Can't Connect to Your DNA Match? Keep Trying

I've got my super-charged database ready to help crack those connections.

It was my day off. And there isn't anything I'd rather do with my free time than work on my family tree. But where to begin?

After a quick look at GEDmatch, I decided I wanted to finally figure out why John is my DNA match. And my dad's match, too.

You see, my dad has 1st cousins I've visited in Italy. Their mother was my grandfather's sister Assunta. So Dad and I are blood relatives on their mother's side. But John is on their father's side. He is their father's brother. How am I related to their father's family?

I've built out my cousins' father's tree (and their Uncle John's) far and wide. His roots are in my grandfather's town where everyone is related somehow.

But all the people in John's family tree were related to me only through my Great Aunt Assunta's husband. How frustrating! Where was the hidden connection?

With extra determination, I finally found my connection to an unusual DNA match.

Be Methodical

I began by viewing John's ancestors. Right away I saw a hole. I didn't have his maternal grandmother's birth date or ancestors. Another relative had a family tree showing her birth date as 6 Nov 1867, so I got straight to work.

My ace in the hole is my amazing database of Italian vital records. I've got all available records from my grandfather's hometown sitting on my computer. Plus, I renamed each image to include the name of the document's subject. Now I can search my computer for any name from the town.

Once I located John's grandmother Maria's birth record, I began working on her parents. Over and over I found death records for ancestors that gave me their parents' names. It was working so well that I identified all 8 of Maria's great grandparents. Only 1 of the 8 was a dead end.

Leave No Stone Unturned

As I found new ancestors, I used the Relationship Calculator in Family Tree Maker. Each new person was still related to me only through my Great Aunt's husband's family. No blood relation.

At this point I worried that my day off had been a bust. It was still fun, but I didn't get what I wanted. So, of course, I kept searching.

Again and again I went back to John and climbed each of his branches till I found a dead end. For each dead end, I searched for a death record that would tell me the names of the next generation.

Late in the day, I was looking at an ancestor named Vincenzo Mascia. I needed his parents' names, but he was too old for his marriage record to be available. (Records begin in 1809.) But Vincenzo's 1st wife died. He remarried within the range of my collection of marriage records.

In his marriage documents I found his birth record with his parents' names, Giorgio and Giulia. And there was his father Giorgio's 1812 death record. That had his parents' names, Domenico and Caterina.

Before typing Giorgio's parents' names into my tree, I did what I always do. Check to see if they're in my tree already. I held my breath because these parents were born in the late 1600s. I was way up there. And I did have a Domenico Mascia who was about the right age. Before I hovered over his name to see who he married, my heart skipped a beat. He had a yellow circle next to his name in the person index. That means he is my direct ancestor. Yellow means he's a direct ancestor of my father's father.

When I hovered over Domenico's name I gasped. His wife was the Caterina Paolucci I was hoping for. Domenico and Caterina are my 7th great grandparents, and I had climbed John's family tree to find them. They are his 5th great grandparents.

Consult the Charts

So I whipped out my relationship chart. I'd found something similar online once, but decided to make my own, which is much easier to use. Since Domenico and Caterina are my 7th great grandparents and John's 5th great grandparents, he and I are 6th cousins twice removed. John and my dad are 6th cousins once removed.

Download your own: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksvp08b99pzk9hl/relationship-calculator.xlsx?dl=0

Ancestry DNA estimated that John and I (and John and my dad) were 4th–6th cousins. Well, there you go!

This finding was a long time coming. I've been collaborating with John's daughter-in-law since 2017 trying to figure this out. Ironically, while John is my 6th cousin twice removed, his wife is my 5th cousin twice removed. I was working on her ancestors this past Sunday.

I've got a ton of work yet to do on this branch. I was so excited with my progress that I entered all the facts, but I have to go back and add the documents and source citations to my tree.

I hope I've inspired you to keep at it when you can't find the connection to your DNA match. Use all your resources and keep pushing forward. You never know which path will help you solve the puzzle.

How Many Genealogy Gems Are You Sitting On?

Are you guilty of ignoring the tips and leads you stashed away? I am.

Years ago I put a folder on my computer desktop called "gen docs". It was a handy place to stash anything that:

• I hadn't added to my family tree yet, or
• belonged to someone who wasn't in my tree yet.

I even took the time to organize this stash with sub-folders for the different document types.

Then I moved the folder to another folder that's automatically backed up to cloud storage. That's keeping it safe. (See "How to Back Up Your Family Tree Files Automatically".) But since it's not staring me in the face anymore, it's been out-of-sight, out-of-mind for a long time.

