A Foundation for Your Genealogy Research Process

A new genealogist is born every day. Do they all know what to do? Not yet!

Some readers have asked me for an all-in-one family tree tutorial. At first I thought that wasn't possible. It's too vast. Many of my articles go in-depth on a specific part of genealogy, like:

• dealing with DNA matches
• cleaning up your filing system
• adding consistency to your facts
• finding and fixing errors
• sharing your research in interesting ways

Whether you're new to genealogy or dove into the deep end, a "start-to-finish genealogy process" would help.

So let's boil down the idea of family tree research to the basics.

Start With Yourself

Imagine a very old fence made of stones. You can't build the top row of stones without the foundation beneath it, right? Well, don't expect to find your 2nd great grandfather without the foundation of his descendants.

Building a family tree is a one-generation-at-a-time process.

Each time you add a generation you gain more facts. Those facts tell you where to look for more information.

As you add family members, think about all the types of documents you may find:

• census records (right now the most recent U.S. census available is from 1940)
• vital records (birth, marriage, death)
• church records (baptism and other sacraments)
• public records (street address, yearbooks, newspaper articles)
• military records (draft registrations and military service)
• citizenship records (immigration and naturalization)

Search for and gather every type of record you can.

Ready-made family trees are NOT what you want. You want the documents.

Keep Track of All Sources

As you gather each document, immediately capture its source information.

Let's say you're using Ancestry.com to find your father or grandfather in the 1940 U.S. census. You can click "View Image" to see the document. But in the search results you can also click the words "1940 United States Federal Census". Beneath the listing of facts you'll see "Source Citation" and "Source Information". Copy that text and store it as the citation for the census image.

If you find a document on FamilySearch.org, click the listing (not the camera). Look for "Document Information" in the right-hand column. You'll find a handy "Citing this Record" section to copy.

Be Logical

Imagine you've gathered every possible document for your grandfather's immediate family. Take a close look at the family grouping. Are there any facts that don't make sense?

• Do you have children born before their parents were old enough, or after a parent died? (Neat trick: a recently dead man can have a baby.)
• Was one child born in a different place even though there's no sign the family ever moved?

Be logical and avoid publishing bad information. If something is illogical, search for more evidence to prove it right or wrong.

Move Up One Generation at a Time

Say you found your grandparents' marriage certificate. It may tell you where they living at that time. It may have each of their parents' names and place of birth. Those names and birthplaces are the foundation you need to build the next course of your stone fence.

I have my maternal grandparents 1922 marriage certificate. It says my grandfather and my 4 maternal great grandparents were born in Italy.

Knowing that, I was ready to pinpoint their hometowns. When you reach a foreign-born generation, search for immigration and naturalization records.

The joy of a well-timed migration: tons of clues for your descendants.

Ship manifests for your immigrant ancestors—if they are from a certain range of years—are crucial. You may learn the foreign hometown of your ancestor. You may learn the name of that ancestor's relative: father, mother, spouse, or more. These are the clues you need to go back another generation.

Be Methodical and Thorough

Try to "close out" each family unit before moving on. Gather every possible document for them. Make note of what you haven't found yet (like that one elusive census year) so you can try again in the future.

Pay close attention to the evidence. My 3rd great grandfather from Italy was a problem for me. I knew which town the family came from. I found birth records for all his children. I found his wife's birth record and her parents' names.

But I couldn't find his birth record. I knew he was born in about 1813, but there was no record of his birth.

Then I found the clue I needed. In his 1840 marriage record it clearly says he was born in another town. The neighboring town. That's why I couldn't find him or his siblings. I was looking in the wrong town.

Each document you find may have the answer to a mystery. My 2nd great uncle's World War II draft registration card had a critical clue I needed. The name of the town where he was born. His parents and his siblings, it turns out, were not from that town. But by searching that town's vital records, I discovered where his parents came from. And that cracked open that branch of the family.

Those are the basics. As you progress I've got tons of advice for ways to get and stay organized. And only after you've gone pretty far with your tree will you be able to find the connection to your DNA matches. In most cases, they're the icing on your cake. But you have to bake that cake.

