Digging Into a DNA Match's Family Tree

A while ago I uploaded my AncestryDNA test results to Geneanet.org for free. I like their website because I can upload a complete replacement tree after I do a lot of work on it on my computer. (See "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem .")

The good thing about having my DNA test on that site is access to European DNA matches I may not find on Ancestry. I don't have any close matches yet, but one match, Giovanni, has a family tree that reeled me in right away. I recognized the last names as coming from Circello, Italy. That's the hometown of my 3rd great grandfather Francesco.

I've been spending time making a searchable database of Circello vital records. They records are all available on the Antenati website. (See "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives.") On Saturday I randomly noticed a man in my tree from my paternal grandfather's hometown. I saw that he married a Circello girl named Pasquala Gigante in the 1890s, so I decided to build her family. And I got very far. I added all 8 of her great grandparents and 6 of her 2nd great grandparents.

Finally I had a strong reason to use my vital records database for the town of Circello.

Pasquala has no blood relationship to me yet. And her husband is the cousin of the husband of a cousin. I would love to find a true connection between Pasquala's Circello family and my own.

Find Your Entry Point

When I saw Giovanni's family tree on Geneanet, filled with Circello names, I had to investigate. Could I find a way for his tree to connect to mine? As I clicked around his tree, expanding different family units, my mouth fell open. There was the very same family I'd built into my tree earlier that day! The woman whose family I added to my tree, Pasquala Gigante, is my DNA match's great grandaunt.

Giovanni's family tree is very impressive. It goes back so far that I can tell he knows how to get the most out of Italian vital records. (See "The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'.") I can use his tree as a guide while I view the town's vital records to confirm names and dates. I'll start by adding Pasquala Gigante's siblings. I'll find spouses and children, and put lots of families together using the vital records.

After hours of piecing together Circello families, I still don't know why Giovanni is my DNA match. This is common with people whose ancestors spent several hundred years in a small town. Once again, I believe our shared DNA comes from the soil itself, and not a specific shared ancestor. (See "What Good Are Distant DNA Matches?")

With 3 key points, you can expand your family tree and tie into that of your DNA match.

How to Get Started

Even though I haven't solved this ancestor jigsaw puzzle, I enjoy the daylights out of this type of project. And you can, too. Here are the basics for diving into your DNA match's family tree:

1. Concentrate on DNA matches with a multi-generation family tree. There's no use wasting time on someone with a 1-person family tree. And they're out there.
2. Search every branch for familiar last names and places. If their hometown is one of your ancestral hometowns, you need to explore some vital records.
3. Find a solid starting point. I was lucky to spot someone I'd added to my own tree hours earlier. Be sure to choose a person with lots of data points: a birth date, spouse's name, parents' names, children's names. Those extra facts will help you make a positive ID.

You may find, as I did, that your DNA match has connections to your family tree even if there's no direct relation to you.

Leave Breadcrumbs for Future Genealogy Research

I have a handful of stock descriptions I routinely add to people in my family tree. Using the same language each time speeds up the process and adds consistency. As I type, Family Tree Maker suggests text based on other entries, and I choose the right comment. Easy.

Some of my stock descriptions include:

• "His brother [Her sister] of the same name was born on this date." Without a death record, this is my reason for saying this child died before this date.
• "His wife [Her husband] remarried on this date." Other variations are "died on this date" and "had a child on this date." Without a death record, these are my reasons for saying someone died before this date.
• "From his [her, both] birth record[s]." I add that as a marriage date description when the date is only available as a notation on a birth record.
• "His [Her] father was in America when he [she] was born." I add that as a birth date description when the birth record notes this fact.

I've always meant to follow up on that last description about being in America. And that's today's project. I'll search for immigration records for fathers who were in America when their child was born in Italy.

Without this description, I'd never remember to follow up on this immigration fact.

There's a reason they mention this fact on an Italian birth record. Fathers had a duty to report their child's birth to the mayor right away. If someone else reported the birth, like a midwife or grandparent, the mayor recorded a reason why. Sometimes the father is in another town working. Or he's ill. And sometimes they delay reporting the birth because of terrible weather. But many times, he's gone to America to earn money.

