My Aunt's Photos Tell the Other Side of the Story

Your photos are only part of the story. Imagine seeing the rest of it!

I received an amazing gift this week. My 1st cousin on my dad's side of the family sent me a carton filled with her late mother's old photos. I never saw this collection before. But I'm familiar with many of the photos because I've seen other photos taken at the same time.

It's the gift every genealogy fan dreams of getting.

Location Shots

My aunt's photographs are the companions to individual photos I got from my mom, my dad, and my grandfather. For example, I have one photo of my grandfather and his 1st cousin. They were both named Pietro Iamarino. Written at the top are the words "Lonesome Pals."

Imagine my amazement when I found in this collection several photos taken in the exact same spot! They appear to be standing on a sidewalk, but in the background there's nothing but bare trees. I imagine my grandmother pasted them into this photo album with others taken in Ohio in about 1930.

Grandpa's photo had no backstory. Suddenly I discover it was only one photo in a series.

Familiar Buildings

I have a photo of my dad and my aunt from the early 1950s. My dad said it was taken in Cleveland when the family moved back to Ohio. Now, in my aunt's collection, I've got an entire series of photos taken in the exact same spot. In the background of all the photos is the brick house where they lived. Several photos show my grandmother and the family car. I was always lacking photos of my grandma Lucy. Now I have so many!

There are lots of photos I recognize as being taken on the roof of my dad's apartment building in the Bronx in the 1940s. Dad's building is still standing, and you can see it on Google Street View. I recently asked him which door he used to enter. He said it's the one to the right of today's 99-cent store. But at the time, that storefront was my uncle's family's bar.

My uncle's bar is to the left as my grandparents stand outside their front door.

I now have several photos taken in that doorway. And I can see the awning of my uncle's bar at the edge of the photos. From these photos I learned that my Ohio great grandmother came to visit my dad's family in the Bronx. I never knew that before.

Then there's a photo of my great grandfather swimming. On the back of the photo it says, "This is on Lake Erie. We had Pa out while Ma was in NY." Was this what great grandpa was doing while great grandma was visiting my dad?

Family Legends

The first photos I took out of the box happened to include my mom and her sister. My parents came from a tight-knit neighborhood where everyone knew each other. So, as it happens, my mom's sister went to her prom with my dad's sister's future husband (my future uncle)! And my aunt and another young man once went on a double date with my mom and that same future uncle. I've heard the story of that night a million times. Now I have a beautiful souvenir photo in a cover that's signed by my mom and her sister.

In a small album filled with Bronx photos I found 2 pictures of what looks like Frank Sinatra. I texted my mom, is it him? She texted me, "OMG Yes! This must be from the day your uncle and I played hookey." That's another family story, brought to life in these 2 little photos of Old Blue Eyes.

The House I Can't Remember

Another series of photos finally shows me my great grandparents' house in Girard, Ohio. I'd only been there as a little girl, and I don't remember anything about it. I have Ohio photos from before I was born, but they don't show the house. Now I know how lovely it was. I texted a couple of the pictures to my dad and asked, "Is this the house on Dearborn Street?" Yes, it is!

The Old Neighborhood

One more. I found a little photo that shows my aunt and her future husband together as school kids. I like how my aunt has her hand on my uncle's shoulder. They're in a group of kids wearing hats and the letters OLP on their sweaters. Behind them is one football player and another young man in plain clothes. I knew OLP stood for Our Lady of Pity, the name of their church and grade school in the Bronx. I noticed they were in front of an undertaker's building with the number 273. The church address was 274. So I was guessing this funeral parlor was across from the church. I sent my dad the photo. He said they were the cheerleading squad for the football team my other uncle (the one with the bar) played on. And yes, this undertaker was directly across the street from the church.

Next Steps

I've divided the photos into groups on my kitchen table: Bronx, Ohio, photos from Italy, cousins, portraits. Many are permanently glued into paper albums. Now begins the work of scanning and enhancing them. Then I'll reach out again to my parents and others, hoping to identify more people.

Finally, it's time to invest in some safe containers to store all my old family photos. I have a metal file cabinet/safe combo in the garage. That may be the best place for me to protect these treasures from fire. That sounds like a future blog topic, doesn't it?

It pays to tell all your relatives about your genealogy hobby. My cousin knew I would appreciate these photos more than anyone else. And she says she has more to send!

Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener

Want to appreciate your family tree software? Check out the competition.