Please see the Genealogy Lessons link on my blog for lots more articles listed by topic.

Help Your DNA Match Expand their Family Tree

Show your DNA match who's the genealogist in the family!

You've probably got more genealogy skills than many of your DNA matches. If you want to figure out your connection, why not do some of the work for them? We all complain about our matches' missing or flimsy trees. Let's put some more leaves on their trees.

It helps if you can spot the best place to dive in.

My dad and I have one DNA match, Annie, who shares 44 cMs (centiMorgans) with him and (surprisingly) 43 cMs with me. Annie has a very small family tree posted. It doesn't have a lot of facts. But 5 of the 13 people in the tree have my 2nd great grandmother's last name.

That's our only apparent connection: the last name Girardi. Now, I know that name comes from more than one part of Italy. Former Yankees manager Joe Girardi's ancestors came from up north. My people are all from southern Italy.

But that name is the place for me to dive in.

If you're a genealogy warrior, why not help your DNA match find their missing link to you?

I decided to see if Annie's Girardi ancestor was born in my 2nd great grandmother's town. Annie's tree had no date for Luciano Girardi's birth. But it had a December 1900 date for Luciano's wife. I went to my folder of 1900 birth records from the town of Pescolamazza.

There she was: Lorenza Immacolata Viglione. And in the margin of her birth record was the date of her marriage to Luciano Girardi.

Now I was sure this Girardi family was from my Girardi family's hometown. And it's a small town, not a city.

I went year by year, checking each birth index for Luciano Girardi. I found him in 1892 and held my breath. Was he a fit for my family tree?

Both his father and his mother were named Girardi. Even though neither of his parents were in my tree, I had my marching orders. Because of his birth year, one of Luciano's parents might be my 2nd great grandmother's 1st cousin.

Let's play a little game, shall we?

Annie seems to be the child of Luciano. That'd put her close to my father's age, just for reference.

Imagine Luciano's parent is my 2nd great grandmother's 1st cousin. If so, Annie's 3rd great grandparents are my father's 4th great grandparents. She would be my father's 3rd cousin once removed. (I had to draw it to make sense of it.)

I couldn't do this in my head if I tried. A drawing helped me understand the theoretical relationship.

Ancestry DNA estimates Dad and Annie are 4th–6th cousins. I checked the "consanguinity relationship chart" from Family Tree UK that I mentioned last week. With their shared 44 cMs of DNA, Annie and my dad could most likely be:

• 1st cousins 4 times removed
• 2nd cousins twice removed
• 2nd cousins 3 times removed
• 3rd cousins

Each of the above relationships has the exact same probability based on the numbers.

Now let's add in the "divide by 68" rule from last week. Dividing their shared 44 cMs by 68 tells me that Dad and Annie share .647%, and Annie and I share .632% of our DNA. Wow. We share such a small percentage of DNA with our not-so-distant-cousins. Even 2nd cousins share only about 3.125% of their DNA.

I sent Annie a link to Luciano and Lorenza's Italian birth records. But I need to keep researching. I need to investigate these new Girardi names. I need to find Italian documents for them and hope to connect them to my family.

Knowing your possible relationship to a DNA match won't solve the puzzle. As you do the genealogy research, keep those possible relationships in mind. Draw yourself a diagram. You can solve many of your DNA relationships this way.

Same Name; Which Ancestor is Which?

It isn't only John Smiths that get mixed up. Naming customs are to blame.

No matter what ethnicity or nationality you ancestors were, you've probably seen this.

Everybody has the same name!

Many cultures followed a naming pattern that led to repeating names over and over. (Go to the FamilySearch Wiki and search for "naming customs" to see the rules.)

Here's an example. Imagine a man named Giuseppe Bianco whose father was Giovanni. Giuseppe names his 1st son Giovanni after his father. He names his 2nd son Salvatore after his wife's father. When young Giovanni and Salvatore grow up, they each name their 1st son Giuseppe after their father. No you've got 2 first cousins each named Giuseppe Bianco.

Now imagine that type of thing happening in every branch of your family, over and over again. The repeated names can drive any genealogy researcher crazy.