I've been exporting a new GEDCOM file from my family tree each day because my tree is growing so fast. I'm currently working through every available vital record for my maternal grandfather's hometown. Almost everyone fits into my tree. (See "The Method to My Genealogy Madness.")

Using a text editor, I can open my GEDCOM file and search for each instance of "in America when." There are 63 of these descriptions. The first one is for my 4th cousin 3 times removed, Domenico Saccone. I searched Ancestry for his father Giuseppe Antonio Saccone, entering his year and place of birth, his wife's name, and his parents' names.

With minimal effort, I found three different crossings for Giuseppe Antonio Saccone:

• 1893, going to New York
• 1900, along with his eldest son, going to join an uncle in the Bronx, NY
• 1906, going to join his son-in-law in Connellsville, PA

This adds 3 new and unexpected data points to this family, plus a lead on that son-in-law. I didn't expect a man born in 1852 to make all those crossings. For my Italian hometowns, the men who sailed to America were a lot younger than Giuseppe Antonio. One very notable exception is my 2nd great grandfather. Born in 1843, Antonio Saviano made 4 trips to America, finally bringing his whole family with him in 1898.

Make stock descriptions a habit, and you'll leave yourself breadcrumbs for future research.

As I work through the 63 descriptions of a father in America, I'll update these notes. I'm thinking, "His father was in America when he was born. Immigration facts documented."

Using a handful of standard phrases in your family tree eliminates confusion and doubt.

Another type of description I add saves me from a lot of confusion. Sometimes I'll note that a person died before a certain date, but it isn't obvious where that date came from. Note: It would be obvious if I had source citations for every fact in my family tree, but I've got more than 64,000 people in my tree. I'll get to it!

One example is Giorgio Pozzuto who was born in 1788. I've documented his marriage and the births of his 8 children. But there's no death record for him. (The town's available death records end in 1860.) Then I noticed his grandson's 28 Dec 1868 birth record says Grandpa Giorgio is dead, so I took note of it. I gave Giorgio a death date of "Bef. 28 Dec 1868," and a description of "From his grandson Francesco Saverio Giovanni Pozzuto's birth record."

That very specific description ends any confusion about the source of this fact. Plus, when I add his grandson's birth record and source citation to my family tree, I can copy the source and paste it on the grandfather's death date.

I know I have more examples of stock descriptions in my family tree. Looking through my GEDCOM I see:

• "From his [her] grave marker." (See "Inspiration Leads to a Family Tree Growth Spurt.")
• "From her [his] obituary." (See "How Much Can Your Learn from Your Relative's Obituary?.")
• "From her [his] funeral card." (See "This Memento Provides Key Facts for Your Family Tree.")
• "Date based on age at death."
  

As more vital records come online, I'll revisit many of these comments to see if I can add a more reliable source.

What other types of breadcrumbs would you leave in your family tree?

Genealogy Skills Make You a Keen Detective

Sometimes my innocent genealogy detective work scares me. Using detective skills is an important part of genealogy research. We're always trying to find a family connection, or searching for important documents.

Many times we need to investigate living people. And that feels a lot like stalking. Our intentions are pure—we just want to figure out that connection! But it can get creepy when you realize how much you can learn.

This weekend I found myself looking once again at the DNA matches my parents have in common. One person in particular, let's call him JS, intrigued me. I always thought his face looked familiar. He looks like he could be my cousin.

When looking at my mom's DNA test, JS is her 4th–6th cousin on her paternal side. And I know her paternal side has its roots only in one town: Baselice, Italy. JS doesn't show up in my dad's DNA match list, but Mom and JS's shared matches are another story. They have 3 shared matches, not counting me:

1. WL is the descendant of my 3rd cousin 3 times removed, Donato Zerrillo. Donato came from my father's ancestral hometown of Colle Sannita. According to AncestryDNA, WL is my mom's 4th–6th cousin as well as my dad's, and mine, too!
2. MN has no family tree on Ancestry. AncestryDNA says he my mom's 4th–6th cousin, but he shows up as my dad's 2nd–3rd cousin and my 3rd–4th cousin.
3. PD is someone I've contacted before, but we can't figure out his connection to my mother. He has a possible Leone in his tree (my primary name from Baselice), but the connection isn't verified. The surprise is he has close ancestors from Dad's Colle Sannita. AncestryDNA says he is my mom's, my dad's, and my 4th–6th cousin, and I have the paper trail that says he's my dad's 4th cousin.

