How to Retrieve Old Memories for Your Life Story

I've written about creating your ancestor's life story ("5 Steps to Writing Your Ancestor's Life Story") and your own life story ("4 Steps to Writing Your Own Life Story"). To build my life story, I have a Word document filled with chronological lists of my:

• homes
• jobs
• schools
• vacations
• special events, and more.

Once in a while I open the document to add more details. Whenever a new memory pops up, I add it to the list.

Memory is a funny thing. When my high school classmate died months ago, I tried to recall the adventures we'd had together. My memories were only mental snapshots:

• Her sitting with me when I had a migraine on a high school class trip.
• A shiny red Honda CRX that pulled up as we waited for a valet to bring our car.
• A bare living room in the apartment we almost rented together.

Is that it? We spent so much time together. Then I realized my earliest memories are all mental snapshots.

• Age 3: Holding onto my mom's legs as she washed her hair in the kitchen sink.
• Age 4: Mom on the floor sobbing over the murder of President Kennedy.
• Age 5: Dead moths on a plastic hall runner the night we moved into our new house.
• Age 6: A spelling lesson in Miss Garrety's 1st grade classroom.

When we're putting together our own life story, what can we do to bring back forgotten memories?

There are different types of memories. I can remember the address of the 16 homes I've lived in because they were each repeated so many times over the years. That's very handy for your life story, but addresses are not stories.

What we want to pull out of our long-term memory storage is episodic memories. For example:

• My first day in a new school when I realized the other kids could write in script. No one taught me yet. (I have a mental snapshot of this.)
• Riding in an ambulance after mom and I were in a terrible car crash. (I remember crashing but not the ambulance.)

A Harvard Health Publishing article says our memory gets worse after age 30, and quite a bit worse after age 50. It also says you can bring back those memories by thinking of cues related to a memory. Other times a cue makes a memory come flooding back on its own. Here are 4 of those cues.

Music

Does hearing an old song transport you to a long-ago time when you listened to it? Some songs remind me of the feeling I had at that time. I heard a George Harrison song the other day, and I felt as though I were in my sophomore year dorm room at CW Post. If I play that entire album, I should remember more about that school year.

If you hear a song that makes you nostalgic, think hard about it. What are you remembering?

Photographs

Facebook shows me "memories" of my posts from years ago. Looking at old vacation photos does bring back specific events from long-term memory. Talking about it with my husband, pooling my memories with his, bring out more details.

On my old roommate's birthday, I posted a photo of the two of us as 19 year olds. I remembered the exact situation and who took the photo. She had the same memory of that day. It was memorable because it was a brief, joyful reunion after she'd left college.

Do you have old photos and someone you can discuss them with?

Words

I was looking up someone in my high school yearbook recently. At the back of the book I saw a long message from my best friend. As I scanned through it, and she named all the crazy times we'd had together, a lot of them were a complete blank. But if I read it again, her words may trigger those missing memories. And I can ask her what she still remembers.

Do you have an old journal or memories shared in a yearbook? See if reading these words brings back those memories.

Food

Once I was rushing through a train station when I passed a shop with the aroma of chicken soup wafting out. All I could think was: Grandma! At 40 years old, it was the first time I realized Grandma always smelled like chicken soup to me.

I use honey in my coffee and tea instead of sugar. I adore honey. One day when I used my finger to put a drop of honey in my mouth, bam! I remembered exactly why I adore honey. Every Christmas as a kid, my mom, Grandma, and my step-grandmother all made struffoli. This Italian delight is little fried dough balls piled up, coated with honey, and covered in colorful sprinkles. I loved to swipe up the puddles of honey on the plate with my finger.

Has an aroma or a taste ever triggered a memory for you? I love how a small cake triggered all seven volumes of Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past".

The Harvard Health Publishing article linked above says to use these stimuli or cues. Make an effort to focus on them. Stop what you're doing and think only about that song, photo, words, or food and the memories they conjure.

If you do bring back a memory, write it down, talk about it, record your thoughts. Once you bring back a memory, you may find that related memories are there for you, too.

