Six Degrees of Separation, Family Tree Edition

You say a public figure has roots in my ancestral town? Challenge accepted!

Let's play a little "Six Degrees of Separation," genealogy style. Can you find your connection to a public figure with roots in the same ancestral town as you?

All my ancestors lived in small, rural Italian hill towns up until 1899–1920. They weren't noblemen, aristocrats, or educated. Their families stayed put for hundreds of years.

Then came a massive exodus of Southern Italian men. Today, descendants of my ancestors' townspeople are spread all over the world. It can be fun to figure out how a public figure connected to your town fits into your family tree.

I've heard that pop star Gwen Stefani and World War II hero "Manila John" Basilone were descendants of my grandfather's Italian hometown.

Tracing the Pop Star

For a long time Gwen Stefani's ancestors were out of my reach. Our connection goes back further than my family tree did. But now my tree has such deep, dense roots in the town of Colle Sannita, that I found our connection.

Here's how I did it. Since she is a public figure, I was able to Google Gwen for her details. Born in 1969 in California to Dennis Stefani and Patricia Flynn. I needed to climb Dennis Stefani's family tree a generation or two to get back to Colle Sannita. I haven't seen the name Stefani in Colle Sannita records. So I expected to find a connection on his mother's side of the family.

I searched for Dennis Stefani and found his mother, born in Michigan, had the maiden name diPaola. That is my hook. That name is significant. I have several direct ancestors from Colle Sannita with that name. They range from a 2nd great grandmother to an 8th great grandfather.

Census records and the marriage record of Dennis Stefani's parents gave me more clues. In America, his mother's parents were Frank diPaola and Lillie Marino. I needed to find Colle Sannita records for a Francesco diPaola and a Libera Marino.

It takes a pretty big tree to find a place for your celebrity 5th cousin.

I followed the Francesco diPaola born in Colle Sannita in 1885 across the ocean to America. In 1918, according to his World War I draft registration card, he lived in Michigan with his wife Lilly. The birth date on this draft card confirms that I chose the right birth record from Colle Sannita.

There's more research to do on Libera Antonia (Lilly) Marino, born in Colle in 1888. But so far, her relation to me is only through her husband Francesco diPaola. Francesco's birth record gave me his parents' names. I discovered that his mother's maternal grandparents are my 4th great grandparents.

From my 4th great grandparents, I stepped back down the generations to Gwen Stefani. She and her siblings are my 5th cousins. Her 3 children by one of my favorite rock stars, Gavin Rossdale, are my 5th cousins once removed.

Documenting the War Hero

"Manila John" Basilone was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. He died a hero in Iwo Jima, Japan. He showed courage and initiative during a fierce battle and saved the lives of his men.

John has a well-documented life. I learned that his father, Salvatore Basilone, was born in Colle Sannita on Christmas Day, 1884. Salvatore's parents were both named Basilone. His father Angelo was born months after his own father, also Angelo, had died.

Young Angelo Basilone married 3 times between 1858 and 1881. He had children with each wife from 1859 to 1886. As I climbed Angelo's mother's side of the family tree, I connected him to people already related to me.

I often wonder if Grandpa knew about his sister's in-law, the war hero.

Giovannangela Iamarino was my Grandpa's sister. Her mother-in-law was Colomba Filomena Pilla. Colomba's grandmother was Colomba Zeolla. Her grandfather was Angelo Mascia. Coming back down, Angelo Mascia's grandson was Salvatore Basilone. He's the father of "Manila John" Basilone. Easy, right?

There is more research to do. I can track down the death records of more of John's ancestors. I may find a closer connection to me. For now, he is in my family tree. He's the 3rd cousin once removed of the husband of my 1st great aunt, Giovannangela Iamarino.

Recently I told you how I fit a stranger with a Brazilian immigration record into my family tree. The theory is the same:

• Start with someone you know has a connection to your ancestral hometown.
• Climb their tree, piecing together as many facts as possible.
• Keep going until you hit one of your relatives.
• Then retrace your steps, adding in all the documents, facts, and sources you used.

Six Degrees of Separation? Six is exactly how many generations I had to climb Gwen Stefani's family tree to hit my direct ancestors. It is a fun game, and we can all use a good distraction right now.

Searching for Family in a New Town Takes Practice

Take your time and you can overcome bad handwriting and unfamiliarity.

I have a DNA match with a connection to the least-explored branch of my family tree. I haven't known about this branch very long. I found out they came from a new-to-me Italian town called Apice (a peach, eh?). But I didn't do much more than look up the immediate family of my 3rd great grandmother.