I'm sure there are a ton of genealogy gems in that folder. Things like:

• photos of relatives I found online
• draft cards for men who weren't connected to me, but may be connected now
• vital records I photographed from microfilm (badly)
• the flight record for my Uncle Johnny who crashed and died in World War II

There's so much in that folder that past-me thought would be important to future-me. And I'm sure she was right.

This is what happens when you have a "deal with it later" folder.

Aside from this jam-packed folder (I'll bet that phrase doesn't translate well), I also have my earliest genealogy research. It's a school notebook I filled with facts taken from ship manifests I saw on the Ellis Island website 16 years ago. It's hard to believe I ever did something so non-digital. I wish now it was a Notepad file. And I have the college paper my brother wrote about our family history in the 1970s. That paper has some stories that came straight from our grandparents. I need to capture all those gems!

What about you? What gems have you been tucking away to deal with later? Do you have death certificates you never scanned? An audio interview you never transcribed? (Guilty!) Photos you meant to digitize?

I know we like to forge ahead in our genealogy hobby. We're eager to search through the newest database. We want to try another software package that shows a lot of promise. We want to focus our energy on that brick wall.

But past-you has already laid the foundation of your family tree. What if the clue you need to break through your brick wall has been sitting in your collection all this time?

I challenge you today to a project I'm beginning right now. Go through your old notes, files, and collections. You know more about your family now than you did back then. Take a close look at each scrap of information past-you set aside and make a decision.

These documents should have gone straight into my family tree. No more procrastinating.

Does it belong in your family tree?

• If yes, scan it, crop it, type it, and get it in your family tree. Now.
• If no, put it in another folder and make note of why you kept it and why it isn't in your family tree.

I'm starting this project by dealing with one sub-folder at a time. The "legal docs" folder has things like the sale of my grandfather's house in 1990. The "funeral cards" folder has pictures of these mementos I need to enhance in Photoshop. The "Missing Flight" folder has Uncle Johnny's flight record that I keep forgetting to put into my family tree.

There's no telling what I'll find in my stash that may:

• answer age-old questions
• establish unknown connections, or
• add a missing piece to one relative's life story.

So, yes, I challenge you and me both. Stop forging ahead for a couple of days and clean up the trail of evidence past-you created. Then tell me what genealogy gems you've discovered.

And speaking of discoveries:

• My 5th Great Grandfather: A Random Act of Kindness?
• Finding the Story Behind an Intriguing Family Photo
• POW: My Grandfather's World War I Experience

Is This the End of DNA Matches?

The industry is reporting layoffs as the DNA kit surge reaches its peak.

Should genealogy fans worry about the future of DNA tests? Ancestry cut 6% of its staff. 23andMe cut 14%. MIT Technology Review says more than 26 million people submitted DNA ancestry kits, with a huge spike since 2017. There was such a rapid increase of kits in the last 2 years, it's surprising to read about these staff cuts.

Whoever is in your DNA match list today, you shouldn't expect a tremendous increase in the future. And the reason so many of your DNA matches have no tree or don't answer you is simple. They aren't interested. The kit was a gift, they went along with it, they saw their pie chart and said, "So what?"

This past weekend I worked on one of my 2020 Genealogy Goals. I tried to figure out my connection to someone in my DNA match list who had a family tree. I've figured out a lot of them already. I spent my time working on a 4th cousin who'd reached out to me on Facebook a while back.

I know the connection is there, but missing documents are keeping it secret.

I told her that her grandmother's maiden name was my grandmother's maiden name. She was Concetta Sarracino. I found Concetta's 1887 birth record in my vital record collection. I found her 2 siblings, her parents, her aunt and uncle, 3 grandparents, and 1 great grandparent.

Free to use.

But none of them tied into my family tree. The Sarracino family is from a town with records that don't go back before 1861. I tried to find any loose threads that might tie me to this loose branch. Concetta came to America with her husband and 3 children. I have their ship manifest. Her 1st cousin Angelo was already in New York City. I built out his part of the family, too.

Now I've got dozens of people in my tree, closely related to my DNA match. But their profile pictures are my "No Relationship Established" graphic. Once again, I had to put this branch aside and hope for a future breakthrough.

As I was about to quit playing with my family tree for the day, someone sent me a message on Ancestry. My family tree kept coming up in her search results over and over. She gave me a handful of names, and I went to her tree.