This brings me back to JS, the match who has a connection to all the people listed above. You can see the ethnicity estimates of your DNA matches. This tells me that JS has 23% Italian ethnicity and the rest is Germanic and Ireland. He should have an Italian grandparent or a couple of Italian great grandparents.

Since he has no tree on Ancestry, I began my detective work. I searched Ancestry for his name and found some public record indexes. These told me he had lived in 3 different U.S. states and that he's my age. I found his father's obituary easily. This told me JS's parents' names, his 2 uncles' names, and his 2 siblings' names as well as a sister-in-law. I found JS's father's family in several U.S. censuses and other documents. Then I found an Ancestry tree clearly owned by JS's sister-in-law.

If you know a lot about your DNA match, you just might be a detective.

I looked on Facebook and found JS using the same profile photo he uses on Ancestry (bless him for that!). I found his siblings, sister-in-law, and a cousin or two. But the main thing I noticed on Facebook and in the tree his sister-in-law built: ZERO Italian names. (And I'm only Italian.)

I now know which names provide JS's Germanic and Irish ancestry. But where is that 23% Italian hiding? The family tree of "S" ancestors goes back several generations, and all the names look German or Irish.

My only thought was Northern Italy. JS's ethnicity was 13% Southern Italian and 10% Northern Italian. What if one of his Germanic names was from the part of Italy that's so close to Switzerland that the lines blur? There are families in this part of Italy with Germanic names. I used to work for one; it was shocking to find out he was Italian.

I used an old favorite trick of mine to see which of JS's family names might be from Italy. I went to Ancestry and searched for passenger lists with only that last name. Then I looked at where people with the name came from.

I started with JS's own last name—a German-sounding name. I found a small number of people from Switzerland with that name. Ah, but a draft registration card told me JS's grandfather was born in New York City. I'd have to track down his ancestors. I discovered that even JS's "S" great grandfather was born in New York to parents who were born in New York. It's time to try another branch of JS's family tree. But his sister-in-law's family tree shows the mother's family was born in Germany. And his father's mother's family all came from Ireland!

While trying to figure out what to do next, I returned to the search results for JS's grandfather's name. I clicked a German birth and baptism record. It listed a birth place of Hirschthal and I thought, go ahead—see where that is. It turns out to be in Switzerland, but much further from Italy that I'd hoped.

Still, I may as well step out a bit further on this limb. I went to the Cognomix website where you can check for the location of family names throughout Italy. I put in JS's last name. The numbers are small, but that Germanic name does exist in Northern and Central Italy. But now I'm too far up in JS's family tree to account for his 23% Italian ancestry.

His DNA connection to my mom and me, and his connection to my dad's connections, has me so curious. I'm going to write to him on both Ancestry and Facebook and hope for the clue I need. Of course I can't mention all I've learned about him. I made that mistake once and scared off an interesting DNA match forever! I'll lead with "Who are our shared Italian ancestors?" That sounds both specific and un-stalkerlike.

Have you discovered more than you ever imagined about a potential cousin? Does it worry you? Try searching for yourself in various places. I searched Bing.com for myself under my maiden name. I found tons of these blog articles, photos I uploaded to memorial pages, and my comments about genealogy. On Ancestry, nothing came up, even though I know there's an index for my first marriage on there—that came up when I searched on Google.com. My favorite discovery is seeing all the times someone mentioned this blog that I never knew about.

How has genealogy improved your detective skills? Remember to always be a benevolent detective with genealogy as your only goal.