Picture yourself searching for a record of someone with a common name. How will you know you've found the right person?

Dates, Relatives, and More Documents

Search for your person in a wide array of years. Even if you think you know their birth year, check a bunch of surrounding years. Make note of every other person with the same or similar name. Who were their parents? Who did they marry?

Can't find an ancestor in the year you expected? Check a number of surrounding years.

Search for every related document you can. Find other records that include the person's age to help you estimate their birth year. Examples are their children's births and marriages, and their death. Carefully consider every fact you find before deciding which one is your ancestor.

This past weekend I was building a family tree for a client. I was off to a good start because she knew several ancestors' names. When I found a birth record, I could see that the baby's parents matched the names my client gave me.

But one ancestor, let's call her Giulia Russo, was a problem. I couldn't find a birth record for her or her father. I did find Giulia's 1911 marriage record. It told me her parents' names (Francesco and Maria) and her approximate birth year.

I continued piecing together the rest of the family. Giulia and her father Francesco were the only 2 people missing a birth record. Actually, I found more than one birth record for a baby named Francesco Russo. But they were born so much earlier than Giulia's mother.

How could I know which Francesco Russo was the right one?

I needed Giulia's birth record so I could get an idea of when her father Francesco was born. Based on her marriage record, she should have been born in 1887 or 1888. She wasn't.

I had to assume they got Giulia's age wrong on her marriage record. I broadened my search and found the only baby girl with a name even close to Giulia Russo. She was born in late 1884. She was actually 26 when her marriage record said she was 23.

But I knew it was her. Why? Because I'd checked a wide range of years in 2 towns and this "Giulia Maria Russo" was the only option. She had the right parents. Their names matched those on the marriage record.

Finally I was able to say with some confidence that her father Francesco Russo was born in about 1842. That's much earlier than his wife, and much earlier than I'd expected.

I searched birth records from 1837 through 1865 looking for every Francesco Russo. I found only two. But they each had a problem. They each had a note saying who he married and when. And neither bride was Giulia's mother.

But Giulia's birth record put her father's birth year at 1842. The 2 Francesco's I found were born in 1842 and 1848. I took another look at the Francesco Russo born in 1842.

As a rule, it's always a good idea to search records in the surrounding years.

When I considered everyone's ages, it became clear to me. The 1870 marriage to another woman written on his birth record was his 1st marriage. His 1st wife must have died before he married Giulia's mother Maria. Maria was 22 years younger than Francesco. She was 6 years old when he married the 1st time.

When Francesco married his 2nd wife, she was very young. She gave birth to their daughter Giulia at the age of 20. Ideally I'd want proof that Francesco's 1st wife died before Giulia was born. But the record isn't available. Neither is the marriage record for Francesco and Maria.

I searched a range of years for his 1st wife's death. No luck.

But I had one more ace up my sleeve. I could search for all the babies Francesco had with his 1st wife and see if they end by 1884. When the babies stop coming, that could be when his 1st wife died.

I found 4 babies born to Francesco and his 1st wife from 1872–1880. I kept searching, knowing that Giulia (the daughter of Francesco's 2nd wife) was born in 1884.

Good news, everyone! From 1881 to 1883 there no more babies for the 1st wife. Plus there was an 1883 baby born to the other Francesco Russo and his wife. The better clue came in 1885. A year after Francesco had a baby with his 2nd wife, the other Francesco Russo had another baby with his only wife.

This proves to me that I chose the right Francesco Russo.

In my experience with 19th century Italians, widows always remarried—sometimes awfully fast. And a man usually married a much younger woman and continued making the babies.

Francesco's experience fit perfectly into this mold. It's the same exact experience my 2nd great grandfather had. He married his 1st wife and had several children. Then his wife died. He quickly remarried, choosing a young lady who was his eldest daughter's age! Thank goodness he did, because that young 2nd wife was my 2nd great grandmother.

You won't always be 100% sure you've identified the right ancestor. But if you seek out as much information as possible, you're bound to have more success.