Have you ever considered changing your family tree software program? I've used Family Tree Maker since 2002 when I began this obsessive hobby. Industry-leading software tends to have the best programmers and the biggest budget. I have no problem paying for an update every few years. Even if I were on a tight budget, I'm sure I could cut back on something else to scrounge up $50 or $80.

Blog reader Nancy C. sent me her list comparing the features of several family tree programs. I'll admit I've thought about having a look at other programs. And now I want to see why she loves the Family Group Sheet feature in Legacy 9.0. You can download the free standard edition of Legacy 8. I don't know how different Legacy 9 may be.

I installed the program and fed it a brand new GEDCOM file with 23,305 individuals. It is taking forever to load.

My first impression is that Legacy has a 1980s low-budget look and feel. I'm hating every second of this experience. Isn't is funny how we get so used to our preferred software that everything else is impossible to figure out?

As a computer pro, I know a bad software interface when I see it.

I'm finding that most features are not available in the free version of Legacy. When I'm viewing one family, it lists the children in no apparent order. I found a File Maintenance option called Set File Sorting Order. Maybe that will put the children in age order. Nope. I don't know what that did, but it didn't fix the completely random order of the children.

I did find one report I like that I've never seen in Family Tree Maker. It's a timeline of the ancestors of whichever individual you choose. The chart is a grid showing the lifespan of each of the person's ancestors. You can see how their lives overlap. If you don't know when a person died, you have the option of keeping or changing the default 70-year lifespan. People with an estimated birth or death date have a dotted line.

One feature I liked in Legacy 8 is this timeline chart.

It's interesting to see which of my ancestors had very short lives. I'm also seeing a lot of dates that don't make sense. Like parents who weren't old enough when their child was born. I'll have to check these people in my tree and see what the problem is. Did I make a mistake, or is this chart using an estimated date that doesn't make sense?

You don't know how good or bad your software is until you look at another program.

Since I truly despise what I have seen of this software, let me tell you about some of the Family Tree Maker features I love.

• The index with a search box at the top, various sort options, and custom filters, lets me find anyone in a heartbeat.
• The tree view lets me see a few generations at once.
• Color-coding makes my direct ancestors (and which line they belong to) immediately visible.
• The side panel for any given person holds a lot of information and is customizable.
• A new feature of the Notes, Media, and Sources tabs lets me know how many items are there before I click to see what they are.

I'd love to be a great programmer and create the ultimate family tree software. But I can't think of anything better or more useful than Family Tree Maker and the tree view on Ancestry.com. Please share in the comments section below why you love your family tree software. See if you can persuade me.

More Free Forms: U.S. Draft Registration Cards

I thought Grandpa skipped draft registration due to his birth date. Wrong!

I used to wonder why I never found a draft registration card for my Grandpa Iamarino. He arrived in America in 1920 at the age of 18. He should have had to register like all the other old men in my family.

Then I realized Grandpa was lucky. Born in late 1902, Grandpa was too young to have been called to serve in the Italian military. (My other grandfather served several times, fought in World War I, and was held prisoner for a full year.)

And the U.S. World War II draft registration in 1942 left out Grandpa, too. It covered men born on or between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897. Grandpa was too young again. What a lucky guy!

Then I found a surprise. While searching Ancestry.com for Grandpa's naturalization papers I saw something new. It was Grandpa's "Young Men's" draft card. This had never shown up before.

Grandpa was 39 years old and in good health when he registered. He had a wife and 2 children. The U.S. never called him to serve, but boy am I glad they registered him. This type of registration covered all men born on or between 17 Feb 1897 and 31 Dec 1921. It says so at the top of the card. The "old man's" draft registration card has the dates at the top, too.

Each registration has a birth date range. Is your ancestor out of range?

This new-to-me card had 3 important facts:

• My grandmother had a middle name! I saw her listed once as Lucy G. Iamarino. My dad says that rang a bell, but he didn't know what the G stood for. At long last I know her middle name was Gloria. Like my favorite U2 song.
• Grandpa worked for D. Ornstein and Sons, Inc. at 119 West 24th Street in New York City. Grandpa was a jeweler. A stone setter. I always assumed he worked in the Bronx, close to home. But Grandpa commuted downtown.
• Grandpa's signature in 1942 doesn't quite match his signature in 1952. A 1952 index card is something Grandpa needed to prove his citizenship when he moved to Ohio. His signature in 1952 looks shockingly like my dad's signature. There are circles over the I's. I asked my father if he could possibly have signed it, but he said no. As I compare the 1942 and 1952 signatures, I see that the circles over the I's are the only real difference. Was that in style at the time, or did he see his son's signature and think it was more American? Now I know my dad did not sign Grandpa's official card.