And speaking of DNA matches:

• Using Shared Matches and Genealogy to Solve a Mystery
• Your DNA Matches Hold Hidden Clues
• 3 Key Steps to Identify a DNA Match

How to Share Documents and Citations Within Your Family Tree

A Facebook group for Family Tree Maker Users explains every aspect of the software. But people still have questions, of course. I saw one the other day that was, basically, how do you share facts and media among family members?

I'm focusing on Family Tree Maker in this discussion, but the logic applies to online family trees, too.

When I began collecting census records for my family years ago, I:

• Named the image file for the head of household. I still do. (Example: SarracinoGiovanni1915.jpg.)
• Attached it to the head of household.
• Entered the address and occupation for that person only.
• Added a source citation to these facts.
• Added a line to my document tracker spreadsheet to show that I have that image for the head of household. (See "Which Genealogy Documents Are You Missing?")

I soon realized I needed to assign the image, address, and occupation facts to the rest of the family, too. But I knew it was wasteful to have so many copies of the same census sheet in my family tree. Each family needed to share one image.

Adding Efficiency to Your Family Tree

Let's take my great grandfather, Giovanni Sarracino, as an example. He and his wife came to America in 1899, and by 1915 they had 5 children. They're all listed in the 1915 New York State census. Now, you could drag and drop that 1915 census image onto each of the 7 members of the family. But the image file size may be big, and 7 copies of it will weigh down your family tree file.

Your family tree software or website is built for sharing documents and source citations across a family unit.

Instead, attach the image to the head of household. Then add his or her census facts to their profile, and create one source citation. You can and should attach the existing image to the source citation.

Next, go one at a time to each person in your family tree who's listed on that census. For each person:

• Add their facts from the census. This can include an address, year and place of birth, occupation, immigration year, and more. (The person asking the question in the Family Tree Maker Users group wanted to know how to share facts. Facts are individual items and you can't share them.)
• Copy the source citation from the head of household to paste onto facts for each person in the household.
• Connect the head of household's existing census image to each person in the household.
• Add a census notation to your document tracker for each member of the household to show that you have this item.

You've added only one image and one citation to your family tree. But each family member's individual profile shows it.

Key Points to Remember

The Benefits of Sharing

If you download a census image from a website, the image file may be as large as 3 megabytes or more. Think about all the families in your family tree with census images. Do you really want to bloat your tree's file size by 3 Mb times all the spouses and kids, times all the census years? It's inefficient and wasteful.

But there's an even bigger benefit to sharing, not duplicating, images and citations. When you need to correct a citation, or update the annotation on an image, you can do it in one place rather than 5 or 10 or 15.

I know I've gotten more thorough with my record keeping over the years. I didn't know from day one that I could add a date, category, and description to each saved image in FTM. I've revisited images to improve the descriptions or add a forgotten category. And I was glad to be able to make each edit in only one place.

Earlier this year I reviewed every source citation in my tree, bringing them up to my high standards. (See "How to Weed Out Those Unreliable Sources.") It would have been awful to have to make the same edit to tons of duplicated citations.

It can be painstaking work, but I've made it part of my routine. (See "How to Fully Process Your Census Documents.") Each time I find a census for a family in my tree, I complete the entire process. I make sure each member of the household has all their sourced facts and a connection to the census image.

Are you handling all your genealogy facts, documents, and citations efficiently?

Pinpoint Important Places in Your Family Tree

When I used the Maps menu in Family Tree Analyzer (FTA), I discovered something I needed to fix. Even though I can find many addresses from my tree on Google Maps or Bing Maps, they weren't recognized by FTA.

I opened my tree in Family Tree Maker, which uses Bing Maps for locations. I noticed it could be very imprecise, or just plain wrong, about some locations. I wanted to improve these results so I could do more with FTA's Maps menu. The solution was to add Latitude and Longitude coordinates. And it's easy to do.

If small-town locations in your family tree are hard to find IRL, these two numbers will bring you right to the front door.

Here's how to add these precise coordinates to your computer-based family tree software:

• Find the exact location on a map website. I like Google Maps for this because of its streetside view. I want to see that I've got the right place, and even find the front door.
• Right-click at a precise location to see the map coordinates. (You must exit Street View first.)
• Enter the Latitude and Longitude numbers in your family tree.