Meanwhile, my DNA match has been busy adding nearly everyone from this town to his family tree. He's creating a document of the town—piecing together families even if they're not related to him. Thanks to his exploratory tree, I discovered the names of 2 sets of my 6th great grandparents!

I knew I had to start treating this town the same as I treat my other ancestral towns. There are a ton of the town's vital records available on the Italian Antenati website. I've downloaded lots of them, but I haven't finished.

Even before I download all of them, I want to go through the files I have and look for my ancestors' last names:

• Lomaglio
• Lorito
• Mazzarella
• Montenigro
• Trancuccio
• Zullo

So I started renaming the image files from Apice as I viewed them. (By editing the file name to include the name of the person in the document, it becomes searchable on my computer.) From the very start, I had a major stumbling block. The handwriting was awful!

My knowledge of Italian names helps, but I needed to see it written clearly.

That's when I remembered my tips for working with a set of hard-to-read documents:

1. Examine as many records as possible. The more times you see a name written, the greater your chances of seeing it written clearly.
2. Take your best guess. I renamed the Apice vital records for 1809–1811. When I couldn't quite read a name, I typed my best guess. When I see a guessed name enough times, and I figure it out, I can go back and correct all my guesses.
3. Find documents with better handwriting. The town clerk won't have kept his job forever. I jumped way ahead to the 1844 death records, and the handwriting was large and clear. A new town clerk was on the job! If you find documents with good handwriting, study them to learn the names of people in this town.

(See also 5 Steps to Take When Your Ancestor's Name is Unreadable.)

As I rename the files, I keep my family tree open. Each time I find a Zullo document (or any of the other names in my list), I check to see if they can fit in my tree yet. I'm eager to find death records for my 5th great grandparents, Saverio Zullo and Angela Montenigro, so I can learn their parents' names. They may have died before 1809 when Italy began keeping civil records. But there's a chance I'll find them.

Renaming my files made the town's names clearer to me: Casazza, Caporaso, Licciardi, Iebba…

I started an alphabetical list of the last names in this town. I'm adding them to an Excel file as I find them. (I can sort it alphabetically in 2 clicks.) That way I can remember what I decided is the proper spelling of each name. This has been tremendously helpful when I find a name that written so badly.

When we've got these endless, entertaining puzzles to play with, who wants to go outside? Seriously, though, get the hell in your house!

Working Backwards from an Intriguing Discovery

When you think a new document belongs in your tree, here's what you can do.

This week I was looking at the family tree of a DNA match. When I recognized her grandparents' names from my tree, I got to work. I spent hours piecing together as many of her direct ancestors as possible. If she ever answers my message, she will be amazed.

Next I found a collection of Brazilian records on Ancestry.com (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965). These documents are like passports, but better. They have the person's photo, birth date and place, parents' names, and spouse's name.

I searched the collection for people from my grandfather's hometown in Italy. I found 4. To get any of them into my family tree, I had to find their parents in my vital record collection.

These immigration cards from Brazil can open up some dead ends in my family tree.

The first one with good results was a handsome man named Giovanni Battista Anacleto. He's a bit younger than my dad, which is funny when you're used to dealing with people from 200 years ago. I recognized Anacleto as a rare name from my Colle Sannita, Italy, documents. His mother's name seems to be from another town, so I'll get to her later.

My goal was to find a record for this young man's father, Salvatore Anacleto. Then I would climb his family tree until I found someone already in my tree. Then I'd be able to add Giovanni Battista and everyone else I find from his family. Here are the steps I took.

Find His Father

I searched my collection of vital records for Salvatore Anacleto. (I renamed my entire collection of records for this town, so I can search for any name from File Explorer.) I found his 1904 birth record. I know it's him because it mentions his 1926 bride, and I know she's Giovanni Battista's mother.

Find His Grandparents

The 1904 birth record names Salvatore's parents. I have no vital records for his father, Emilio Anacleto. Salvatore's mother was Andreana Paolucci. I found an 1864 birth record for an Andreana Filomena Paolucci. I know she's the right one. At the bottom of her birth record, it say she married Emilio Anacleto.

Andreana's parents were not in my family tree. Yet.

Find His Great Grandparents

Andreana Paolucci's father Saverio was 33 years old on the 1864 record. And his late father was named Giorgio. That helps narrow down my search. I searched my computer for "Saverio Paolucci di Giorgio" born about 1831. (In an Italian vital record, "di" means "child of". It's a handy abbreviation.)

I found 2 candidates:

• Francesco Saverio Paolucci born in 1830
• Francesco Saverio Paolucci born in 1831

It's perfectly normal for a man born as Francesco Saverio to go by the name of Saverio when he's older.

