Use Color-Coding to Solve Mystery DNA Matches

Last week's article on sorting your DNA matches by grandparent branch was a big hit. Thank you for reading it! Since that DNA exercise was so popular, I've got another one for you. This is especially helpful for those of you whose parents have not DNA tested.

This color-coding exercise comes from a RootsTech presentation by Diahan Southard. It's called, "Shared Matches—The only DNA tool you will ever need."

Choose a Goal No Further Back than a 3rd Great Grandparent

My goal for this exercise is to find descendants of my unknown 3rd great grandmother. All I know is she married Antonio Muollo in the tiny hamlet of Pastene in Italy. To do this, I'll choose the closest match I know who descends from each of my 4 pairs of 1st great grandparents. These should be people who you've already fit into your family tree. Southard calls these cousins your Best Known Matches, or BKMs.

For each BKM, click to view them and find the list of your shared matches. (The location of this list depends on your DNA website.) These are people who match both you and the BKM. Create a color-code on your DNA website for each of your 1st great grandparent pairs. Give the right color to all the shared matches of each BKM. Give it to your BKM from that branch, too.

Divide your DNA matches with this color-coding system and watch all the pieces fall into place.

You can go a step further and give that color to the shared matches of everyone in your BKM's shared match list.

Without using my parents or reusing any BKMs, here are my closest tested cousins for each branch. They're strong matches with longest segments of shared DNA between 35 and 86 cMs.

BKMs by 1st great grandparents branch:

1. Iamarino/Caruso—June 1C1R, 441 cM match, longest segment 51 cM
2. Iamarino/Pilla—Jessica 3C1R, 168 cM match, longest segment 65 cM
3. Leone/Iammucci—Nicky 1C, 793 cM match, longest segment 86 cM
4. Sarracino/Saviano—Christine 2C, 308 cM match, longest segment 35 cM

If that list is confusing, it's because my father's parents were both named Iamarino. They were 3rd cousins.

Use Color-Coding to Filter Your Matches

Next, I'll go back to my main match page and filter my list by only my Sarracino/Saviano branch. The goal is to separate them by my 2nd great grandparent couples. I'll use another color to divide the Sarracino-only matches into a 2nd great grandparent group called Sarracino/Muollo. And I'll divide the Saviano-only matches into a 2nd great grandparent group called Saviano/Consolazio. It's the Sarracino/Muollo group that can help me break through my Muollo brick wall.

Here are the BKMs I chose for my 2nd great grandparent branches:

1. Sarracino/Muollo—Mary, 191 cM match, longest segment 51 cM
2. Saviano/Consolazio—Teresa, 2C1R, 157 cM match, longest segment 35 cM
3. Iamarino/Zeolla—another Teresa, 125 cM match, longest segment 65 cM
4. Pilla/Liguori—Nicole, 59 cM match, longest segment 25 cM
5. Iamarino/diPaola—Keith, 2C, 232 cM match, longest segment 51 cM
6. Caruso/Girardi—Daniel, 2C, 229 cM match, longest segment 42 cM
7. Leone/Pisciotti—Anne, 3C, 97 cM match, longest segment 71 cM
8. Iammucci/Bozza—none! There's only my mother and 1C Nicky.

You May Find Some Surprises

Diahan Southard said this exercise can point out the endogamy in your family tree. Endogamy is when generations of families keep intermarrying. That leaves you with multiple relationships to people. And it's very common in the small, somewhat isolated hill towns that were home to all my ancestors.

I see endogamy right away because my only 1C who's tested, my maternal 1st cousin, is somehow a match to my father. He's a very distant relation to my Dad. They share only 11 cMs in one segment. They each have ancestors from bordering towns, so there are lots of ways they may connect. But I'll probably never find the answer.

If you don't have endogamy, this process should work extremely well for you. You'll wind up with a long list of matches who must belong to a particular branch of your family tree. They've probably been mystery matches because they have no tree or no familiar names.

As a shortcut, I took Southard's advice and looked at Ancestry's ThruLines^® for Muollo branch descendants. There's only one, aside from my 1C and my mom. She's my 3C1R, and she looks remarkably like me. It's possibly she has some Muollo in her ancestry, but she seems to be only on the Sarracino side. If there is a Muollo descendant in my matches, they don't have a public family tree. Still, I will circle back and examine my shared matches with my lookalike 3C1R.