A Note about Repetition

If you recognize something that you want to remember while it's fresh, keep talking about it. Or write about it. I wrote about my second vacation in Italy during the vacation. I believe most of those details would have been forgotten if I hadn't written them down.

My older son started talking so early that he mispronounced a lot of words—which was adorable. A school bus was a two buck, a big truck was a bee chuch, cardboard was core bore.

My younger son, who wasn't born yet, knows all these funny words because I've repeated them so many times. The three of us use these words in conversation, and no one skips a beat.

Today my younger son's girlfriend knows that umbubba means umbrella, and my dog knows that ah-ca-ca means helicopter. The other day another of his mispronunciations came to me out of the blue. I texted both boys that very minute. I need to capture the full list!

Don't wait any longer. I'll bet you can bring back some memories by listing the key facts in your life story. Dwell on these facts and see what else comes rushing back.

5 Traits of an Exceptional Genealogist

Turn your family tree into a valuable legacy by adopting these 5 traits.

The purpose of this blog has always been to help you be a better genealogist. That can mean:

• avoiding and fixing errors
• learning how to use important documents
• exploring new resources, and more.

This is Fortify Your Family Tree's 629th article. It's time we all strive for more than being better genealogists. Let's work to be exceptional genealogists. Your family tree is your legacy. It will continue to inform and enlighten people long after you're gone. Don't you want your legacy to be exceptional?

Certain traits are common to all exceptional genealogists. Here are 5 traits to set as your goals. An exceptional genealogist:

1. Uses Documents to Support Facts

You know Grandma's birthday because you used to celebrate it with her. But your reminiscences and family photos are not proof. To be an exceptional genealogist, your family tree needs documents.

I have a copy of Grandma's 1899 birth certificate. It supports the date our family always knew. It also includes a different middle name than Grandma claimed to have. And I have my grandparents' marriage certificate. These 2 documents are official proof, and I can cite my sources.

It can be tough to get documents for recent events, such as your close cousins' marriage dates. But for earlier generations, you need to search for the documents.

I've seen DNA matches' family trees list a bunch of grandaunts and uncles without proof. They heard their Grandpa mention these different siblings, so into the tree they go. But isn't it far better to cite the available documents for those siblings?

Following the documents, you can learn so much more about Grandpa's family. You can document the lives of the siblings who died before he was born. You can discover who his siblings married. You can document their children and create a priceless resource for their descendants.

It's the documents that make your family tree more complete, believable, and valuable. It's the documents that break through brick walls, dispel myths, and answer questions. Find out how to use them to "Solve Genealogy Mysteries Step-by-Step".

2. Doesn't Accept Hints without Doing the Research

My maternal grandfather had a common Italian last name—Leone. A skilled genealogist wouldn't assume that my Leone family is part of their Leone family. They'd do the research and see that my Leones came from a different part of Italy than their Leones.

But I've seen people pull my grandfather and his immediate family into their family tree. That means they accepted a hint without bothering to do a lick of research. My grandfather's family was in one little town for centuries—far from their town. I have the documents to prove that. All they have is a shaky leaf.

A hint is a clue, not a fact! Hints can be very helpful when they lead you to documents you can examine. But you must examine them! Compare the document's facts to what you've recorded in your family tree. Think of a hint as someone asking you, "Is this the one?" as they offer you a piece of the jigsaw puzzle you're putting together. Of course you're going to examine that piece to see if it fits. You wouldn't smash it into place because of a hint.

The next time you see an enticing hint, think about these "3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good".

3. Presents Information with Consistency

When I worked for an international company, emailing people outside the U.S., one thing jumped out at me. Dates. People in different countries write dates in different ways. If I say that a project's deadline is 12/10/2024, an American will read that as December 10th. But my British colleagues will read it as October 12th.

That's why I adopted a more universal style, and I use it throughout my family tree. December 10, 2024 becomes 10 Dec 2024. Since the year has 4 digits, the 10 is clearly the day of the month. The 3-letter month varies among languages, yet it isn't hard to understand.