While her family names are clearly from my grandfather's hometown, she is not in my match list. But she is in my dad's match list. It's a distant relationship. Between the DNA and those last very familiar names, I wanted to know more.

In her family tree I saw 2 last names that are important in my family tree: Pozzuto and Zeolla.

These 2 names seem to hold the hidden DNA connection between my mother and father. I've been trying to find my parents' distant cousin connection by adding those names to my family tree. Last year I added every Pozzuto baby from my vital records collection to my family tree. This year's goal is to add every Zeolla baby.

This past weekend I found that I am connected to this DNA match's great grandmother. I can't see her 1875 birth record because that year is missing from the records collection. But I have her parents' and siblings' records. Filomena Zeolla, born in 1875, is my 3rd cousin 4 times removed.

That doesn't help me figure out my parents' DNA connection. But it does extend my family tree into an area I couldn't reach before. I had no way to know about Filomena because there are no 1875 birth records. I had no way to know she had married a Pozzuto who has a huge branch in my family tree.

Because of this DNA match, I realized I'd attached her grandfather to the wrong parents. Their names were almost identical. I had no way to know!

And this is the importance of DNA matches' trees to me. I don't expect to discover many close relatives. Years ago my family tree (not my DNA) attracted my 3rd cousin to me. I knew nothing about her ancestor—my great grandfather's sister. But now I've built out my 2nd great aunt's branch of the family and extended them into America.

I need my distant cousins' family trees to find out what happened to relatives who scattered across America—or stayed in Italy.

If you want to find long-lost family through DNA, don't despair about the DNA-test market. There are still millions of family trees online and other research that can connect you to 3rd and 4th cousins.

It's the people trying to find their birth parents' who have the most to lose as this DNA-kit fad winds down. On the flip side, more people are afraid to test because they might learn their mom and dad aren't their birth parents.

So, should genealogy fans worry about the future of DNA tests? For most of us, the answer is no. There are still 26 million DNA kits out there. And your DNA match list was never meant to replace genealogy research.

Still, you should reach out to those matches while they still have a shred of interest.

And speaking of DNA matches:

• Don't Give Up When Your DNA Match Has a Puny Little Family Tree
• Use Cousin Baiting to Expand Your Family Tree
• This DNA Reference Site Solved a Mystery

Make Your Own 'Elder Scroll'

This fun project produces a list of your ancestors by Ahnentafel number.

I'm amazed by your response to my April 2019 article titled "3 Things to Do with Ahnentafel Numbers". As I'm writing this, you have read that article 6,019 times. It looks as if a carved-in-stone numbering system for your ancestors has wide appeal.

You see, there is a specific, unwavering pattern for numbering your ancestors. You are #1. After you, all male ancestors have an even number, all female ancestors have an odd number. Your father is #2. Each person's father is double their number. So your father's father is double his #2, or #4. And every male ancestor's wife is his number + 1. So your mother is #3, her father is #6, and her mother (his wife) is #7.

I created an Excel spreadsheet (free to download and use) with an Ahnentafel number as a placeholder for each of your ancestors up to your 10th great grandparents. I update my copy of the spreadsheet each time I discover a new ancestor. And because of the numbering system, I know exactly where to place the new ancestor in my spreadsheet.

Today I want to create a numbered list of all my direct ancestors. I want it sorted by their Ahnentafel number, and I want it to include each person's name and birth date.

This list (a 17-page PDF file) is my Elder Scroll. I'm calling it that as a joke and a nod to the video game of the same name.

Here's how I did it.

1. Make a Custom Ahnentafel Field

I use Family Tree Maker software to build my tree. On the main Person screen, you can customize what you see in the right column. For example, you can have Birth, Death, and Marriage Facts in that column. I also placed Baptism and Immigration there. My ancestors' Italian birth records usually have their baptism date. So I need to have that field handy. And I like to see at a glance which of my ancestors came to America.

I had room for another field, so I created a custom fact called Ahnentafel. (To do this, choose to add a fact to a person, but instead of choosing a fact type from the list, click to add a custom fact.) It has only a description field (no date or place field) that will hold only the person's number. Then I clicked Customize View on the main Person view to include the Ahnentafel fact. (Be sure to see my screen captures.)

After creating a custom fact type, add it to  your main person view.

2. Apply a Filter

Family Tree Maker has a new feature I haven't used until now. You can create a custom filter to narrow down the index of individuals to only those you want to see. I created a filter to show only my direct ancestors. I gave my direct ancestors a color code in the past. That color shows in my index list, so it's easy to see who is my direct ancestor.

This filter shows only my direct ancestors, color-coded by branch.

