems. Don't overthink it. Keep it simple and logical. Remember that you may pass your work on to a loved one some day.

What's logical to me is a folder for each main type of document:

• census
• draft cards
• ship manifests
• birth, marriage, and death certificates, etc.

I name my files, in general, LastnameFirstnameYear. Here are some of my file names:

• RignaneseMatteoNaturalization1944-p1.jpg
• CiottiMariaTeresaConcettaBirth1848.jpg
• CoccaAngeloAntonioMontaganoMariaBenedettaGenerosa1stMarriageBanns1833.jpg
• LucarelliGirolamoWW1.jpg

Because I follow a pattern, it's easy to see what a document is.

For more on this topic see 3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents.

6. Backups

How fatal of a heart attack would you have if all your genealogy research disappeared?

Spread things out, but keep them at hand. Use your computer drive, external drives and cloud storage.

Make a backup plan for your genealogy files and stick to it. Remember that two backups are better than one. Many of my files synchronize to my cloud storage the moment they change. For everything else, I make a backup every Sunday morning. Without fail.

For more on this topic see 4 Ways to Protect Your Genealogy Research from Disaster.

7. To-Do Lists

It seems like everyone has their favorite way of keeping to-do lists. Post-It Notes, a special notebook, EverNote. I'm fond of keeping a single text file open on my computer all the time. It's called Notebook.txt. That's where I have my:

• Genealogy To-Do List
• 2019 Genealogy Goals List
• List of important families to work on
• List of files and folders to back up each Sunday
• and more

I don't care how you do it, but find a way to keep track of :

• what you want to do next
• what you were doing when you stopped for the day
• what you'd like to do when you have the chance.

For more on this topic see Start Your Rainy-Day Genealogy List.

That was a lot. And it's a lot of work. But chip away at these ideas and your family tree will grow stronger from your effort.

Make these tasks into a to-do list and tackle it one bite at a time. It's worth it.

How to Become a Genealogy Document Expert

It's the same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.

Guess what happened after I spent hours and hours reading vital records from the 1800s. I became something of an expert on the subject.

A foreign language, squiggly handwriting, and countless abbreviations don't slow me down a bit. I'm used to it. And that made me practically a pro.

Sue me. It was the '80s.

How to Make Yourself a Pro

Do you fall into one of these 3 camps?

1. You climb one branch of your tree, adding people and facts from whichever document you just found.
2. You don't move on until you've searched for every document for a particular family.
3. You enjoy going off on tangents and plan to return later for the documents.

All those methods are fun. But you can become an expert on any one type of genealogy document if you make this one change.

Choose a single document type. It could be any one of these:

• census sheet
• ship manifest
• draft registration card
• birth record
• death record
• marriage record
• or some other type of document.

Commit a good chunk of time to searching for only this type of document. I'm in the midst of searching for every census sheet I don't yet have.

You'll need some way of seeing who in your family tree is missing their census sheet and for which year. I've got my Document Tracker and its "Need to find" column. I can go down the alphabetical list of names and search for every missing census. I'm up to last names beginning with L, and I'd like to knock off another letter or two this weekend.

You may not have a separate tracking sheet. But maybe your document image filing system can help you figure out what you have and what you're missing. The free program Family Tree Analyzer can help you keep tabs on your census sheet finds.

If all else fails, start with your parents and fan out. Go generation by generation, looking for missing censuses.

What to Learn

As you repeat your searches for this one type of document over and over, you will be learning. Here's the type of thing to keep in mind:

• Which search tricks are giving you a lot of success?
• Searching for a group of first names but no last name?
• Using Stephen Morse's tools to find the right set of census pages and going through them one at a time?
• Narrowing your search to a county rather than a town?

As you try out different ways of searching, they'll become second nature. You'll waste less time.

• What facts are you seeing on the documents that you've overlooked before?
• The native language on the 1920 census?
• The place of residence in 1935 on the 1940 census?

Here's a cheat sheet to show you what new questions the government asked in each U.S. Federal census.

• What conclusions can you draw by comparing documents?
• Can you tell that a certain relative died between the date of this census and the date of that census?
• Did the family move right before one of the children was born?
• Was one of the censuses wrong about the year of immigration or naturalization? Which one?

Follow your ancestors through each census to track family changes.

After you spend enough time with one type of document, you will be an expert on that type of document.

Where do you want to start? The moment you begin downloading those new files, take a moment to add valuable facts to the image file. In whatever way makes you comfortable, keep track of what you've found and what you need.

Go on now, expert.

Use Cousin Baiting to Expand Your Family Tree

A new cousin took the bait and contacted me with details about his branch.

Filling out the branches of your family tree
will help attract more cousins.

You know those long ancestral scrolls you see on the ancestry TV shows we all love? The straight-up family trees that always end with the king of England? That may look great on a wall. But you'll never connect to your DNA matches if you don't look beyond your direct-line ancestors.

What can you do to help unknown cousins find you?

Add Their Branches

"Cousin baiting" is a term used by genealogy bloggers. It's a way to attract distant relatives to yourself. When bloggers write about their ancestors, they drop plenty of names, dates, and places. They're putting out bait to attract new cousins. New cousins may have old photos, a family bible, or papers a genealogy fan would treasure.

But cousin baiting isn't only for bloggers. You can attract DNA matches and other cousins by filling your family tree with bait. Go way out onto the branches of your tree. Add as many facts as you can find. Your 3rd great grandparents' 4th child may be exactly the right person to attract an important cousin to you.

Recently I chose 3 of my DNA matches to work on. I used a bit of the information from their family trees, but not much. They each had very few facts to offer.

With your own research library, you can choose almost anyone and fit them into your tree.

I, on the other hand, have an insane amount of data to work with. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I've put together an enormous genealogy research library on my computer.

I know which Italian towns my ancestors lived in as far back as the late 1600s. (Knowing the exact town is critical!) I've downloaded and organized all the vital records currently available from those towns.

With my collection of documents, and my knowledge of the last names found in each of my towns, I can quickly find the facts my DNA match doesn't know.

Make the Connection Clear

I'm baiting my DNA matches by offering them:

• exact birth, marriage and death dates for their ancestors
• images of their ancestors' documents with a link to the original file online
• details of their ancestors' siblings, other marriages, and other children.

I'm building out my tree one DNA match at a time. And while I'm doing that, I'm no doubt adding bait for my other DNA matches to find.

How are you handling your DNA matches?

• Are you waiting for them to contact you?
• Are you looking only at the closest relatives?
• Are you giving up on a match with a small family tree?

Make your family tree thicker and richer by adding more and more relatives. While you're working on one DNA match, several others may see the connection and contact you.

I photographed this man's grave many years ago, not yet knowing who he was.

Reap the Benefits

Each new cousin I figure out adds a couple of dozen people to my tree. Each time I do this, I make more connections. For instance, the Teresa Ciotti belonging to one DNA match turned out to be the Maria Teresa Concetta Ciotti already in my tree. I added 4 more generations to that DNA match instantly.

Because of my very bushy family tree, I heard from the great great great grandson of my great great grandfather in Italy. He gave me lots of details about his branch of the family. I never knew they had lived in America.

I hope this inspires you to creep further out onto the limbs of your family tree. The answers you need may be in the hands of a cousin you've never met. Lay the bait and help them find you.