And speaking of the name game:

• This Genealogy Policy Takes the Guesswork Out of Names
• 6 Ways to Add Another Generation to Your Family Tree
• Share Your Family Tree Names in a Word Cloud

This DNA Reference Site Solved a Mystery

Watch me solve a DNA mystery right before your eyes. I'm still in shock!

Is your DNA match list driving you crazy? I have so many matches I haven't figured out yet. It's time to look for help.

Here's my recommendation: Bookmark the Wiki of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG). There's so much to learn…so much you don't even know you don't know.

Autosomal DNA

I see people tossing around genetic terms all the time, and I don't know what they all mean. Take "haplogroup". I don't know which haplogroup I belong to. With a little bit of searching on Ancestry, I found that my Ancestry DNA test does not include my haplogroup. Whew! At least there's a good reason why I don't know my haplogroup.

Ancestry DNA looks at your autosomal DNA because everyone has that. It isn't restricted to only male ancestry or only female ancestry. That means you can potentially connect to more relatives with an autosomal DNA test.

Go to the Autosomal DNA page on the ISOGG Wiki and you'll see that several other well-known companies also offer an autosomal DNA test. You'll find a video on that page that gives you a quick background on how to make sense of your list of DNA matches.

The video includes a breakdown of how much DNA you should share with a parent, sibling, 1st cousin, 1st cousin once removed, etc. There are several charts available to help you make sense of the number of centiMorgans you share with your DNA matches. Here's a good one from Family Tree UK.

CentiMorgans

Let's talk about centiMorgans. That's the "cMs" your DNA site says you share with your DNA matches. Here's a simple—and wildly handy—way to see the percentage of DNA you share with someone. On the ISOGG Wiki page for centiMorgans it says to take the number of cMs you share and divide it by 68. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? 68?

I went to my DNA match list and picked my father. We share 3,441 cMs. Guess what that is when you divide it by 68? It's 50.6%. Bingo, he's my dad-o. My mom and I share 3,482 cMs. That works out to 51.2%. No wonder I look more like her.

I have a 1st cousin who has DNA-tested. As 1st cousins, we should share about 12.5% DNA. Using the "divide by 68" rule, he and I share 11.66% of our DNA. Definitely a 1st cousin.

This is how Ancestry DNA and other sites determine your approximate relationship to someone. Applying that rule, let's look at 2 of my most intriguing DNA match mysteries.

Mom's DNA Match

Mary is a match to my mom and me. She has no family tree online, so I wrote to her. Mary and mom's shared cMs work out to about 3.6%. Consulting the Family Tree UK chart, they could be:

• 1st cousins twice removed, or
• 2nd cousins

That's pretty close. After writing to Mary, I learned her DNA test gave her the news that her father wasn't her father. She told me the last name of her birth father, and I recognized it right away. That name comes from my maternal grandmother's parents' hometown in Italy. It's a small town, so I'm familiar with most of the names there.

My mission now is to help Mary by finding her connection to my great grandparents. Then, at least, I can give her a family. There aren't a lot of records available from that Italian town, but if I start pulling out everyone with her father's last name, I should be able to build something.

Dad's DNA Match

Linda is a DNA match to my dad and me and shares our last name. I wrote to her and her information was confusing. She said her grandmother was Rosaria Iamarino, but that must be her married name. She said her family has some roots in Argentina. Ancestry DNA estimates that my dad and Linda are 1st or 2nd cousins.

How can we not know our relationship?

In some DNA cases, you may simply need to look at your tree in a logical way.

Turning back to the "divide by 68" rule, Linda and my dad share 5.47% of their DNA. That's an in-between percentage that doesn't fall nicely onto the Family Tree UK chart. But there's a good chance Linda is my dad's 2nd cousin twice removed or so.

Looking at the shared last name of Iamarino, my grandpa had no brothers. And even though my grandmother was also an Iamarino, her brothers are legally named Marino. (Some crazy clerical error.) That means Linda's Iamarino grandfather may be the child or grandchild of one of my father's great uncles—one of the brothers of 1 of his 2 Iamarino grandfathers.

And now my brain hurts.

Maybe a visual aid will help. I'll look at dad's 2 grandfathers in my family tree: Francesco and Pasquale Iamarino.