Does your family tree use a consistent date format? Can your dates be misunderstood by your distant cousins in Europe and elsewhere?

An exceptional genealogist records dates and other facts consistently. They leave no room for misinterpretation. For examples of other facts, see "Consistency Makes Your Family Tree More Professional".

4. Cites their Sources

Have you ever found an intriguing DNA match and taken a look at their family tree? If that tree has no source citations, are you going to accept it all as fact? I hope not.

But if you find a family tree and the source citations link to document images, you can see the facts for yourself.

I've built a massive family tree based on Italian vital records available online. And I committed the cardinal sin of skipping most source citations. In my defense, I knew I could go back and create the citations, and I was more eager to build out extended branches. That was wrong of me and very unprofessional.

Now I'm concentrating on filling in those source citations. I don't know when I'll finish, but I will keep working at it. It can become tedious when you're fixing a huge backlog of omissions, so I do mix things up sometimes. I may take a break to explore my 3rd great grandmother's town. But if I add a single new person to my family tree, I absolutely add the source citation at the same time. I've learned my lesson.

If you've been skipping the citations, here's a great way to make the task less daunting. See "Step-by-Step Source Citations for Your Family Tree".

5. Doesn't Believe Family Lore without Proof

If you're lucky, your elders passed down stories about your family history. The problem is, those stories can be wrong. Some stories may be exaggerations. Some may be misunderstandings. Some may be cover stories hiding the truth.

When I first started my family tree, I learned a family connection to a famous historical figure was a lie. Despite hearing this story from the woman who looked ashamed to be the man's niece, it was 100% untrue. To find out how I debunked a longtime family myth, see "Where Did I Find This?"

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What can you do right now to become an exceptional genealogist?

• Try to find documents for the unsupported facts in your family tree.
• Re-examine any person or fact you accepted from a hint or a hunch without doing your own research.
• Bring consistency to the way you record names, dates, addresses, and more in your family tree.
• Fill in those missing source citations!
• Set out to prove or debunk family stories.

Take pride in your work. You're creating a high-quality, high-value family tree because you are an exceptional genealogist.

6 Powerful Features of Family Tree Maker

Most family tree software programs have more features than you may realize. These 6 features of Family Tree Maker are genealogy game-changers.

I bought my first computer—an actual IBM PC—in 1985 and upgraded from DOS to Windows 3.0 in 1990. I remember how juvenile early software programs looked. My first version of Family Tree Maker had that 1990s look when I got it in 2002.

Today, Family Tree Maker has an excellent, robust user interface. (See "Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener".) Here's a look at 6 FTM features I've found to be a big help in building your family tree. If you're using another program, does it have all these features?

1. Color Coding

I first used FTM's color-coding feature to distinguish the 4 main branches of my family tree. I went to each of my 4 grandparents and in one click, gave each one and all their direct ancestors a color. I made Grandpa Adamo and his ancestors green and Grandma Mary and her ancestors blue. I made Grandpa Pietro and his ancestors yellow and Grandma Lucy and her ancestors pink. My grandparents Pietro and Lucy were 3rd cousins. Their shared ancestors have both yellow and pink bars beneath their names.

These colors come in handy when I'm working on an individual whose relationship to me is unclear. When I view the person in FTM and see green, blue, yellow, or pink ancestors, I know exactly which ancestors we share.

For more ways to use color coding, see "Using Color to Understand Your Family's Last Names".

2. Filters

There are a few other groups for which I was using color coding. Then I realized there was a better way.

Family Tree Maker lets you create custom filters so you can display only a select group of people in your index. When your family tree gets pretty big, this can be a big help. What I didn't know at first is that you can assign a color code to everyone in a particular filter. You don't have to add the color to a person or family unit one at a time.

Here's why that's so helpful. I have 246 people in my family tree who have no direct relationship to me. Some share my Grandma Mary's last name, and they come from the same little town as her parents. But a lack of vital records means I can't figure out how we're related. At first I was color coding unrelated people in red. But if I discovered their connection, it was a bit tedious to remove the red color from the correct people. Now if new research turns them into relatives, I remove them from the Unrelated filter and the red color is gone.