With the Muollo branch at an impasse, I turned my attention to my Consolazio ancestors. My 2nd great grandmother was a Consolazio from the town of Santa Paolina. Many people from that town intermarried with people in the neighboring town of Tufo. And my Tufo vital record collection needs a lot more research.

I chose as my BKM Lynda, my 3C3R, 30 cM match, with a longest segment of 19 cM. I know exactly where she belongs on the Consolazio branch. I marked her and our shared matches with the color for my Consolazio/Zullo branch.

Harvest Your Mystery Matches

Looking at these matches, I moved onto the next step, which is Southard's mantra, "Do genealogy!" I'll choose a shared match with a decent family tree and expand it until it reaches a branch of my tree.

I was digging into one match with a Consolazio family in his tree, but they were from the wrong town. I researched them anyway, and they did, in fact, have roots in my Consolazio town of Santa Paolina. That's a good lesson right there. Don't count someone out because their closer ancestors come from a place you don't know. Dig deeper!

Expert Diahan Southard offers this incredible method for finding exactly the DNA matches you need. I can't praise this method highly enough.

When I did the genealogy, this match whose close family was from another town turned out to be my 3C2R. Our longest shared DNA segment measured 20 cM, which is now very logical.

Our common ancestors are my 4th great grandparents, Gaetano Consolazio and Colomba Ricciardelli. Our shared roots go very deep in Santa Paolina. I color-coded all our shared matches as Consolazio/Zullo.

In the past I marked one of our shared matches as "Consolazio NOT from Santa Paolina." Now I knew I needed to dig into her family tree to bring her roots back to my town. And I did it! I found our connection, which was a mystery before today. She's my 4C1R, and we share the same ancestors—Gaetano Consolazio and Colomba Ricciardelli.

I'd marked another shared match as "lots of Santa Paolina names." Today's exercise brought him to my attention again. Almost instantly, I saw a way into his tree. His grandfather is already in my family tree, but there isn't a cousin connection. When I researched his grandmother, I found our connection. Now this mystery match is my 5C1R.

This is really working! Diahan Southard hit the nail on the head in her presentation. She said, "Stop looking at shared last names, and start looking at shared matches. Then, do genealogy."

This method can solve a ton of your mystery DNA matches. Give it a try!

And speaking of DNA tools:

• This DNA Reference Site Solved a Mystery
• The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle
• Combine DNA Tools to Calculate Unknown Relationships

This Spreadsheet Sorts DNA Matches By Branch

If it's at all possible, get your close relatives to take a DNA test that you will manage. Choose someone from your maternal and paternal sides. If you can't test your parents, how about a half-sibling or a 1st cousin? Once they've tested, get ready to see all your DNA matches in a new light.

I'm so glad my parents agreed to take a DNA test. At first I asked them to test so I could more easily see which one of them was related to my DNA matches. Now AncestryDNA is doing that for us with their SideView™ feature. I figured I didn't need this feature. But I was wrong.

While watching videos from RootsTech 2023, one big thing dawned on me. You see, my parents are on each other's match lists. After so much digging, I'm sure they don't have a common ancestor who lived before the late 1700s. But I never thought to look at my parents' SideViews.

Looking at SideView from My Parents' Perspective

The result was pretty exciting. When I looked at Dad in Mom's match list, I saw:

• their relationship falls in the 4th–6th cousin range
• they share 37 cMs
• their longest segment of shared DNA is 14 cMs
• Dad is on Mom's paternal side of the family

That last item is great news because Mom's maternal side of the family dead ends too early. That ancestral hometown was a Papal State in Italy, so it didn't keep civil records before 1861.

When I looked at Mom in Dad's DNA match list, they still shared 37 cMs with the longest segment measuring 14 cMs. But, unfortunately, SideView shows Mom as Unassigned. Ancestry says this could mean there isn't enough information to assign Mom to one of Dad's parents. Your Unassigned matches may get updated in the future, so keep checking.

Analyzing DNA Matches in a New Light

It was Kelli Bergheimer's RootsTech presentation "DNA Misconceptions" that inspired today's project. I created a spreadsheet to compare my DNA matches' relationship to each of my parents and me.

I started by adding the names of my DNA matches in column A of a spreadsheet. I went from the top of the list down to my 44 cM matches. After 44 cMs my matches fell into the Distant Family category. I noted:

• how many cMs we shared
• whether a match is on my maternal side, paternal side, both sides, or unassigned

Then I went through each of my parents' match lists. I captured their matches down to a 44 cM match. If their match wasn't already in my list, I added a new line to the spreadsheet. I checked each of our lists for everyone in column A, noting shared cMs and which side of the family.