I use Family Tree Maker, but RootsMagic also has fields on the Places menu to enter map coordinates. I'm sure other desktop genealogy programs do, too.

Family Tree Maker tells me I have 5,323 places in my family tree, so I'm not going to do this for every location. My goal is to use Family Tree Analyzer to see how many people got baptized or married in a particular church. So for starters, I'm pinpointing the locations of different churches in my family tree.

Watch Your Results Get Better

Here's an example of the benefits of this project. Before I added map coordinates to one church in Benevento, Italy, Family Tree Maker had their pin a few miles south of the city. I have no idea why. Now, with the coordinates in place, FTM knows precisely where to find this church. And so do I, should the day come when I want to visit it. As I look at the map, I see that I've been within a few yards of this church, but I didn't know it!

How many people in your family tree were at this address? Family Tree Analyzer can tell you, but you may need to feed it a couple of numbers.

With a few churches pinpointed in my family tree, I'll export a new GEDCOM file to open with Family Tree Analyzer. I'd like to see how many births and baptisms I've associated with the church in Colle Sannita, Italy.

In Family Tree Analyzer, once you open your GEDCOM file, click the Maps menu and choose Show Places. Say No to the pop-up message about Geocode locations. Now choose a particular location.

I clicked through the list of places and drilled down to the church. Italy, Campania, Benevento, Colle Sannita, Chiesa di San Giorgio Martire. There's my answer. I've attached this location to 14,724 baptism or marriage facts. And because of the map coordinates, the location is very precise.

Recently I've been reviewing some of my early research work on the town of Baselice. I was brand new to Italian vital records when I recorded many of these facts. I remember I didn't want to assume each baby got baptized in the town church. Now I know better. And I can see that the church is in fact mentioned on the birth or baptism records. I'd like to correct those baptism facts and increase the number of uses of the church in Baselice.

Make Your Map Pins Portable

I'm excited to use these map coordinates the next time I visit my ancestral hometowns. Family Tree Analyzer can export all the places from your family tree to "Google My Maps." I gave this a try, and it saves a file to your computer in a text-based format. When I go to My Maps in Google, I see that I can import the file.

Sure enough, all 5,323 locations from my family tree are now on this one map! I've never been to my 2nd great grandmother's hometown of Santa Paolina, Avellino. But when I get there, I can use Google Maps to pull up the precise location of the town church and step inside!

Family Tree Analyzer can put every single location from your family tree on one map—complete with names and dates.

To get to Google My Maps, start at google.com/maps and click Saved in the left menu. Then click Maps and Open My Maps. I've created maps before, but uploading thousands of locations at once is fantastic! I can click any location to see who's associated with that place. There's also an option to open this map collection in Google Earth. This seems like the best way to see your places in living color, rather than basic map view.

Now I needed to turn my iPhone into my family tree navigator. I installed Google Earth and put Family Tree Analyzer's exported places file on my phone. In Google Earth, I chose Projects, then Open, then Import KML file. (That's the format of the FTA locations file.)

Now no matter where I am, I can open Google Earth and zoom out see which family tree locations are nearby. Then I can tap any map pin to see what happened there. Don't you want to have this on your phone?

And speaking of map projects:

• Which Global Map is Best for Genealogists?
• Your Ancestor's Location is Critically Important
• Prepare to Walk Along Your Ancestors' Streets

The Method to My Genealogy Madness

On Saturday morning I mentioned to my husband that my family tree had reached exactly 60,500 people. That afternoon I had 60,854. In May I had a mere 57,238 people. "What changed?" my husband asked.

It's just my usual project. I'm piecing together every family from my Grandpa Leone's hometown of Baselice. That town in southern Italy is where I began this journey more than 15 years ago. Back then, I ordered microfilmed vital records through the Family History Center. I soon realized I needed to document everyone, and fit all the families together. Otherwise, how would I know each Leone and Iammucci's relationship to me?

The available microfilmed records at the time ended with 1860. Now the rest of the records are online on the Italian Antenati website. I have access to the 1861–1915 birth records (with a few years missing) and the 1931–1942 marriage and death records.