3. Fill in All Ahnentafel Numbers

With this filter in place, I can use my down arrow key to look at each person in this filtered index. As I do so, my eyes are resting on the Ahnentafel field. If it's blank, I look up the person in my grandparent chart and fill in their Ahnentafel number in Family Tree Maker.

I continue doing this until every direct ancestor has a number. But I have a twist. My paternal grandparents were 3rd cousins, so they have shared ancestors. Those "double ancestors" have 2 Ahnentafel numbers:

• one as Grandpa's ancestor
• one as Grandma's ancestor

I chose to write those as "64 and 80", for example. That's my 4th great grandfather—twice.

4. Create a Custom Report

Finally, I create a custom report. In Family Tree Maker, this is in Person Reports, then Custom Report. My report includes:

• only my direct ancestors and me (292 people)
• everyone's Ahnentafel number
• everyone's name
• everyone's birth date

I set the report to sort people by their Ahnentafel number.

The result is a list of all my direct ancestors, in order. I can't wait to show it to my parents. We never knew anyone's names beyond my great grandparents. Now I've identified a handful of my 7th great grandparents.

You may think of other ways to create a custom report with a different custom fact.

Imagine you've printed out your elder scroll. You taped the pages together end to end, and rolled them up…like a scroll. Now, imagine you bring that scroll to the next family gathering. You unfurl it and amaze your relatives. Go on, give it a try!

What to Do When Your Family Tree Is Stuck

See how working around your missing ancestors can lead to useful facts.

The sad truth of genealogy research is this: Sometimes the documents you need will not be there for you. A disaster destroyed the vital records for your town. Or they were never recorded. And there were no local newspapers when your townspeople were illiterate.

I'm facing this now as I try to help a client get further back in his family tree than his living ancestors can recall. I'm also facing it for myself. I have a branch from a town with missing records. I can't go as far back as I want to.

When the documents aren't there for you, what can you do?

Imagine you want to walk down a main path in New York's Central Park. But you can't go directly from where you are (the William Shakespeare statue) to your destination (the Bethesda Fountain). The path is blocked. What can you do? You can follow some of the other paths. It's a longer route, but eventually you'll get where you want to go.

When the straight path is not possible, take advantage of other avenues.

And that's how you can make progress in your family tree. When the documents you want are blocked, go around.

I want to learn the name of my 2nd great grandmother Maria Luigia Muollo's mother. Maria Luigia was born in about 1843. Her birth record is not available. I even sent a professional researcher to the town church, but they didn't have a lot of records. The town just shrugged it off, or so it seems.

But I have a plan to get around this blockage. I'm examining available records for everyone in town with her last name. It might help to find someone around her age who had the same father's name. It would be fantastic to find her death record. But I've discovered she was still alive in 1902 when she reported the birth of her grandchild (my grandmother's 1st cousin Vincenzo). Now I know she died during the years when no death records are available.

I'm continuing to look at everyone named Muollo in this little town. I'm piecing together their families. I'm hoping to find the connection between separate family units. It's a roundabout path, and I may get lost. But much like Central Park, I know the views will be worth it.

I found his grave before I knew who he was. Now his birth record gives me a big clue.

At the same time, I've got this client in mind. I can't seem to find records for his direct ancestors. But I'm hunting down every document for people with the right last names. One death record may be all I need to add another generation to his family tree.

Keep this in mind when you're frustrated by your brick wall. You can't seem to get through it after all your trying. But have you tried to go around it? Have you investigated what's near it? Try to fill in some of the surrounding blanks. You may get lucky after all.

What's in Your Genealogy Toolbox?

It's just you and WiFi for a week. Which genealogy tools are mandatory?

What are your must-have family tree-building tools? I'm talking about the indispensable items you'd have to have if you were cut off from everything else for a week.

Get ready to hit the road or run to the panic room. Grab your genealogy toolbox!

Here's what's in my genealogy toolbox.

When Visiting an Archive

I've visited the New York City Municipal Archives because the bulk of my family comes from the Bronx. I've visited the New York State Archives in Albany. And the archives for the province of Benevento in Italy. I spent 5 years viewing microfilm at my local Family History Centers.

The most important tools for those genealogy field trips were:

1. Blank forms

I wanted to view as many vital records as possible for my extended family. Before my visit to the NYC Municipal Archives, I created forms in Word for key facts from a vital record. I printed out a small stack of birth, marriage, and death forms to bring along. I filled in the blanks each time I found a relative's document. (This idea belongs to my research buddy Dawn Fulton.)