In fact, I recently solved a mystery that turned 14 unrelated people into relatives. You never know when you'll find the answer to those unanswered questions. Now my Unrelated filter contains only 232 people.

I've also created filters for:

• Everyone in my family tree with an Ahnentafel fact (more on Custom Facts in a moment). This restricts FTM's index to only my direct ancestors.
• All the Italians I know emigrated to Brazil. This helps me connect to the many people in Brazil with my last name. This filter uses a blue color code.
• All the DNA matches I've been able to place in my family tree. This filter uses a purple color code.
• Actor Tony Danza's direct ancestors. (See "Apply Your Genealogy Superpower to Other Families".)
• My Uncle Kenny's direct ancestors. He's my mother's sister's husband with roots in the same town as my father. I'm hoping to spot an ancestor overlap some day. This filter uses an orange color code.

To add a color to everyone in a filter, find Smart Filters in the lower left corner of FTM's Tree tab. Choose Manage Filters from the menu beside Smart Filters. Select the right filter and click a color. Done!

3. Custom Facts

When I learned about Ahnentafel numbers, I needed a way to add the right number to each ancestor in my family tree. FTM doesn't have an Ahnentafel fact, so I created it. (Discover the value of Ahnentafel numbers in "3 Things to Do with Ahnentafel Numbers".)

Over the years I've needed other custom facts, too. My husband's family is Japanese and from California. The U.S. government forced then into internment camps during World War II. There are documents for these people on Ancestry.com, so I needed a way to record dates and places. I created a custom fact called Internment. There's also at least one guy in my family tree with documents about his jail time. I created another Custom Fact called Imprisonment.

To find out how to add a custom fact in Family Tree Maker, see "How to Add or Delete Custom Facts in Your Family Tree".

4. Undocumented Facts Report

For months now, I've been creating source citations for the majority of people in my family tree. I knew this would be a huge task, so I started with the people who have no source citations at all.

Using Family Tree Analyzer, I generated a spreadsheet of people without source citations. I sorted the spreadsheet to put people with a blood relation to me at the top. They're my first priority. To find out how to create this spreadsheet, see "2 Keys to Tackling a Big Family Tree Project".

Working through everyone in this big spreadsheet is step one. Then I'll use a Family Tree Maker feature to see what I've missed. FTM has a report within the Source Reports category called Undocumented Facts. This will help me find people who have at least one source citation, but are missing others.

When the time comes, I'll export that report to Excel so I can again work on my closer relations first. I know there will be a lot of facts in that report that I'm not going to source:

• I don't include a source for a person's sex. Unnecessary.
• I can't cite a source for more recent events, like the birth of my niece's children, or even for my cousins' marriages.

I'll have to filter out and delete from the spreadsheet people whose facts I'm not going to cite. Meanwhile, I'll keep chipping away at the spreadsheet of "sourceless" people. I need to reduce the undocumented facts as much as I can before running that FTM report. Otherwise, with 81,492 people in my family tree, generating the report will take forever. In fact, I know it will. I'll have to generate the report in batches. I can choose one strategic person and run the report only on their extended family, not the entire tree. Mo' people, mo' problems.

5. Relationship Calculator

When someone writes to me because they found their ancestors in my family tree, I go right to this tool. FTM's Relationship Calculator gives me a clear understanding of a complex relationship.

When I heard from a man last week, I looked at his grandparents in my family tree. I used the Relationship Calculator to see who our common ancestors were. Then I turned to my relationship calculator spreadsheet (not part of FTM—I should have called it something else!) to see my relationship to the man who wrote to me. The spreadsheet says he's my 4th cousin once removed. And FTM's Relationship Calculator makes it clear who our shared ancestors are.

When you use the FTM tool, don't stop at the word description of your relationship. Click the View Relationship Chart button for a clear visual of the relationship. For an example of the Relationship Calculator tool in action, see "How to See Your Cousin Connections More Clearly". To download your own copy of the relationship calculator spreadsheet, see "Which Side the Cousin Falls On is Key".