Pasquale Iamarino had only one brother, and he died as a toddler. That rules out my dad's mother's side of the family.

Francesco Iamarino had 2 brothers. Giuseppe emigrated to the Bronx and stayed there for the rest of his life. My dad remembers him. Teofilo seems to have stayed in Italy. But something strikes me. I know Teofilo's son Gennaro moved to Argentina. And, oh boy, his son has a wife named Rosaria!

When I saw this couple's photo, I remembered something crucial. Argentina!

I learned this in January because Rosaria's daughter, my 3rd cousin Maria, contacted me from Argentina. As I look through our online conversation from January, Maria did say her brother lives in America.

Wow, the visual aid really helped. Linda's father should be my 3rd cousin. And now my Argentinian 3rd cousin Maria has confirmed it!

The Ancestry DNA estimate was only a bit off. Linda (my 3rd cousin once removed) is my dad's 2nd cousin twice removed. (OMG! That was my guess above.) She and her father are going into my family tree right now. I've just figured out this mystery, right before your eyes!

It's entirely possible Linda has some extra cMs in common with me because of my convoluted, complex relationship to her grandmother Rosaria's family.

Learn from this wild experience. An expert resource or two, and some logical, brain-numbing thinking, can solve your longstanding DNA mysteries too.

And speaking of DNA:

• Gearing Up for All Your New DNA Matches
• Don't Give Up When Your DNA Match Has a Puny Little Family Tree
• Use Cousin Baiting to Expand Your Family Tree

Step Out of Your Genealogy Comfort Zone

Getting pretty good at genealogy? Try working with a new set of records.

I tend to write this blog about what I'm doing in genealogy at the moment. It's a great system, actually. I have to play around in genealogy every day to keep the blog going.

What I'm doing right now is stretching my skills by helping other people with their family trees. I specialize in Italian ancestry. So I'm offering to:

• locate Italian vital records
• translate them, and
• piece together families for my customers.

If you've been working on your own family tree for a while, you're probably in your genealogy comfort zone. You're locating government documents from your own country, like:

• census records
• immigration and naturalization records
• vital records
• military records, and more

The documents are often very similar, so you get comfortable with them. You know where to look on a census sheet for the head of household's occupation. You know where to look on a death record for the names of the deceased's parents.

Things can get so easy they start to bore you. There's a lot more to genealogy.

Now imagine suddenly diving into a pool of different documents. They can be so…different. It can throw you off your genealogy game a bit.

All my ancestors came from neighboring towns in Italy. Each town's birth, marriage, and death records are pretty similar to one another. I know exactly how to handle my towns' documents and extract what I need from them.

But in different regions of Italy, the pre-printed forms can vary a lot. The father's name on a birth record may not be where I expected. The baby's name may be written very large (that's great!) or small and blended into the paragraph (harder to spot).

What I'm finding right away is that we can learn and adapt quickly.

I hope you'll get ambitious and start to explore a branch of your family tree you haven't touched before. You may find that documents from their country are different than what you're used to.

Don't get worried. All you need to do is get settled in. Here are the 2 main tips for dealing with dramatically different documents.

1. Learn Some of the Language

If you're going to gather documents from a new country, you need to learn a handful of words in their language. I'll be working with all Italian documents, but eventually I may need to learn the dreaded Latin.

Whenever you need to dig into foreign-language documents, you must learn the keywords.

Say you're viewing a birth record. You need to know the words for born, husband, wife, the days of the week, months of the year, and numbers. Memorize those months and numbers. FamilySearch.org offers a list of all the important keywords in a bunch of languages. See What Language Barrier?

You can do this!

You've learned so much already. Stretch yourself and see how much more you can master.

2. Recognize the Key Facts

When I'm looking at a really old Italian document, it's all hand-written. There is no pre-printed, easy-to-read form. But I don't get overwhelmed. I find a key fact and dive right in.

A very old birth record often begins with details about the volume where you can find the record. It may include the beginning and ending dates covered by that volume. I don't need all that.