2. A USB flash drive

At the New York State Library and Archives, I wanted to look up an event from my childhood in the newspaper. When I found 2 articles about it, I was able to save the articles as PDFs. But I had to have a flash drive with me.

3. My iPhone's camera

While viewing microfilm at a Family History Center, I took some awful images with my iPhone. They were awful because (a) the microfilm viewer was a thousand years old, and (b) I couldn't avoid the iPhone's shadow. But they were better than nothing.

That camera is just the thing when visiting cemeteries. And I had it with me on my one-of-a-kind visit to see my grandfather's military record in Italy.

4. A laptop with a text editor

For 5 years I sat in dark rooms viewing microfilmed vital records. To make the most of my time there, I kept a laptop open in my lap beneath the table and typed everything I saw. For each document I used abbreviations to capture the facts. Man did I get fast at typing Italian names. Here's a sample:

-Rosaria Colucci b 16 jun 1815 to Michele di Giuseppe 30 and Mariarosa di Pietrantonio Izzo 25 bap 17 jun 1815

That means Rosaria Colucci was born on 16 Jun 1815. Her father Michele (son of Giuseppe) was 30 years old. Her mother Mariarosa Izzo (daughter of Pietrantonio Izzo) was 25 years old. The baby was baptized on 17 Jun 1815.

At first I was fitting people right into Family Tree Maker. But I could go dramatically faster by typing the basics there, and fitting families together at home.

When Visiting a Cemetery

In 2012 I visited the Bronx cemetery where practically my entire family is buried. It was my 1st visit, and I was with a cousin who knew exactly where to find our people. So cousin Joseph was indispensable that day.

When I returned in 2017, I found my grandparents using landmarks. They're close to a corner and a fence. But I couldn't find my great grandparents and their family. And I'd never found my other grandfather.

After searching for a while, I pulled out my iPhone and opened the Ancestry app. I remembered that after my 1st trip to this cemetery, I made a note of the section, range, and grave numbers. That did the trick! The Ancestry app was indispensable because I'd made note of the grave locations.

That day I also visited the cemetery office to ask where to find my grandfather. It was the first time I'd seen his grave since we buried him in 1992. Now I keep a text file on my phone with a list of family members' grave locations.

At My Desk

I have lived on a keyboard since 1983. It's second nature for me to do everything on my computer. This is where I have the bulk of my genealogy tools. Any decent research session will involve a few of these tools.

1. Family Tree Maker. It's the only family tree software I've ever used. No regrets.
2. Ancestry.com. This is where I keep my public tree, work with DNA matches, and do my searches.
3. My downloaded Italian vital records. These are not on Ancestry and some are not on FamilySearch. I downloaded my ancestral towns' records from the Italian Antenati (ancestors) website.
4. My document tracker. My most used spreadsheet is where I keep track of every document I add to my tree (download your own copy).
5. GetLinks. This image-downloading tool from a Portuguese-speaking programmer is a game changer. Without it, I'd still be downloading my Italian records, one at a time.
6. Photoshop. You can improve a lot of bad document images by adjusting their brightness and contrast. I like to crop out the excess, too.
7. Family Tree Analyzer. Once in a while your family tree needs a checkup. This free program has a host of tools for finding the mistakes you never knew you made.
8. My database of town records. I'm entering the basic facts from my vital record collection into a spreadsheet. It makes it so easy to find out if, for example, Francesco Bianco and Maria Caruso had another baby I didn't know about. Adding more records is always on my annual list of genealogy goals.
9. My grandparent chart. I open up this spreadsheet each time I learn another direct ancestor's name. My chart (download one for yourself) includes placeholders with each ancestor's Ahnentafel number. The chart is also color-coded for your 4 grandparents' different branches.
10. My surnames list. This spreadsheet is an alphabetized list of my direct ancestor's last names only. I've got 84 of them so far—all Italian.
11. My relationship calculator. I made this chart to help figure out the likely relationship of a DNA match. You can download your copy of this file, too.
12. My chart of Italian occupation translations. There was a page online long ago with a long list of Italian occupation words. Like, calzolaio means shoemaker. I grabbed those translations and added in several more that I know from my ancestral towns. It's handiest to me when I can't make out all the letters. I can scan my chart looking for a similar word.

Now I want you to add your comments at the bottom of this article. I'm sure you're using tools I haven't yet realized I need. And I'll bet you have tools for other types of research trips. Like, I have a digital audio recorder I can bring along to record conversations with my relatives. What are your favorite genealogy tools?