3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree

Nothing interests me more than harvesting this rich genealogy resource.

All I need is my laptop and a working electrical outlet to be endlessly happy.

That's because I have an enormous resource for building my family tree on my laptop. You see, all my ancestors come from a handful of neighboring towns in southern Italy. For most of my life, this was all I knew:

• my Grandpa Leone was born in Baselice
  
  • he had a brother Noah and a sister Eve, which was funny because he was Adam
• my Grandpa Iamarino was born in Colle Sannita
  
  • he had a sister called Susie, and his parents were Francesco Iamarino and Libera Pilla
• my maternal grandmother Mary was born in New York City to parents from Pastene
  
  • her mother's siblings and parents lived in the Bronx, New York
• my paternal grandmother Lucy was born in New York state to Pasquale Iamarino and Maria Rosa something

When I started working on my family tree, there was only one resource for Italian documents. I had to order and view microfilm at a local Family History Center. I spent 5 years viewing and transcribing (in my own shorthand) all the vital records from Baselice.

I built my Grandpa Leone's family tree going back 6 generations.

The whole time I was doing that, I was eager to do the same for my other ancestral hometowns. But 5 years per town is an awful lot of trips to a Family History Center.

That all changed 3 years ago. Digitized images of Italian vital records started coming online!

One of my 2020 genealogy goals involves a family from the hamlet of Pastene in the town of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. So I'm going to start doing for Sant'Angelo a Cupolo what I did for Baselice…in MUCH less time.

Using these documents, I can paint a detailed picture of my direct ancestors' hometowns.

Here's my plan. If you have access to a collection of vital records from your ancestral hometowns, you should do the same.

1. Rename the Document Images

I've got a folder of Italian vital records on my computer. It's simultaneously backed up to OneDrive, too.

In the main folder there's a folder for each of the 2 provinces where I have roots: Benevento and Avellino. In each of the province folders are different town folders. In each town folder are as many as 225 folders. That's 1 folder for each year's birth records, 1 for death records, and 1 for marriage records.

Sant'Angelo a Cupolo has only 72 folders because there are no records before 1861. Recently I renamed the images in 21 of the 72 folders to include the name of the subject(s).

Until I rename the document images, the people in all those folders are hidden from me. As I rename files, I'm discovering relatives. I found children born to my 2nd great grandmother's sister. I found my 2nd cousin 3 times removed. I found a branch of my Sarracino family that I can't connect to my family tree yet.

It doesn't take all that long to rename the document images, and then they're searchable.

All these people are discoverable the moment I rename their document image file.

2. Learn the Names

Each time I start renaming files from another town, I have many more names to learn. Lots of times I'm unsure of the spelling. But when I see the name written on several documents, they become clearer to me.

Learning the names from my ancestral hometowns is key to figuring out who most of my DNA matches are. I start by looking at their (all-too-often) sparse family tree for a familiar last name.

When I spot a name like Pilla or Cocca, I know it could be from Grandpa Iamarino's town. A name like Petruccelli or Bozza could be from Grandpa Leone's town. This familiarity is so important. I can decipher a badly written name on a document because I know which names come from that town.

3. Piece Families Together

When I began those 5 years of microfilm viewing, I realized something important. I couldn't tell which people were my direct ancestors until I put families together.

I have 8 people from the town named Giovanni Pisciotti. They're all in my family tree, and some were born only a few years apart. How could I know which one was my 3rd great grandfather? I had to build each family in town.

Piecing together my grandfather's entire town? Well worth it!

Using my collection of vital records, I can build out every little branch of my family tree. I love doing that for my 19th century Italians. But when it comes to modern times in the USA, I decided to cut off in-law trees at their parents.

For example, I'll give my 2nd cousin her husband and their wedding date. And I'll give her husband his parents. But that's it. He gets no siblings and no grandparents.

My indulgence is with my multitude of small-town Italians. These twisted and distant relationships are going to be what ties me to a DNA match. Plus, I adore their names more than I can say.

Thanks to the documents, I turned what would be a 2,000-person tree into a 23,000-person tree, and growing. All those names (all those souls!) give me a connection to my ancestral hometowns. Even today I see people online from my towns with names I know so well.