When all your maternal DNA matches are on Mom's list, and all your paternals are on Dad's list, you know you've found a cousin.

Next I used colors to show where Mom and I shared a match, where Dad and I shared a match, and where all 3 of us shared a match. In those cases, I added the length of our longest segment of shared DNA with the match in cMs. (If you use AncestryDNA, click your match's number of shared cMs to see what is the longest length.)

I found 10 matches that only Dad has, and 7 matches that only Mom has. All 17 had a strong number of shared cMs. It's possible I share an amount of DNA with them that's too small to make my list. There were no matches in my column that didn't match either Mom or Dad. That qualifies them as true matches and not false positives.

Are Your Matches Really in Your Family Tree?

Kelli Bergheimer speaks about IBD (Identical By Descent) vs. IBS (Identical By State) matches. IBS is also called IBC (Identical By Chance). An IBD match is definitely family—a true cousin. This is someone who fits in your family tree. An IBS/IBC match may or may not be a true cousin. They may share DNA with you because their ancestors' roots are planted so close to yours. And that's one way this spreadsheet helps you understand your matches.

If my parent(s) and I share a match with a good number of cMs, I can be confident that person is a true cousin. I did a bit of research on this concept, and the following numbers vary a bit from place to place. But here's the basic idea.

If the *longest segment* you share with a DNA match is:

• 12 cM or more, you're almost surely true cousins
• about 10 to 12 cM, there's a 90% chance you're true cousins
• between 8 and 10 cM, there's a 50-50 chance you're true cousins
• between 6 and 8 cM, there's less than a 50% chance you're true cousins
• smaller than 6 cM, there's about a 10% chance you're true cousins

Even if you are true cousins, your most recent common ancestor (MRCA) may be too far up your tree to identify. Your odds of finding that MRCA get better and better when you and your match share a segment of 30 cMs or more. If you share a segment of about 16 to 30 cMs, you've got about a 50% chance of finding that MRCA. Any lower and the odds are slim to none. (My parents' longest segment is 14 cMs.)

The message is clear. Don't beat yourself up if you can't identify a match who shares a longest segment of less than 16 cMs with you.

Practical Ways to Use This Spreadsheet

I love this spreadsheet because it can tell me which of my 4 grandparents' lines connect me to a DNA match. I added a column next to the matches' names showing which grandparent(s) is the connection:

• Adamo for Mom's paternal matches
• Mary for Mom's maternal matches
• Pietro for Dad's paternal matches
• Lucy for Dad's maternal matches
• various combinations to cover double matches and unassigned matches

Use your parents' AncestryDNA SideView™ to assign a match to one or more grandparents' branches of the family tree.

This creates a sort of cluster when you sort your spreadsheet by the grandparent column. In my case, if Grandma Mary is their only connection to me, and they aren't a very strong match, I may not find our MRCA. (Again, that's because Mary's line dead ends too early.) If Grandpa Adamo is their only connection, I know they have roots in his hometown of Baselice, Italy. And sometimes a match's last name reassures me that my spreadsheet is correct.

What About Your Closest Tested Relatives?

Getting back to my parents matching each other—I went to DNA Painter to use the Shared cM Project 4.0 tool. I entered the total number of cMs my parents share: 37. The tool says that pedigree collapse or endogamy can affect the results. There's a good chance I have one or both of those things in my family tree. All my ancestors came from a small string of neighboring Italian towns.

Putting pedigree collapse or endogamy aside, my parents have:

• a 50% chance of being 5th, 6th, or 7th cousins, along with several other relationships in that range
• a 19% chance of being half 3rd cousins or 3rd cousins once removed
• an 18% chance of being 4th cousins or half 3rd cousins once removed
• a 10% chance of being half 2nd cousins or 2nd cousins once removed

Based on my extensive family tree, I'm confident my parents are 5th, 6th, or 7th cousins. All I can do hope that their towns' church records go public some day so I can dig into the early 1700s.

If you have very close relatives who've DNA tested, try this type of DNA analysis for yourself. I'm excited to be able to figure out my lower matches who have a stronger connection to one of my parents than to me.

And speaking of DNA matches:

• How to Crunch Your DNA Numbers
• Why Care About Your DNA Matches?
• How to Use the Power of Shared DNA Matches

A 15% discount for readers of Fortify Your Family Tree!