I decided to pursue the second one, born in 1831. I'm satisfied with this choice because his grandmother is Andreana, just like his daughter. Still, I will have to fully explore the 1830 Francesco Saverio and see where that leads.

The 1831 birth record says Francesco Saverio's parents are Giorgio Paolucci and Marianna Marino. I searched for the marriage of those two. I found out Giorgio Paolucci was born Baldassarre Giorgio Paolucci, son of Saverio. And Marianna Marino was born Mariangela Marino.

I kept climbing his family tree until I found some of his ancestors were already in my family tree.

I know at this point you're totally doubting me. Everyone's names are a bit off. But my great grandmother was born Marianna and later called herself Mariangela. I've seen it happen many times. And I have a pretty exhaustive database of the town.

I looked into the 1822 marriage documents for Baldassarre Giorgio and Mariangela. It turns out Baldassarre's parents were already my distant relatives. Better yet, Mariangela's grandparents are my 6th great grandparents!

Put the Pieces Together

Now I was ready to climb back down the tree, adding in the new people I'd found:

• Baldassarre Giorgio Paolucci and his wife Mariangela Marino, along with their parents' facts from the 1822 marriage documents.
• Their son Francesco Saverio Paolucci and his wife Maria Marino. (I still need to investigate her.)
• Their son Salvatore Anacleto and his wife Maria Lucia Barone. I've checked 2 neighboring towns for Maria Lucia so far. No luck.
• My emigrant to São Paulo, Brazil, Giovanni Battista Anacleto. Now that he's in my family tree, I know he is my 5th cousin twice removed! (Yes, I will work to prove I chose the right Francesco Saverio.)

There are countless ways to approach your family tree research. When I'm not chipping away at the more tedious tasks, I like to keep it interesting. Following up on my new DNA match was very rewarding. But I've always wanted to track down the townspeople who went to Brazil. This immigration collection will give me hours and hours of genealogy detective work.

Using Ancestry's ThruLines to Find DNA Matches

This visual clue makes it easy to see your connection to a DNA match.

It had been a while since I looked at Ancestry.com's ThruLines™ tool. This can be a great way to quickly understand your connection to a DNA match.

I noticed a few of my ancestors tagged with the word UPDATED. This means there's a new DNA match linked to those ancestors. I clicked one of my updated 2nd great grandparents. There I saw a basic family tree chart showing a direct line from my 2nd great grandparent down to me. It highlighted my dad as a DNA match.

The "updated" tag on your ancestor is a quick way to find your newest DNA matches with a known connection.

A second branch of this chart began with my great grandmother's brother—my 2nd great uncle. I knew exactly who he was. He was my grandfather's Uncle Antonio who lived in Newton, Massachusetts. Grandpa lived and worked near him for a short while. Because of this brief stay in Newton, I did a lot of research into Antonio's family in Massachusetts. When Uncle Antonio's daughter died in 2014, I learned the names of her children.

One of those children is my 2nd cousin once removed. We're around the same age. Now her daughter has taken a DNA test. It's that daughter—my 3rd cousin—whom I've discovered today thanks to ThruLines.

Seeing my ThruLines laid out so simply made it easy to see exactly who this DNA match is.

I'd looked at all my UPDATED ancestors in ThruLines. Next I began hovering my mouse over my earlier ancestors, looking for a high number of DNA matches. The highest number was 8 DNA matches tied to a pair of my 4th great grandparents.

There are 5 DNA matches stemming from my 3rd great grandfather Giuseppantonio. I know them all. There are 2 DNA matches stemming from his brother Pasquale. He's my 4th great uncle. These 2 matches are my 5th cousins. I've already examined their details.

Another brother of my 3rd great grandfather was my 4th great uncle Giambattista. That's an interesting Italian name that means John the Baptist. Stemming from Giambattista is a DNA match I hadn't seen before.

I can tell from ThruLines that this new match is the daughter of my 3rd cousin twice removed. That makes her my 4th cousin once removed.

When I looked at her family tree, I saw 2 very familiar names on her father's side. But she's related to me on her mother's side.

I knew her father's parents because 2 years ago I photographed their graves in Italy. Seeing their names together, I remembered the unusual grave markers immediately. It was my husband who spotted them, leaning against a brick wall. He pointed them out because the wife was an Iamarino, like me.

Angela Iamarino and Innocenzo Gentile died in my grandfather's hometown in 1977. The most likely reason for the leaning grave markers is that their remains were now into a family crypt. (You don't keep your final resting place forever in Italy.)

We photographed a ton of grave markers that day. When I got home I tried to identify each person to see where they fit in my family tree. Angela Iamarino was my 3rd cousin once removed.