So here I am, starting my journey into another one of my ancestral hometowns. I'll learn their names as I rename their files, and start fitting people into my family tree. Remembering my 2020 genealogy goal, I'll pay extra attention to people with name Muollo.

Don't let anyone tell you who does and doesn't belong in your family tree. This is your hobby, and we each have our reasons for dabbling in genealogy. I hope you've found a purpose that makes you as excited about genealogy as I am.

How to Figure Out a DNA Match

Even with no cooperation, you can work a DNA match into your family tree.

One of my 2020 Genealogy Goals is to figure out my connection to at least 1 DNA match per month. Here's a breakdown of how I met this goal for January.

I bought an Ancestry DNA kit back in 2012. I have uploaded my raw DNA to a few other websites, but Ancestry DNA gives me the most robust tools. As I scroll down my match list, I can see the brief notes I added to people, like:

• descendant of Teofilo Iamarino (that's my great grandfather's brother)
• related thru Libera Maria Iamarino (that's another great grandfather's sister)
• related thru Nicola Leone (that's my grandfather's 1st cousin)

These notes make it easy to scan the list and find someone with a family tree but no note from me.

No tree, private tree, worthless tree. Why did they get a DNA test?

My 1st candidate is a man with a 7-person tree, but only 4 names are not private. The facts are almost non-existent. But I recognize the my match's last name as being from my grandfather's hometown in Italy.

I don't know what year anyone in my match's family tree was born. So I searched for my match's exact name on Facebook. I found a man who is very likely him, based on our mutual friend. Having seen him in one photo, I can estimate he's about my age.

That gives me something to go on. I can assume his grandfather is from my grandfather's town and was born more than 100 years ago. There are 2 people in my collection of Italian vital records who could be the grandfather of my match.

But I can't go any further without writing to my match and hoping he replies. Let's move on.

My 2nd candidate is a woman with a 29-person family tree. Once again I recognize a couple of last names from my grandfather's Italian hometown.

Unfortunately this 29-person family tree makes very little sense. People are not connected to one another. There's a lack of maiden names. And the 2 last names I recognize don't have an obvious connection to my DNA match. I'm starting to lose hope.

Before I move on, I'll search my Italian vital records collection for people in the tree. One person from the tree might be the son of my 1st cousin 5 times removed, Liberantonia Iamarino. But I have no way to be sure.

The next few candidates have worthless trees. This is what happens when someone gets a DNA kit as a gift but doesn't care.

Finally, down in the 4th–6th cousin range, I see another familiar last name. (Grandpa's hometown has descendants EVERYWHERE!) His family tree has only 7 people, but it has what I really like: Italians born in the 1800s.

Sure enough, my DNA match's paternal grandfather is from Grandpa's town. I found his 1882 birth record and saw a note written in its column. It said this man married my DNA match's grandmother in 1904. That proves I've got the right birth record.

To turn this cousin into a solved DNA match, I've got to get his people into my tree. His grandfather Gennaro was born in 1882 to Ignazio and Costanza. Ignazio is not a common first name in the town, and that will help me. I searched my digital town folder and found his 1931 death record. I know it's him because he's still married to Costanza. Based on his age at death, I found his birth record. Then I found Ignazio's parents' (my match's 2nd great grandparents') 1843 marriage records.

While fitting this DNA match into my family tree, I discovered 4 of my 7th great grandparents!

And that marriage is the key. The bride in 1843 (Costanza) is the daughter of my 5th great uncle, Francesco Saverio d'Emilia. Boo yah!

Now I can work my way down to my DNA match. I add my 1st cousin 5 times removed, Costanza Carmela Guilia d'Emilia, to my family tree. I add her husband and their son. Then I add his wife and their son. Then I add his son—my DNA match.

Solved: This DNA match is my 5th cousin once removed. I'll go back to add the details and attach the Italian document images. Then I'll contact my DNA match and point him to that part of my tree. Your DNA match is more likely to answer if you say "Here's your family" than if you ask "Who's your family?"

This is why you work on your DNA match's family tree.