The first thing I look for on an old birth record is the word comparso. That means appeared. The recorder of the document is saying so-and-so appeared before me, the mayor or town official.

The person who appeared is either the father of the new baby or the midwife. In rare cases it's the grandfather of the baby or another relative. But by and large, it's the baby's daddy. So I find comparso and read what follows. It should be a name and an age. If it's a man's name, like Antonio delGrosso, and he's about 28 years old, that sure sounds like he's the father. If he's 68 years old, I'll check to see if he's the grandfather.

Now that I found that important entry point, it's easier to decipher what's next. I expect to find:

• when the baby was born
• the mother's name
• whether she is "Antonio delGrosso's" legitimate wife
• the baby's given name.

If the birth record format for a particular town is different than my towns, I know I can adjust. I like to page through the documents, looking for a particular last name. I keep my eyes only in the part of the page where it says a name after the word comparso.

I can flip through the documents, looking at that one spot, and stop only when I see the name I want. Only then will I read the rest of the document.

If you have a multi-ethnic background, you may have dabbled in a few countries already. But I'll bet a lot of you haven't ventured outside your own country yet. Don't be afraid! You can get used to anything.

Step out of your genealogy comfort zone and expand it. It's not hard once you get settled in.

How to Find Your Connection to a Distant Relative

It may happen at any time. And when it does, you should drop everything.

One of the best things about keeping my family tree on Ancestry.com is the mailbox. At any given moment, I can get a message from a possible cousin.

It's like Christmas Day each time I get a new message. Will this person help me find a missing piece of my genealogy puzzle? I pay attention to each message and treat it seriously.

Last week I heard from a woman I was about to contact. I noticed she was a DNA match to both my dad and me. And I saw her borrowing census forms I'd saved to my family tree. We quickly established that her ancestors once lived up the block from my parents in the Bronx. And we both have roots in Colle Sannita, Italy.

Yesterday I heard from another woman who may not have taken a DNA test. But Ancestry informed her that she and I had shared ancestors. Her 3rd great grandparents were in my tree.

Look beyond the face-value relationship. There may be more to it.

The relationship is hard to wrap your head around, but her people are tied to my 2nd great aunt's husband. And he happens to be the great grandson of my double 4th great grandparents. (See 3 Ways to Find Double Ancestors in Your Family Tree.)

There are no suitable words for these crazy relationships. Let's just say her people are my people.

I dropped everything and got to work. Her 2nd great grandfather was not in my family tree. So, using her online tree for clues, I found his 1829 birth record in my collection of vital records. Then I found his son Giuseppantonio's 1854 birth record.

My new contact's family tree says Giuseppantonio married a woman born in the next town, Circello. Luckily, I have ancestors from Circello. So I have all the available Circello vital records on my computer, too.

I found his wife's 1850 birth record and saw that her mother's name was Petriella. That name has a lot of significance to me. It's my 1st cousins' last name, and it's the last name of some of our DNA matches.

Working on the family tree of a possible cousin can net you a lot more relatives.

This Petriella married in Circello in 1842. I harvested as much information from her marriage as possible, including:

• Her 1819 birth record
• Her father's 1838 death record
• Her grandfather's 1821 death record
• Her husband's 1817 birth record
• His father's 1839 death record
• His grandfather's 1790 death record
• The full set of marriage records, including:
  
  • publication of their intention to marry
  • permission to marry
  • the date they married in church.

Each time I found a new name, I glanced at my new contact's tree to see if my information agreed with hers. It did, but my document collection lets me go much further back in time.

An unexpected relationship is made clear with some color-coding.

I'll continue exploring the documents and adding facts to my family tree. My new contact saved me from hitting a dead end with this particular family. I might never have known that Giuseppe married a girl from the next town and had several children there.

Now I can keep on building that family. I can follow them across the ocean to (of course) the Bronx. And I may make even more connections to distant relatives. That's what you've got to do to find that connection.

At this moment, my family tree has 21,761 people. And that's after I cut out and stopped documenting American in-laws.

Do you want to find your connection to distant cousins? Stretch out your branches as far as possible.

If you're keeping your family tree to yourself, you're missing out on tons of opportunities.