I looked at my new DNA match's family tree. I learned that Angela and Innocenzo from the cemetery had a son who married my 2nd cousin 3 times removed. I placed Angela and Innocenzo's son into my family tree and married him to my cousin. Then I gave them their daughter—my DNA match.

My relationship to her father's side of the family was a surprise. She and I are double 4th cousins once removed. I used Family Tree Maker's Relationship Tool for help. My match is related to both my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandparents were 3rd cousins which leads to lots of double cousins.

Imagine if every DNA-tester added a basic tree with 3 or 4 generations of their direct ancestors. We could solve so many mysteries!

I wrote to this DNA match. I don't think she knows about the grave markers in our ancestral hometown.

If you have a DNA test with no tree or a private tree, you're wasting everyone's time. Worried about privacy? Add your direct ancestors only. The websites hide living people's names. It's your 2nd and 3rd great grandparents who are the most valuable. They will nab you the most relatives, insights, and discoveries.

Learn more about DNA tools:

• How to Find Your Strongest DNA Matches
• Use Every Tool to Solve a Family History Mystery
• The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle

Conjuring Up Memories of a Missing Relative

Restoring damaged, faded photos leads to old memories and new revelations.

My Aunt Lil's photo collection (my new family tree gift) is still waiting for me to scan it. On Wednesday, an online Photoshop tutorial inspired me to scan 3 photos in particular.

There are a lot of photos of my grandmother Lucy in that collection. That's fantastic because I had almost none. Lucy died a few years before I was born, so I didn't grow up with her as my grandmother. Instead, I had my grandfather's 2nd wife, Sadie. She wanted us all to call her Sadie, not Grandma. She once corrected my sister, saying, "I'm not your grandmother." Alrighty then.

Sadie was always pleasant and kept a nice house. She cooked a pot roast so outstanding we still call it "Sadie Meat" 3 decades after she died. A while ago I realized I had no photos of Sadie. She died a few weeks before my wedding, so there were no family portraits with her.

No one in my family knew her maiden name, either! I discovered it when I found her immigration record and naturalization papers. Sadie came from Nicosia, Sicily. Her citizenship papers included a barely recognizable photo of her. My mom couldn't believe it was her. (Fun fact: The lady who told us not to call her Grandma was actually named Santa! Merry, merry.)

Restoring this unique photo made my step-grandmother more real to me.

When I went through my aunt's photo collection, I found 2 photos of Sadie. The 1st photo is from April 1979. It's a good representation of the Sadie I knew. It's a bit faded, but Sadie and Grandpa look good. The 2nd photo is from December 1958. This is when Grandpa was courting Sadie. They married 4 months later. I'm struck by how happy and in love Grandpa looks. It's sweet.

Unfortunately, the 1958 photo is faded, cracked and creased. After watching a pro demonstrate Photoshop features, I wanted to work on these photos.

When I auto-corrected the color on the 1958 photo, Sadie was wearing a purple dress and had dark hair. It was shocking to see her in her prime. As I adjusted the color to make the Christmas tree green, Sadie's dress turned a deep cranberry color.

Now I had 2 very nice photos of my step-grandmother. I remembered that Aunt Lil's collection also has a photo of Grandpa and Sadie's house. I restored the color to this faded photo. The 2 cars near the house look like they're from the late 1950s or early 1960s. That means this is only a few years before I would be visiting Grandpa's house in the Bronx.

Using techniques I learned in a Photoshop tutorial, I brought color and depth back to Sadie and Grandpa.

How moving it is to see the roses (not in bloom) growing over the arbor above the front gate. Grandpa's property was a lovely garden in front, and a backyard garden so big it was like a small farm! Grandpa and Sadie lived on the main floor, and they had a full basement. Upstairs was an apartment Grandpa rented to my mom's uncle and aunt. Seeing this photo of the house brings back so many memories. We'd all go visit Grandpa, then my mom would take me upstairs to visit her relatives. As a kid, I thought it was a coincidence that Daddy's family was downstairs and Mommy's family was upstairs.

I'm feeling inspired. Instead of cranking out the photo scans, I want to enhance the ones I can. These 3 photos need to go right into Family Tree Maker, attached to both Grandpa and Sadie. I'll add the house photo to my aunt and uncle, too.

I watched a Photoshop course on a paid educational site (LinkedIn Learning). But you can get inspired by free tutorials on Adobe's site.

Taking the Time to Take Care of Our Own

With so many family tree projects to tackle, a combo plan may work best.