As I told my husband the other day, anyone who's a DNA match to me is very lucky. I've got a big tree and the documents to make it bigger and bigger. The key to figuring out your DNA match's connection is familiarity. You've got to be very familiar with the last names in your family tree and in your towns. That's how I attack each match. I spot a last name (usually from Grandpa Iamarino's town), and I try to solve it.

That's my DNA genealogy goal for January. Time to tackle a different goal.

How to Set Unofficial, No-Deadline Genealogy Goals

What are your go-to genealogy tasks when you need to keep things simple?

Your unofficial genealogy goals may be unwritten and have no deadline. But you still want to get them done some day.

I can work on my unofficial goals without much concentration. I can work on them when I'm not feeling well or I'm half-heartedly watching TV.

Here are the 4 unofficial genealogy goals I turn to, depending on my mood. See if they make you think of something you'd like to work on.

1. Replace Certain Sources

I spent years visiting a Family History Center to view microfilmed vital records. I typed the facts from thousands of documents into a text file on my laptop computer. Then I entered them into a Family Tree Maker file.

I gave each fact a source based on the roll of microfilm. For instance:

Source title: 1848–1853 - Baselice, Italy, Births, Marriages, Deaths
Repository: www.familysearch.org
Citation detail: Nati, morti, notificazioni, processetti, matrimoni 1848-1853
Citation text: Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/007850709?cat=565057
Reference note: 1848–1853 - Baselice, Italy, Births, Marriages, Deaths

But you can't order microfilm anymore. And these records are not available on familysearch.org. They are available on the Italian genealogy site called Antenati. So now I want to change the source citation for thousands of facts.

I could leave them alone, but these obsolete sources are bugging me.

When I want to work on this goal, I:

• choose a person linked to the old source
• replace all the old microfilm sources with my preferred Antenati source citation.

I whittled one of the sources down from 1,300 facts to 800 facts on New Year's Eve. Remember: Citing your sources doesn't have to be hard.

2. Rename Vital Record Images

I want to make better use of the thousands of downloaded Italian vital records on my computer. In 2019 I renamed every single document image from one of my ancestral towns. Each file name now includes the name(s) of the subject(s) of the document. That makes everyone in the town searchable on my computer.

My unofficial goal #2 is to rename the files from my other towns. I'm gonna have the best genealogy resource ever!

3. Find Missing Dates

When I don't know someone's birth date, I follow these rules:

• If I know their spouse was born in 1900, I mark their birth as Abt. 1900.
• If I know their eldest child was born in 1900, I mark their birth as about 25 years earlier, so, Abt. 1875.
• If I know one of their parents was born in 1900, I mark their birth as 25 years later, so, Abt. 1925.

Following this practice, everyone in my tree has at least an estimated birth year. My unofficial goal #3 is to find a documented birth date to replace each estimate.

Sorting my people by birth date, I can search for missing birth records on my computer.

Thanks to unofficial goal #2 above, I can search my computer for any name from the town of Colle Sannita. The process is to:

• Sort the Family Tree Maker index by Birth.
• Focus on the years available in my document collection.
• Search my records for the name of everyone from Colle Sannita with an estimated birth year.

I'm up to people born "Abt. 1830." I can see that 2 people with an "Abt. 1830" birth date are husband and wife. I can search for their marriage record and find out everything I need to know about them.

It turns out they married in 1857, so I have the records! They include parents' and grandparents' death records. I discovered that the husband in this couple was already in my tree. I simply need to merge "Abt. 1830" Giovanni Iacobaccio with 20 Feb 1827 Giovannangelo Iacobaccio. And I'll add all the facts from the couple's marriage documents.

One good search and BOOM! Instant generations discovered.

Later I can sort the index of individuals by Death or Marriage and search for those missing dates.

4. Find a Home for Documents

I've been entering the facts from my collection of vital records into a spreadsheet. I can share that database with anyone who has roots in some of my towns.

Unofficially, I want to review what I've entered and see which documents fit into my family tree.

I've reviewed Colle Sannita birth records (1809–1812) and death records (1809–1810). At least half of the documents are now placed in my Family Tree Maker file. This process helps make my tree more solid and complete.

The whole process is very rewarding. So are all these tasks.