Exploring a New Feature You Didn't Know You Need

Last week I discussed using the Manage Facts feature of Family Tree Maker to add or remove custom facts. (See "How to Add or Delete Custom Facts in Your Family Tree.") That led me to explore what else is hiding in that Edit menu.

You may have received an email from Family Tree Maker about a free update recently. In the email they highlighted new capabilities in the Manage Relationships tool. (You can read a list of all that's new in FTM 24.2.)

Fix Broken Relationships

They said you may find couples in your family tree listed with an Unknown relationship. And it's through no fault of your own. I decided to test out this new feature. Here's how you can do it:

• Open your tree in FTM, click the Edit menu, and choose Manage Relationships toward the bottom of the list.
• In the Manage Relationships window, the Show relationships menu defaults to Spouse.
• Click Spouse, then click Couple to open up a list of choices.
• The 2 choices that should interest you the most are Unknown and Unknown with a Marriage fact. Start by clicking Unknown.
• You'll see a list of every couple in your tree with an Unknown marriage status.
• You can choose to Select All or you can click each person you know should have a Spouse relationship.
• Once you've made your selections, you can change them all to Spouse at once. First make sure that at the bottom you see Change selected relationships to this type: Spouse. Then click the Apply button and it's done.

This new feature fixes a hidden family tree problem quickly and easily.

I realized as I looked through my list of names that some of the couples should say divorced. Make note of their names because you must change them to Spouse before you can mark them as divorced. (To change their status to divorced, go to an individual's Person tab, look at the Relationships view, and change Spouse - Ongoing to Spouse - Divorced.)

Next, follow the same steps, but choose Unknown with a Marriage fact in the Spouse > Couple list. In my results list, I saw some divorced couples. I had to make note of them, set their relationship to Spouse, then visit each couple to mark them as Spouse - Divorced.

There's a good chance these errors happened while synchronizing your FTM tree with Ancestry.

Manage Even More

Back on the FTM Edit menu, choose Manage Repositories near the bottom. Here you can add, edit, replace, or delete the repositories you created to use with your source citations. Click the Usage button for any repository to see its usage. You'll see a list of how many times it's used—no other details.

You know how to get around in your family tree software. But you can always use a shortcut.

In my case, I found one repository that I'm not using anymore. The Usage button confirmed that it's not in use in my tree, so I deleted it.

The same is true if you choose Manage Sources. But I find it easier to manage your sources from the Sources tab at the top of the FTM window.

One other interesting feature I found on the Edit menu is Edit Person. First navigate to any person of interest. Try clicking the Home button and choosing yourself. Click Edit > Edit Person (or the shortcut, the F3 key). A single window gives you quick access to every fact, note, and media item you've attached to that person.

This is a nice way to view a timeline for the person. Yes, you can see this timeline on any individual's Person tab. But if you need to confirm something quickly, the Edit Person (F3) option is a time saver. Maybe you're wondering if you added a citation to your 2nd great grandmother's 1920 census facts. You'll see that in this window. And you can edit any fact right there in the window.

Finally, the Edit menu has a Find Duplicate People option. I gave up on this after a few moments because my tree has 57,136 people, and far too many of them have the same name. But it may prove useful for you.

If you've been wondering about any other menu option in Family Tree Maker, I highly recommend the Facebook group Family Tree Maker Users. Administrator Nanci Crisp is a marvel. She has created a series of illustrated tutorials explaining absolutely everything to you. Once you've joined the group, click the Guides tab to see all the tutorials.

If you're using another type of family tree software, be sure to check Facebook for a user group. I bet you'll find that someone else has already asked your question and gotten the solution.

How to Add or Delete Custom Facts in Your Family Tree

I'm still busy making every source citation in my family tree complete and consistent. (See "Take the Time to Improve the Sources in Your Family Tree.") It's been so rewarding! Revisiting the documents and families tied to each citation shows me where I need more research. Sometimes it reminds me of past discoveries or problems.

One citation I reviewed was unique for my family tree. I realized I had a decision to make. I needed a custom fact type to handle a convict in the family.

You can create your own custom fact types in 3 steps with FamilyTree Maker. Your software should have this option, too.