6. Find and Replace

Anytime you use the find and replace feature of any software, you have to be careful. You may wind up changing part of a word, or even part of a name. Say I want to change an Italian man's occupation from "ferraro" to "ferraro (blackmith)". I must remember to make that change case sensitive. Otherwise anyone in my tree with the last name Ferraro will become ferraro (blackmith)!

The Find and Replace option is in the Edit menu of Family Tree Maker. I did use it to include English translations for the Italian occupations in my family tree. At least one of these changes went wrong. See "How to Handle Foreign Words in Your Family Tree" for other uses of Find and Replace.

You can restrict a Find and Replace operation by selecting or not selecting:

• Match case (change ferraro, not Ferraro)
• Find whole words only (don't change a word if it's part of another word)
• Use wildcards (*?); this could be trouble, so use with care.

You can also tell FTM only to make a change if it finds the text in:

• Facts
• Media
• Notes
• Tasks
• Sources

There's a final option of Places, but it's unavailable to me.

There have been a couple of times when I realized I was using the wrong spelling of a last name. For instance, I found the name Aucone in several old vital records, but I thought it said Ancone. I searched for the name in the Italian White Pages and the Cognomix website. Now I know Aucone is the correct spelling.

Before I do a find and replace, I have to think. Could another name in my family tree contain the same letters as Ancone? To be safe, I can select the Match case option to change all instances of Ancone to Aucone.

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Sometimes you don't realize you need a software feature until you read about ways to use it. I hope this article encourages you to dig deeper and explore your family tree software.

My 5 Favorite Genealogy Tricks

Get into a family tree research groove with these 5 time-saving, value-added genealogy tricks.

I've been working on a big genealogy project with such efficiency it's amazing. When I built a newfound cousin's family tree back several generations in one evening, I wondered what makes me so fast. A lot of it comes down to my 5 favorite genealogy tricks. Are you taking advantage of these tricks like I am?

1. Adding Details to Document Images

Building detailed information right into document images increases their value. Your entries in the image's title and comments fields stay with the image. That info is there with the image on your computer, and it's there when you put the image in your family tree software. You can view any image's property details by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

Use an image's title field to keep document images in chronological order in your family tree. Begin the title with the year, such as “1930 census for John White and family.” This practice:

• Helps you locate the document you need easily
• Provides a clear timeline of events, and
• Points out any gaps in a person's records.

An image's comments field also carries over into your family tree software. Include a detailed source citation and line numbers for the people of interest. Line numbers help when you're revisiting a document and can't find your person right away. For a closer look at this process, see step 4 in "7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement."

When I synchronize my Family Tree Maker file with my Ancestry tree, each image displays the title I wrote. The comments field of the image in my family tree shows up as the description of the image on Ancestry. That lets future researchers or family members see exactly where the image came from.

Are you making sure your saved document images speak for themselves?

2. Using a Document "Holding Pen"

Since I work on my family tree every day, I set aside time each Sunday morning to make a complete backup of all my files. Significant changes can happen to my tree in one week! The best way to make sure I don't overlook anything at backup time is to use a "holding pen" for my new document finds.

My family tree is huge. For the moment, I'm avoiding adding more document images to my tree, but I have 11,688 images in there. If I go on a spree and add a bunch of document images to my tree, it'd be easy to overlook some of them during my weekly backup.

To make sure no documents slip through the cracks, I have a "holding pen" for new images added during the week. I have one folder on my computer called certificates. Any new vital record images wait right there until Sunday morning backup time. Each Sunday I know I have to look there.

Within the certificates folder is a sub-folder called DON'T FORGET TO BACK UP THESE. That's where I keep censuses, ship manifests, draft cards, and anything else that isn't a vital record. I have another sub-folder within certificates called working. That's where I keep anything I haven't processed yet. Let's say I downloaded a record from the New York City Municipal Archives, but haven't gotten to it yet. I'll keep it in the working folder so I don't forget about it.