For my job as a website producer, I keep a digital notebook of HTML code snippets I need often. I keep it and a to-do list file open all day long. It works well for me, so I started a text file for genealogy notes. That's where I keep track of my genealogy tasks and their progress.

Do what works best for you. You may prefer to write in a paper notebook or print out your to-do lists. Not me. You can't copy and paste a handwritten note. And I hate to waste paper. So I keep my text files on my computer, open all day in different tabs of my preferred text editor. They're backed up to the OneDrive cloud, and I make a 2nd weekly backup to an external drive.

Get into the habit of leaving yourself notes about where you left off. Make a note of how you searched for a person's birth date, but you couldn't be sure which of 2 babies is the right one.

Pick away at these unofficial tasks when you're not in the mood for a full research session. Or work on them when you don't have a lot of time, but you want to get something done. If you chip away at these and all your other goals, imagine how much you can get done by 2021.

Here Are My 6 Genealogy Goals for 2020

Start thinking about which family tree tasks you want to complete in 2020.

It's time to set your 2020 Genealogy Goals. First, keep in mind that these should be stress-free goals. If you can't get to one or can't finish a couple, so be it. You can try again next year.

The point is to encourage yourself to complete a few helpful family tree tasks. When you complete one, you should feel recharged and ready to tackle another goal.

I had the most success with the 2019 goals that I kept limited, manageable, and possible. That's why some of my 2020 genealogy goals are going to be continuations of my 2019 goals.

Goal #1: Five Times Two

Enter the facts from 5 years of death and marriage records (for each of my Italian ancestral hometowns) into a spreadsheet.

Last year I kept my goal limited to 5 years of birth records for each town. It went so fast that I'm doubling it this year. In the end I'll have the most awesome database I can share with anyone who has roots in my towns. (If I live so long!)

Adding to this genealogy database was helpful last year, so I'm doubling my efforts.

Goal #2: Gimme All the Babies

Enter all Colle Sannita births for babies named Zeolla into my family tree.

Last year I entered all the babies born in the town of Colle Sannita named Pozzuto. Those 2 last names—Pozzuto and Zeolla—are important to my family tree. There are people with those names who are DNA matches to both my mother and my father. If I gather all the people with those names, I may figure out my parents' DNA relationship.

Two last names are important to my family mystery; I'm collecting them all.

Goal #3: Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine

Each month choose at least 1 DNA match (with a family tree) and figure out their relationship to me.

Our DNA match lists grow all the time. This goal will make a dent in my match list. And if I find that 1 a month is too little, there's no reason I can't do more.

Goal #4: Papers, Please

Search for every missing WWI and WWII draft registration card listed in my Document Tracker.

Last year's goal was to search for every missing census form in the "Need to find" column of my document tracker. And hopefully find them. That took a while to finish. The draft registration cards should be much faster. If I finish early I can start searching for missing ship manifests.

Draft registration cards can give you crucial genealogy facts.

Goal #5: Once Upon a Time

Write a brief life story for each of my direct ancestors with enough data.

I turned my maternal grandfather's facts and documents into his life story. But I haven't written any more stories. I can at least write a life story for my paternal grandfather and my 2 great grandfathers who lived in America. I don't know as much about the women in the family, but I can still write something from their perspective.

Last year I had 7 goals. I had no luck completing 3 of them, but I did try. That failure helped me understand how to craft better genealogy goals. I did complete 3 of them, and I never got to the last one. Technically, I should carry that one over, so…

Goal #6: Gimme More Babies

Enter all Sant'Angelo a Cupolo births for babies named Muollo into my family tree. And find documents for the one who emigrated to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania.

This is a smaller town with fewer documents available, so I should be able to finish this goal this year.

What will your goals be? Remember to break a bigger goal into reasonably sized chunks. Don't give yourself more work than you can handle.

Use your goals to get you closer to whatever it is you want to achieve. Choose tasks that will make you happy when they're done. Never forget this is all for your enjoyment. Now, go get busy!

7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement

Do it right the first time and you'll never need to come back and fix it!

I've written about how to add metadata to your genealogy document images. And I've written about how I name and file away my images.