This one citation covered 3 images and facts belonging to a man name Frank. Frank's brother married my husband's aunt, and I'd forgotten about my past discovery. Frank committed an unspeakable crime and was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

• He went to San Quentin State Prison on 18 June 1942 at the age of 21.
• He was transferred to the prison in Chino, California, a year later.
• He was released on 18 March 1947 with parole.

How would you enter these dates in your family tree? It seems I assigned these dates to a fact type I made up—Internment. But that custom fact type is for Japanese family members the U.S. shipped off to the middle of nowhere during World War II.

I needed another fact type for Frank, so I created one called Imprisonment. Right now, only Frank uses this fact type, but I'm still reviewing my family tree.

Identifying Custom Fact Types

I wondered if I'd used Internment for other non-internment facts. To find out, I exported a new GEDCOM file and opened it with Family Tree Analyzer (FTA). On the Main Lists tab of FTA, I clicked the Custom Facts tab.

FTA showed me 7 custom fact types used in my tree:

• Ahnentafel—I think this fact type should be part of the GEDCOM standard. I use it to identify all my direct ancestors.
• AKA (Also Known As)—for entering nicknames. This is standard in Family Tree Maker, but FTA doesn't recognize it.
• Event—this is so generic. Too generic.
• Imprisonment
• Internment
• Passport Application
• Visa—some ship manifests include facts about travel visas.

While looking at this table in FTA, you can double-click any row to see who is using this fact type.

Don't know if you have any custom fact types in your tree? Use Family Tree Analyzer to spot them.

I had one person using a fact type called Event. What the heck was that? I double-clicked the row to see the name, then I went to the person in my tree. Ironically, the Event was another man's prison stay. I guess I've struggled with how to categorize jail facts before. I switched this fact type from Event to Imprisonment.

There were 6 people with a custom fact type of Visa. Were these all visa applications for travelers? I double-clicked the Visa row, saw the names, and checked them out in my tree. Each one was a tiny entry pulled from a ship manifest. Obviously I don't add this fact to my tree routinely since there are only 6. But I'll leave them there in case these documents become available some day.

The 2 Passport Application facts were appropriate, but I know I have more than 2 passport applications. I'll bet I forgot I created a custom fact type for them!

The fact type that interests me most is the 35 people using the custom AKA fact type. I don't want to use AKA anymore. I've already started using a different style of recording name variations.

If they call someone by a different name on one census, I note it in the description field of their Residence fact for that year. My Aunt Elsie is a good example. I knew her all my life. I'm the baby she's holding in her profile photo in my tree. It came as a big surprise to discover her given name wasn't Elsie. It was Agnes! She's first called Elsie in the 1940 census, so that's where I've placed the name Elsie. It's in the description field of her 1940 Residence fact: "She is called Elsie."

Want to change how you record certain facts? Family Tree Maker can show you exactly where to find them.

I've reviewed my 35 uses of the AKA fact type and dealt with them all in the proper description field.

This is what's nice about reviewing all your citations at once. You can bring every fact you've ever added to your tree up to your current standards.

Add or Delete Custom Fact Types

To add a new fact type in Family Tree Maker:

• Click the Edit menu and choose Manage Facts.
• In the Manage Facts window, click New to create a new fact type.
• Type in a descriptive fact label so you'll understand what it is. The program will create its short label and 3-letter abbreviation automatically.
• Choose whether to share the fact (like a marriage fact), or give it only to an individual.
• Choose what you intend to fill in. Do you want to have a date and place or only a description? You can even make this fact private by default.
  
• Click OK.

Now when you want to use this type of fact, you'll find it in the Add fact drop-down menu.

To delete an unused custom fact type in Family Tree Maker:

• Click the Edit menu and choose Manage Facts.
• In the Manage Facts window, select the fact type and click the Delete button.
• Click Yes to confirm, and the fact type is gone.

Uh oh. I'm seeing something for the first time in the Manage Facts window. You can select any fact type, click the Data Options button, and see a list of every fact you've assigned to that fact type. To my surprise, this method finds another 36 people using AKA. I need to update them with my new style.

As I was writing this article, Family Tree Maker released a free update affecting the Manage Relationships option on the Edit menu. (Find out everything new in this version 24.1 release.) I haven't explored any of the Manage options before because I had the wrong idea of what they were. Now I know what to write about next week.

Unraveling the Story of My So-Called Cousin

Reviewing the 841 pages of censuses in my family tree has been rewarding. I've been working to clean up all my census source citations (see "Take the Time to Improve the Sources in Your Family Tree"), and it feels like I'm visiting with families I know.