Earlier this week I published a fill-in-the-blanks PDF for that lets you create a 5-generation ancestry chart for anyone. One reader suggested I make a form for U.S. draft registration cards. So here they are. Download these files and you can type any ancestor's information into the form, then save the file with their name. Typing is so much better than printing!

• World War I draft registration card Note: Now revised to include all 3 types of cards
• World War II young men's draft registration card
• World War II old men's draft registration card

If you have an idea for another useful form, please let me know. Here's what I have so far.

Free 5-Generation Fill-in-the-Blanks Form

This PDF file lets you neatly type in the names of your direct ancestors.

I saw a nice-looking family tree chart online yesterday. I thought an electronic fill-in-the-blanks chart would be a much better thing to have. I don't like charts that you have to write by hand, even though they can be pretty. I would make mistakes, and after a lifetime at a keyboard, I can't write very nicely.

So I made a PDF file that lets you type to fill in the blanks with names. I've given each field a number from 1 to 31. Those are the Ahnentafel numbers for any person and their direct ancestors through to their 2nd great grandparents.

• Number 1 is you (or any individual you'd like to make a chart for)
• 2 and 3 are your parents
• 4 thru 7 are your grandparents
• 8 thru 15 are your great grandparents
• 16 thru 31 are your 2nd great grandparents

Download the Direct Ancestor Chart PDF file for yourself. Simply click in any field, type, and press the tab key to go to the next logical person. When you're finished, save the PDF file with a different file name.

No more sloppy handwriting or cramped fingers. Fill in this ancestor chart on your computer.

I found it was best to keep my grandparent chart open. Then I could see everyone's Ahnentafel number and enter their full names. If you don't have that chart, you can get it from my Dropbox account.

I filled this chart out for myself, and I simply love seeing all those names in one place.

But you can fill it out for anyone. Say you found a 3rd cousin online. Maybe they turned up as a DNA match. You could fill out a chart for this cousin with everything you've learned about their part of the family. That's a nice ice-breaker!

You can do one for your spouse, for your mom, or for a relative you're planning to visit soon. The chart is a standard 8½ x 11 inches in landscape mode. I added color for interest, but my printouts will be grayscale.

I made my own chart, but I could make one for any of my relatives.

Here's a list of other electronic genealogy forms and charts I've published before:

• 1900 U.S. Census Worksheet
• 1910 U.S. Census Worksheet
• 1920 U.S. Census Worksheet
• 1930 U.S. Census Worksheet
• 1940 U.S. Census Worksheet
• Family Genealogy Worksheet
• Family Genealogy Worksheet for large families
• Grandparent Chart (with Ahnentafel numbers filled in)
• Relationship Calculator
• Document Tracker Inventory Sheet
• Vital Records Transcription Chart

What else can I make? What would you like to see?

Sorting Out a Confusing Mess in Your Family Tree

When you find a big error in your family tree, examine all facts carefully.

While I was improving my source citations this week, I spotted a problem in my family tree. My cousin Silvio Saviano was no longer related to me.

How did Silvio's relationship to me change? As I dug into the facts in my tree and on Ancestry, I saw the problem. Silvio's father was Luigi, but I "gave" him to the wrong Luigi!

Without enough records for my little town, it was easy to confuse the 2 Luigi's.

I have been writing and rewriting this article for 2 full days. I kept finding contradictory information. In the end, the solution was quite a surprise to me.

Here's how confusing it is.

Background

• My great grandmother was a Saviano. She came from a small village that has only 653 residents today. It's safe to say that every Saviano living there in the 19th century is my relative.
• This town's unusual history means there are no available birth records before 1861. And no marriage or death records before 1931.
• My mom knew Silvio Saviano and his family when she was growing up. She knew them as cousins.

Similarities

• Some of Silvio's U.S. records say his father was Luigi. There is no mention of his mother.
• In the town's available records, there are 2 men named Luigi Saviano born in the 1850s. That's based on the birth records of 16 children they had between them from 1878 to 1899.
• The Luigi born in 1858 is my 3rd great uncle. I have his 1938 Italian death record, and it names my 3rd great grandparents as his parents. Uncle Luigi stayed in Italy.
• The Luigi born in 1852 did come to America. So did at least 4 of his 11 children. I found U.S. death records for Luigi and 3 of his children.
• Only 1852 Luigi had a son named Silvio.

Silvio never gave the same birth date twice. Since I wanted him to belong to my 3rd great uncle Luigi, I figured he was born the year there are no records: 1895.