Today let's break down my entire process for putting a document image into my family tree. I like to do it so thoroughly that everything is as perfect as I could ever want it to be.

It comes down to 7 steps. That sounds like a lot, but once you're used to it, it all feels like one step. Here we go:

Step 1: Save a copy of the document image to the proper folder on my computer

Within a Family Tree folder on my computer, I have a folder for each main genealogy document type. My "certificates" folder is enormous because it has all my vital records. I have access to more than a century of vital records from my ancestral Italian hometowns, so they add up fast.

Step 2: Rename the file appropriately

My format is LastnameFirstnameYear or LastnameFirstnameEventYear, depending on the event. If it's a marriage record, I include both groom and bride. If it's a census record, I use the head of household's name. I don't include the year in the file name of a World War I or II draft registration card. We know when the wars happened.

Having a system keeps all your genealogy documents easily accessible.

Step 3: Crop and enhance the image

I always crop my Italian vital records. Often there are 2 pages in the image and a big black border. If the image is too light or dark, I adjust the contrast to make it easier to read. I don't crop census images and ship manifests because they seem to wind up a larger file size than the original.

Step 4: Add metadata to the image file

I've always added details to an image within Family Tree Maker. Then I realized I can add those details to the image file itself. That way the source information always stays with the image. And it gets pulled into Family Tree Maker.

Plus, I can give the image a title, and it becomes the image's caption in Family Tree Maker. I always begin the title with the year. Then all the images for any one person display chronologically.

Meta data carries into Family Tree Maker, and stays with the image forever.

Step 5: Drag the image into Family Tree Maker

After I drag an image into Family Tree Maker, I double-click it. I enter the date that's on the document and choose the image category. (If you add a date in the metadata, it doesn't carry over into Family Tree Maker.)

I don't have photos of my ancestors who never left Italy. So I choose the earliest document I have for them and make it their profile picture.

Step 6: Enter individual facts in Family Tree Maker

Once you add a census image to your family tree software, for example, check it for facts. You might have:

• street address
• occupation
• number of years married
• place of birth
• immigration year
• citizenship information and more

Enter all the facts into your software for each person named on the document. And don't forget to give each fact a source.

Step 7: Add an entry in my document tracker

Once I finish everything in Family Tree Maker, I turn to my document tracker spreadsheet.

For a ship manifest, I enter the year and (doc.)—for document—in the immigration column for each person in the image. The (doc.) tells me I have the image. A year with no (doc.) means I found a mention of an immigration year (on a census sheet usually), but not the document. In that case, I'll add "immigration" to the Need to find column for this person.

For a marriage record, I enter the year and (cert.)—for certificate—in the marriage column for both bride and groom. The (cert.) tells me I have the image. A year with no (cert.) means I found a mention of a marriage year, but not the certificate. In that case, I'll add "marriage" to the Need to find column for both bride and groom.

You may think 7 steps is outrageous or too tedious. But I find it's well worth the effort. I'll never need to double back and fix any images. Or add missing information. And I'll always have a quick reference showing me what I've found and what's missing.

Making these 7 steps a habit means I'll never have to turn any of them into a big cleanup job.

Won't you join me and be a neat-freak, obsessive-compulsive genealogist, too? Imagine how great it would be if everyone with an online tree took this much care with their work!

Why Use a Genealogy Document Tracker?

Take a look behind the spreadsheet and see how it can help your research.

I've written many times about my document tracker. It's an Excel spreadsheet I created 12 years ago to help me build my family tree.

The spreadsheet shows each genealogy document I have for any given person in my family tree. Take my great grandfather, Giovanni Sarracino, for example.

• To see which of his census records I had, I'd open the census folder on my computer.
• To see if I had his draft registrations cards, I'd open the draft cards folder.
• For immigration records, I'd open my immigration folder.

I could also look at the media files attached to him in Family Tree Maker. I display the images chronologically, so I'd have to browse them all to find a particular type of document.

Wouldn't it be easier to have an inventory of all his documents in one row of a spreadsheet? (Spoiler alert: It's much easier.)