For example, take the 1930 census for my grandmother's uncle Semplicio Saviano. This was the year he had a family of 3 living with him, bringing the total number of people living in his apartment to 11. The husband in that family of 3 is Patsy Ferro, and he's listed as Semplicio's nephew. But he isn't his nephew.

This mystery has been with me for a while. I must have blogged about Patsy before, because a reader named Annette wrote to me about him in 2021. She gave me a few clues about Patsy and his family. But I didn't get very far.

Finding New Clues

Last week the censuses had more to offer on this mystery. In 1940, Patsy and his wife and daughter are once again living with my Saviano relatives. Uncle Semplicio had a ton of children, and in 1940 four of them are living in the same apartment as in 1930. Patsy and his family are each listed as cousins of Semplicio's sons and daughters. But that's not true.

Of course I had to check out the 1950 census for this Saviano family. I finally found something that ties in perfectly with the story Annette told me in her 2021 email. In 1950, Patsy Ferro is the head of household, living a few doors away from his 1930 and 1940 apartment building. His wife is with him, but his daughter recently married and moved away.

Annette said that on her deathbed, Semplicio's wife asked Patsy to look after her children. She died in 1926 and Patsy did as she asked. In 1950, two of the Saviano children are living with him and his wife, listed as cousins. Mind you, they aren't children. These two Savianos are 34 and 40 years old and single.

Is There a Connection?

The question remained, though. How did my relatives know Patsy? Patsy and his wife and daughter were born in the town of Baselice, in the Italian province of Benevento. My Saviano family lived far enough from Baselice that they would never have met Patsy back home. Even Semplicio's wife was born too far from Baselice to know Patsy. But they were paesan since they all came from the province of Benevento.

Three families appeared in my family's home census after census. Who they were supports my theory about my family.

I checked more censuses for the apartment building Semplicio co-owned with my great grandfather, Giovanni Sarracino. Patsy wasn't there in 1910 and 1920, but so many people were!

I remember this building from my childhood. There were 4 apartments, and 2 belonged to my family when I was a kid. They were "railroad apartments"—each room led straight into the next like the cars of a train. There was no hallway. You entered into the kitchen, which led to the next room, which led to the next room, which led to the master bedroom. No privacy for anyone.

But in 1920, according to the census, these 4 apartments held 5 families totaling 39 people! Three of the families are members of my extended Saviano family. The other 2 had names I recognize from the Benevento province: Campanile and Cardone. They're also in the building with my family in the 1910 and 1915 censuses. Who are they?

Was This a Pattern?

Suddenly I remembered my 2nd great grandfather, Antonio Saviano. The only photo I have of him shows him lying in his coffin in 1925 (see "1925 Death Photo Holds a Clue to My Ancestor's Life"). He's wearing a ribbon on his lapel which seems to represent an Italian mutual aid society. This group of immigrants helped other Italian immigrants thrive in their new country.

Maybe my Saviano and Sarracino relatives opened their homes to their paesan. I researched the Cardone family from the building and found some enticing details:

• Husband Francesco Cardone came from San Nicola Manfredi, Benevento. This town is NEXT DOOR to Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, the home of my Saviano and Sarracino families.
• When Francesco's wife (Maria Mirto) and daughter arrived, they called Sant'Angelo a Cupolo their hometown.
• Francesco and his wife had their first American-born child in 1906. I found his birth certificate. They lived in my family's building, and the Mrs. lists her maiden name as Maria Mirda Sarracina. Sarracina? Is this a nod to my great grandfather Giovanni Sarracino?

At the end of the day, my so-called cousin Patsy Ferro is in my family tree. Not because he's my Uncle Semplicio's nephew. He isn't. And not because he's my cousin. He isn't. He's in there because he and his wife were born in Baselice, my grandfather Leone's hometown. (Grandpa Leone is no relation to the Savianos except by marriage.) I've found that 90% of the people born in Baselice have a family relationship (see "Why I Recorded More Than 30,000 Documents").

I'm missing key pieces in both Patsy's and his wife's family trees. Until I can fill in those gaps, their closest relationship to me is through my 2nd great grandfather Leone's first wife. So that's no good.

What's the lesson here? Take a closer look at your family's census records. Are there families living with or near them, census after census? Is it a coincidence, or is there a hidden connection? You're the family-history investigator. Start digging!