While I'm in isolation, I'm turning my attention to my closer relatives. Sure, they lived in Italy in the 1800s. But those are the souls I live with day in and day out.

In past articles I've written about dozens of projects to clean up, beef up, and improve your family tree. Some of my favorite ongoing projects are:

• improving my source citations
• documenting entire Italian towns in a spreadsheet
• renaming image files to create a searchable database
• finding missing documents to "close out" individual families
• scanning, enhancing, cataloguing, and properly storing my family photos

There can never be enough hours in the day for me to complete these tasks. At least, not until I give up my corporate job.

But this past weekend I had a revelation. I was going line-by-line through my spreadsheet of vital records from my ancestral town of Colle Sannita. I was up to 1812 birth records. For each new baby, I check my family tree to see if I have the parents already. If I do, I add the baby, its facts, and the birth record. Of course I give it a source citation in my newly adopted style. I also add the baby to my document tracker. And I make the whole line green in the vital records spreadsheet. Green tells me this document is in my tree.

I can juggle all my family tree projects while working only on close relatives.

I was adding lots of babies. In some cases, I already had the baby, but not the birth record. And in some of those cases, I knew who they married and when. But I hadn't added the document to my tree yet.

When I found people missing documents, I finished them off. This took quite a bit longer, but it was worth the time to do it right.

And that's when I had my revelation. With limited time, wouldn't it be better to focus on my closer relatives and take a holistic approach? I can combine many of my different projects in one, starting with my great aunts and uncles.

You see, when my source citations broke, I developed a better way of handling them. Then I decided to fix the citations for my direct ancestors first. I have about 290 (n) great grandparents (n=1st through 9th). So I did that. I enhanced the source citations for my direct ancestors.

Now I want to move on from there. I knew exactly where I wanted to focus first: my Grandpa Leone's relatives. Why him? Because his relatives come from the town of Baselice. I documented that entire town by viewing vital records on microfilm. For 5 years I visited a Family History Center. I looked at each record, typing my own shorthand into a text file on my laptop.

Since the source of all those facts was one of several rolls of microfilm, I have tons of citations that are useless now. You can't get the microfilm anymore. But all those documents and more are accessible on the Italian Antenati website.

So my holistic approach goes like this.

I began with my grandfather's 4 siblings. For each one I:

• Fixed their source citations. I deleted the old microfilm sources and created new ones based on the Antenati URL of their vital record.
• Added missing documents. If I knew when and whom they married, but I hadn't added the documents, I added the documents.
• Renamed each document image I looked at until I found the one I needed. When I rename the file, I keep its identification number and add the name of the person in the document.
• Fixed the citations of their spouses and children. I have cases where a man's occupation fact comes from the birth record of his child. So, to cite my source for his job, I had to go to the child and cite my source for their birth. Then I copied that citation and pasted it to the dad's occupation.
• Made the spreadsheet line green if I added a birth record that was in my town spreadsheet.
• For any new documents, I added a notation in my document tracker spreadsheet. For many of the people I work on this way, I get to put an n/a in the "Need to find" column. That feels great.

Soon I began climbing the Leone family tree. I had done my great grandfather's wife and children and then his siblings. Then it was time to move on to his father. My 2nd great grandfather had lots of siblings and half-siblings. I was creating a source citation for the birth of his half brother Giovanni Leone. I noticed that I had him marked as having died in another town in 1864. I'm not sure where that fact came from, but I didn't have his death record.

I checked the Antenati website for 1864 death records for the town of Aversa. That's more than a 2-hour car ride from Giovanni's hometown of Baselice. Imagine how long a trip it was before cars and highways. Why was he there? I knew the date of his death, so it was easy to find the actual death record. I saw the word celibe after his name, so I knew my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone had never married. He was 51 years old with no occupation. Most of the Italian death records I've seen say the person died in his own house, or in his father's house. This one says he died in the Reale Stabilimento dei Matti. I needed my Italian friend to confirm what I thought. And it does mean what I'd feared. Giovanni died in the insane asylum in the city of Aversa.

The fate of my half 3rd great uncle Giovanni Leone was a shocker.

With a bit of research I learned this establishment used caring, humane methods. There was no harsh treatment of the inmates. Maybe Giovanni's family sent him that far away because it was the kindest thing they could do for him.

Poor Giovanni's fate is a silver lining to this holistic approach. By sticking to closer relatives and tying up loose ends, I made this sad discovery. Instead of wondering why Giovanni left town and never married, I now know exactly why.

In the end, this approach means I'll make slower progress on my individual projects. But I'll make deeper, more complete, and more meaningful progress on my blood relatives.

How can you combine your family tree projects into more fulfilling genealogy research sessions?