Sorting Out a Tangled Mess

After examining all the documents, it became clear that Silvio was NOT the son of my 3rd great uncle. He was the son of the other Luigi.

Do you have a confusing twist of same-named people in your family tree? It may help you to see how I came to realize which Luigi was the father of Silvio.

I know from his birth record that Silvio was born on 9 Oct 1896 to Luigi Saviano and Maria Grazia Guarente. He is the only Silvio Saviano in the town's available vital record collection.

It's hard to imagine, but our ancestors weren't always sure of their birth dates.

Here's what I found in America:

• 1912 ship manifest with Luigi Saviano (age 60) and his son Silvio (age 15). The manifest clearly says that father and son are from Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. It says Luigi leaves behind a brother Giuseppe in Italy. That brother Giuseppe came to America in 1898. Either I have the wrong Giuseppe Saviano in 1898, or he went back to Italy.
• 1917 World War I draft registration card for Silvio. It gives his birth date as 16 Oct 1895 and his address as 253 East 151st Street, Bronx, New York.
• Two military transport manifests (31 Jul 1918 and 21 Apr 1919). Both mention his brother Joseph living at 630 Morris Avenue, Bronx, New York. That's around the corner. And Silvio does have a brother Giuseppe who came to America.
• 30 May 1918 petition for naturalization. This was my red herring. It gave his birth date as 12 Oct 1895. But it says he has lived in South Carolina since 1900. When I found another Silvio Saviano who became a citizen in Tennessee, I knew I had to delete this document.
• 17 November 1918 New York newspaper listing Silvio as severely wounded. His address is 630 Morris Avenue. His World War II draft registration card corroborates this. It says he has a "scar on left wrist and bullet scar on calf of right leg."
• 1920 military service record. This index card, unfortunately, uses the same birth date as the southern Silvio: 12 Oct 1895. It gives his address as 630 Morris Avenue and says he was inducted in New York City. It says he was "slightly" wounded on 12 Sep 1918 ("severely" is smudged out). It also says he was overseas from 31 Jul 1918 to 21 Apr 1919, which fits the military transport records exactly. It's good except for that pesky birth date.
• 1925 census. Silvio and his wife and 3 kids are living at 599 Morris Avenue. His kids' names are the ones my mom knew and grew up with. He's still an alien, which further rules out those 1918 naturalization papers.
• 1930 census. Silvio and family are on a different street nearby. He is finally a citizen. But it says he arrived in 1901. I do have a 1901 ship manifest for his father Luigi and 2 of his siblings. But not Silvio. Luigi had been detained while waiting for my 2nd great uncle, Semplicio Saviano. On the ship manifest Luigi calls Semplicio a relative. On the detainee list, he calls him his nephew. But he is not his nephew!
• 1942 World War II draft registration card, mentioned earlier. Silvio and his wife Mary are at another Bronx address,and his birthday is 9 Oct 1896. That is the very first time Silvio's birth date on a U.S. document actually matches his Italian birth record. It was only when I got to this last document that I realized the truth. Silvio is not the son of my 3rd great uncle.

I can't prove his relationship to me. But I can try to find the missing pieces. Luigi came to New York with 2 of his children, Maria and Giuseppe, in 1901. He made another trip in 1912—as a 60-year-old man—and brought back only his son Silvio. Luigi died in the Bronx in 1916 as a widower. Did his wife die in Italy? Is that why Luigi went back to fetch his youngest child, 15-year-old Silvio? When did Silvio's other sister Letizia come to America? She married and had a baby in the Bronx in 1905, dying 5 days later of complications. Her death record says she arrived in 1901. (I just realized she is not my only Letizia Saviano, and both died the same way!)

I need more immigration records. So far, they're eluding me. I'll bet Luigi is my 2nd great grandfather's 1st cousin, but I may never be able to prove it. For now I'll give the whole branch my blue "No Relationship Established" profile image and move on.

The lesson here is to stop what you're doing when you find a big error. You may forget about it and make more mistakes as a result. Take a step back and be objective. Examine all the facts you have, and then search for more.

So…who's all messed up in your family tree?

Here are some related articles you may have missed:

• What to Do When Your Family Tree Is Stuck
• What's in Your Genealogy Toolbox?
• What to Do When There Are No Documents

Combine these Genealogy Projects for a Richer Family Tree

Work smarter by combining your genealogy projects wherever you can.