Report Finds Marriage Mishaps in Your Family Tree

Anytime you do a lot of work on your family tree, it's a smart idea to let Family Tree Analyzer have a look at it. This free software seems to offer me a new way to dissect my GEDCOM file each time I use it. And I've been doing a lot of work on my tree recently.

Last week I finished perfecting the citations in my family tree for these sources:

• 1851 England Census
• 1861 Census of Canada
• 1861 England Census
• 1871 England Census
• 1880 U.S. Federal Census
• 1881 England Census
• 1891 England Census
• 1900 U.S. Federal Census
• 1901 England Census
• 1905 New York State Census
• 1910 U.S. Federal Census
• 1911 England Census
• 1915 New York State Census
• 1920 U.S. Federal Census
• 1925 New York State Census

That adds up to 944 citations shared among family members found on the same census. Before I fixed them, a few sources had more than 700 citations each due to a catastrophic sync failure with my tree on Ancestry.com. I've given up trying to sync, but by next year I'll upload a clean version of my tree using a new tree name. I won't sync with it once it's uploaded.

Time for a Quick Check-Up

After all that editing, I wanted to see what Family Tree Analyzer (FTA) thinks of my latest GEDCOM file.

My GEDCOM Stats in FTAnalyzer had a strange line item telling me my family tree had some errors.

When you open your GEDCOM in FTA, you get a summary screen filled with basic facts about your tree. This time, I spotted something unusual. FTA said I had 4 lone individuals listed as single families. I needed to find them and see what was going on.

I found them by doing something I hadn't tried before. Usually I click FTA's Main Lists tab which opens to the Individuals tab. This lists everyone in your tree. But this time I clicked the Families tab next to the Individuals tab. I scrolled way to the right and found a column called Family Size. I sorted the data in that column from A to Z, putting all the families with a size of 1 at the top of the list. To my surprise, there were 41 families of 1.

5 Types of "Marriage Problems"

I opened my Family Tree Maker file and found each person from the FTA list, one-by-one. These "families of 1" fell into the following categories:

1. An unwed parent whose child's name you know from their birth record. In these cases, there's nothing you need to do. It really is a single-person family with a child.
2. Someone you meant to delete from the file but overlooked. Before you delete them, delete any of their citations or images. And detach them from an Unknown Spouse* if necessary.
3. Someone whose parents you deleted because you don't want to trace their family. (That's my in-law rule in action.) You may need to detach them from unknown parents. Otherwise leave them be.
4. Someone with a marriage date but no spouse. Take the time to search for the source of this incomplete fact and add their spouse. I've found Italian birth records with a marriage date, but no spouse's name!
5. A complete mystery, unattached to anyone, who you may as well delete.

*Unknown Spouse—As I worked through the list of 41 people, I found that many had an Unknown Spouse attached to them. Even babies who died young had these mysterious spouses. To see the unknown spouse in Family Tree Maker, go to a person's detail page. Then click Relationships rather than Facts or Timeline. If there is a partial marriage fact, delete it. Then detach the individual from their unknown spouse. Now the phantom spouse is gone from your file.

How many of these lurkers are hiding in your family tree? Here's how to find and eliminate them.

When I finished dealing with the 41 people with a family size of 1, I exported a new GEDCOM. Then I opened it in Family Tree Analyzer. Now I have 9 people with a family size of 1 because I made the decision to keep each of them. (Almost all are single parents.) The initial message from FTA saying I had 4 lone individuals listed as single families is gone.

This week I'll tackle my 1930, 1940, and 1950 U.S. Federal Census citations. Then I want to jump straight to the passenger lists of people coming through Ellis Island. Most of the immigrants in my family tree arrived in New York, so this is an important source to whip into shape. Then I'll continue working through my sources in alphabetical order.

After that, I have to deal with my countless Italian document citations. That's fine—I've wanted to work on those for a long time.

How Healthy is Your Family Tree?

If you've been working on your family tree for a while, you've no doubt gotten better at it with practice. That means your earliest work isn't as good as it should be. In my case, I know that censuses and ship manifests for my closest relatives are what I added first. And I'm fixing them as I work my way through my citations.

How did you begin your family tree? Were you searching for certain types of documents  first, like me? Did you begin with an inherited tree that someone else created? Take a look at the different reports FTA can offer you, such as:

• One Report, Endless Possibilities for Improving Your Family Tree
• Let Family Tree Analyzer Find Your Duplicates Duplicates
• 4 Problems You Can Fix with Family Tree Analyzer