The spreadsheet has a column for a person's name and a column for each major document type:

• birth
• baptism
• immigration or travel
• marriage
• naturalization
• census
• draft registration
• death
• burial
• passport application
• city directory

You may not want to track all those documents. I actually have very few baptism or burial records. I arranged the document types in chronological order, mostly. Your document tracker can have the headings you prefer, in whatever order you like.

In 12 years, I haven't regretted this document tracker for a minute.

An important feature for me is the last column: Need to find. This is a list of missing documents for each person. Let's look at my 1st cousin twice removed, Michele Sarracino as an example.

I don't know a lot about Michele, but I have his 1899 birth record from Italy. I also found him in the Bronx, New York, census in 1905, 1915, 1920, and 1925. Then he disappeared.

So I added his missing documents and major facts to his Need to find column:

• 1904 immigration (according to his 1920 census)
• 1910 census
• 1930 census
• 1940 census
• WW1 draft registration card
• WW2 draft registration card
• marriage?
• death

I can track his family members, but I don't even know if Michele married.

The Need to find column is the quickest way to see what's missing for any given relative. Let's see if some research can move some items to their proper columns.

In a search on Ancestry I saw a World War I draft registration card. It had a different spelling for his last name (Saracena), but it had his exact birth date: 29 Nov 1899.

The card shows his 1918 address on East 150th Street in the Bronx. That's right where my family lived. It lists his mother as Josephine, which matches my facts. And his signature looks like Saracino, which is how my family began to spell it several years later.

Thanks to his Italian birth record and the exact birth date, I knew this was my cousin.

As a bit of icing on the cake, Michele's draft registration describes his blue eyes and blond hair. I was teased as a child for being too light to really be an Italian-American. My Southern Italian 1st cousin twice removed proves what nonsense that was.

Now I can add this document to my family tree. I'll also remove WW1 draft registration card from his Need to find list and put WW2 (doc.) in his Draft column.

My 1st cousin twice removed: 
Babe Ruth's double!

It was a surprise to find naturalization papers when Michele was a grown man. Michele arrived in the USA as a 4-year-old child. I didn't think he'd have to naturalize. But he become a U.S. citizen in 1945—at age 45. His naturalization papers have a photograph of my cousin. And damn if he doesn't look exactly like Babe Ruth.

That gives me some new clues. Michele lived at the same address in 1925 and 1945. He should be there with family members in 1930 and 1940. I found his siblings, but Michele wasn't there.

Next I found his Social Security Death Index from 1965.

I learned that in 1935 and 1941 Michele was not married. And he had moved up in the world: a junkman in 1918, a laundry helper in 1920, a chauffeur in 1925, and in 1935, proprietor at an automobile sales agency.

I like to use my document tracker to guide my research on days when I don't have a specific goal in mind.

Some tips: To distinguish between document images and undocumented facts, I use different wording:

• (cert.) after the year means I have an image of the birth, marriage, or death certificate
• (doc.) after the year means I have an image of the ship manifest
• WW1 (doc.) or WW2 (doc.) in the Draft column means I have an image of the draft registration card
• (index) after a birth, death, or marriage year means I saw the fact listed in a government index. But I did not see the document.
• A year, all by itself, means I have evidence of the year, but no document to back it up. For example, my 3rd great grandfather Antonio Sarracino was born in 1799. I know this because he was 4 years old on a record written in 1803 documenting the members of his household. But I don't have his birth record.
• Abt. before a year means it's an estimate.
• When a document is currently unavailable, but may be available in the future, in the Need to find column I add:
  
  • out of range: birth
  • out of range: marriage
  • out of range: death

I don't add (doc.) after a census year because if I have the document, the year is there. If I don't, it's in the Need to find column. Do whatever is logical to you.

It's helpful to include a birth year in the document tracker, even if there is no document.

Today my family tree has 22,846 people, but my document tracker has 2,827. That means I have 20,000 people in my tree with no documents at all. That's because I have incredibly distant relatives in my tree. I don't always take the time to process and add all their vital records as I find them.

Create your own document tracker or download the sample I made for you. It has the columns filled in and one person as an example. Let me know if you have any questions.

And speaking of the document tracker:

• Track Your Genealogy Finds and Your Searches
• How to Make Your Genealogy Research More Complete
• Haven't I Seen You Before?