Have I overloaded you with family tree cleanup projects? I know I can't keep up. Let's take a look at some of these projects with 2 goals in mind:

• Choose which projects you really want to get done, and
• See how you can combine 2 or more tasks and work smarter.

1. Create a Direct Ancestor List with Ahnentafel Numbers

See "Overwhelming Clean-up Task? Start With Direct Ancestors." Add a custom fact field to hold each direct ancestor's Ahnentafel number. If you can, give each of your 4 branches an identifier. In Family Tree Maker you can color-code a person and all their ancestors. I've given a different color to each of my 4 grandparents and their direct ancestors.

Now I can instantly spot the more than 290 direct ancestors in my tree. This was a one-day project. The color-coding took a minute. Finding and adding each ancestor's Ahnentafel number took an hour or two.

Check your Grandparent Chart for the Ahnentafel number. Don't have one? That's another project you can do in a day.

Whenever you have an overwhelming project to do, take care of your direct ancestors first. That's a lot less to bite off and a great start.

2. Create Your Elder Scroll

Here's a natural project combination point. See "Make Your Own 'Elder Scrolls'." That custom Ahnentafel field from project #1 makes it easy (in some software) to create a custom report. List your direct ancestors (starting with you) in Ahnentafel order. Include each person's name and birth date. Print it out and tape the sheets together, end-to-end. That's your Elder Scroll.

If you've done project #1, you can do project #2 quickly. This is a fun project with a result you can hold in your hands.

3. Get Your "Shoebox" Items into Your Tree

See "How Many Genealogy Gems Are You Sitting On?" Sometimes I see a photo of a relative on Facebook or in a cousin's online family tree. I save the image and keep it in my "gen docs" folder and in the "photos" sub-folder. Apparently I've been doing this with all kinds of family tree documents for years.

When working on a project to add photos to my tree, I realized I had to find the man's whole family.

This weekend I gave my virtual shoebox some attention. I started with census sheet images for people who I thought should be my relatives. Years later, I've built my family tree out so much that voila! Those people are in my tree now! I'm winnowing down my gen docs folder, but it's big.

4. Process All Facts and Documents for a Person at Once

Here's another project combination point. See "Make Smarter Progress on Your Family Tree." I was working on photos in my virtual shoebox, trying to place them in my family tree. When I got to one family portrait, I realized I hadn't documented the family of the father in the portrait.

So while I was there adding his photo, I went after his birth record and added his parents. His father fit into another family unit that was in my tree already. His mother needed more work.

I found her 1850 birth record. Then I found her parents' marriage records. I added each new vital record to my tree with source citations for each fact.

5. Write Your Ancestors' Life Stories

See "Which of Your Ancestors Has the Best Life Story?" When you're working on nearly any of the other projects, you can combine it with this one. Let's say you realize you have a ton of documents and facts for one of your ancestors. There aren't many holes left to fill.

This would be a great time to pull together the timeline of that ancestor's life story. You family tree software can help you by displaying that timeline. How would you tell this person's story? What family anecdotes can you add to bring this ancestor to life?

It can help to break the task into chunks. Capture their timeline of events in a Word document. Later add a couple of photos. Then add in some family stories.

6. Fully Document Your Ancestor's Entire Community

I don't know which other countries make this so easy. But if you have Italian family, you may be able to download your ancestral hometown's records. I did. See "3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree."

I'm approaching this collection in a few ways, making progress on each of them:

• Rename each file to include the name of the subject. Then the whole collection becomes searchable on my computer.
• Add each document's main facts to a spreadsheet. This helps with searches and will be shareable with other descendants of the towns.
• Go through that spreadsheet line-by-line to see who can fit into my tree. Then get them in there.

My renamed files make it so easy to locate a record and build out a family. In project #4 above, I realized I didn't have any documentation on the ancestors of the man in the family portrait. So I searched my computer for his name, found his birth record, and kept going up and up his family tree.

This project benefits everything else I do.

7. Choose a Ripe DNA Match and Pursue the Connection

By "ripe" I mean a DNA match with a decent family tree. See "Can't Connect to Your DNA Match? Keep Trying."

I like to revisit my unsolved, ripe DNA matches once in a while. There's a chance that my other projects wound up adding a connection to a DNA match.

I'm trying to keep all my projects moving.

Decide which projects matter to you. Start doing any one of them with the others always in mind. Don't be afraid to go off on a tangent if it means you'll make progress on another project.

Keep track of where you left off on any one project, take care of that tangent, and come back to where you left off. Keep making valuable progress on your family tree—your legacy.

And happy birthday to George Harrison! He isn't gone. Shut up.