I've had all the 1809–1860 people and facts in my family tree for years. But I haven't yet scoured the newer documents for relationships. That's what I'm doing now. And I've only gotten through 1861–1866 so far. (Note: Many of my recent tree additions come from another town that I'm harvesting at the same time.)

Immerse yourself in your ancestor's hometown vital records to unlock all the details they hold.

How to Identify Every Family in Town

When I began, I knew my grandfather's parents' names, and that's it! I found my great grandfather's birth record to learn his parents' names. Then I searched the surrounding years' birth records for any siblings. I did the same for my great grandmother's family.

I kept going back in time, finding the parents' marriage records to learn their parents' names, and looking for siblings. Then I came forward in time, seeing who all the siblings married and finding their children. Next, I built out the families of everyone who married into my bloodline. It was clear that 99% of the people in town had a relationship through blood or marriage. Those who didn't usually came from another town.

My method with the 1860s birth records is this:

• I check each birth record in a given year one at a time to see if:
  • I have the child in my family tree already, or
  • I have the parents.
• After adding the baby to my tree, I find every other baby born to the same couple throughout the years and add them. (I use a Windows program called Everything to instantly search all the records on my computer.)
  
• If a birth record mentions a marriage date and spouse, I add the spouse, look for the couple's children, and find the spouse's parents and siblings.
• When I've exhausted all paths, or my head is swimming and I've lost my place, I go on to the next birth record in the given year.

As I move on to the next year, I'll find that I've recently added many of the children because of the process above. (Of course I'm tracking all my finds in a spreadsheet.)

You can build out an entire family easily once you have all the basic facts.

I can do all that pretty easily because of the preparation I did in the past. I downloaded all the document images for the town to my computer. (Today you have to download document images one at a time. Here's how.) Then I reviewed each one and renamed it. For a birth or death record, I include the name of the father. That way, I can search my computer for every Iammucci born to Antonio, for example.

Renaming the files is a great way to get familiar with all the names in a town. That helps you overcome bad handwriting.

If I hadn't downloaded and renamed all the document images, I wouldn't be able to move back and forth in time so easily. And that's how it was when I was viewing microfilm in a Family History Center. What I did then was add the main facts from each document to a text file. For each birth, I recorded:

• the baby's name, birth and baptism dates
• parents' names, ages, and occupations
• any other family names or addresses mentioned.

When I got home from the Family History Center, I began entering everything into Family Tree Maker to show all the connections. That's when I saw how the whole town was related.

Can't download all the records? You can still document your entire ancestral hometown by taking simple notes about each document you view.

How to Get Around Missing Document Years

Since there are no available marriage records for my town from 1861–1930, things can get a bit tougher. How can I be sure who is a baby's father when so many people in town have the same name?

But I know the ins and outs of the available documents. I know, for instance, that from 1866–1873, birth records often have the name of the baby's two grandfathers. That helps me identify the right mother and father. And I know that the death records from 1931–1942 tend to be very accurate with the decedent's age. I can't say that for most records.

That means if I can't be sure which of many Maria Cece's had this baby in 1865, I have to first look for all her other babies. Finding a record that includes Maria's father's name can set her apart from the others. And if I'm lucky enough to find a death record for someone I wasn't quite sure of, the names of their parents and spouse can seal the deal.

Last week I did some research for a woman with ancestors from northern Italy. World War I must have destroyed a ton of records up north. These towns are challenging, with huge chunks of years missing from the documentation.

But I managed to push the family lines back another generation. How? I searched death records to find all the relatives' whose birth and marriage records were destroyed. How thrilling it was to find the death record of the eldest-known relative with the family name. Now I had his parents' names. I got very lucky when I found his 1811 birth record as confirmation of the names. And learned the name of his grandfather, taking the tree back to about 1746.

Get familiar with your town's records and exhaust all possibilities. Then there's no limit to how far you can expand your family tree.

And speaking of vital records:

• Following the Documents from Marriage to Marriage
• Solve Genealogy Mysteries Step-by-Step
• Why My Family Tree is Exploding in Size