A holding pen ensures that any new treasures get backed up and filed as needed. What steps are you taking to prevent documents from getting lost? To get a better look at the process, see "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree."

3. Sharing My Family Tree Online

It's fantastic when a distant cousin finds their ancestors in my family tree and writes to me. That's often the only way I can find out what became of my ancestor's cousins from Italy.

When I hear from someone, I go into research mode and figure out our connection. How crazy is it to be writing to a 5th cousin you never knew existed? Then I follow their ancestors to America, in most cases, and discover all I can about their family.

I like to provide new cousins with everything I can about their ancestors in Italy. That's the purpose of my enormous family tree. I want my quality research to be there for every distant cousin or paesan who finds my tree.

I keep my family tree up-to-date on Ancestry to help out people who've taken a DNA test. I also upload my tree to Geneanet to help European relatives. (See "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem.") And I took the advice of one blog reader who said I can upload my tree to FamilySearch in such a way that no one can edit it. On my personal website, www.forthecousins.com:

• I list my ancestral towns and my primary last names from those towns.
• I publish my complete indexes of the vital records available for those towns.

Are you building your family tree in a vacuum? Don't you think a distant cousin's personal knowledge of their family could help you?

Make family-tree building easier, and genealogy source citations more consistent and valuable with a simple template.

4. Using Source Citation Templates

Lately I've been adding source citations for the thousands of Italian vital records I didn't cite. Shame on me! Since the documents are on my computer, I skipped citations in favor of building families.

But what happens when a distant cousin finds his grandparents in my online family tree? How can he be sure my facts are correct? Unfortunately, he can't be sure unless I provide links to the documents. When there's a link, he can see the facts for himself on the original document.

I generated a huge list of everyone in my family tree who has zero source citations. I did this in Family Tree Analyzer and exported a spreadsheet. The list contained more than 68,000 people, more than 14,000 of whom were actual cousins to me. Now I spend my days chipping away at that list.

A few tricks help me cross the most people off that list in the least amount of time:

• I sort the spreadsheet by (1) relationship to me, (2) last name, and (3) first name. That let's me focus on blood relatives before in-laws. And it keeps siblings close to each other in the list.
• I create source citations for one person from the list, and then I handle all their siblings. Reducing how much I need to move around within my family tree and within the spreadsheet saves time.
• I work one town at a time. I keep the Antenati web page open with all the available records from that town. Then I can quickly go to the register book I need and open it in a new tab. Sticking to one town reduces the typing needed for the citation.
• The vast majority of facts in my family tree come from Italian vital records. I use a source citation template so it's easy to capture all the important facts with consistency. When I'm making citations for a bunch of siblings, only a few details need to change. I turn into a copy-and-paste speed demon! Here's the basic Italian vital record source citation format I use:
  From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR DOCUMENT-TYPE, TOWN, document #, image # of # at URL

Are your source citations in decent shape? Templates and time-saving tricks can help whip your family tree into professional shape. Not sure templates are for you? Take a look at #2 in "How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert."

5. Making Document Collections Searchable

Consistency can be such a help to you, particularly if you can't work on your family tree every day. Shortly after I began building my family tree, I knew I needed to use a consistent file-naming process. Within a FamilyTree folder, I created a sub-folder for each type of genealogy document:

• census
• certificates (meaning vital records)
• draft cards
• immigration
• and so on.

Within each folder, the file names follow a consistent format:

• Censuses: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of household)
• Certificates: LastnameFirstnameDocument-TypeYear—2 names if it's a marriage. Examples:
  • AgostinelliFrancescoAntonioBirth1789
  • AgostinelliFrancescantonioCapuanoAngelamariaMarriage1828
  • AgostinelliTommasoDeath1800
• Draft cards: LastnameFirstnameWW1 (or WW2)
• Immigration: LastnameFirstnameYear (based on the head of the family if it's a group)

Because I use a consistent format, it's easy to search my computer for a particular document. For more detail, see "3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents."

But the best thing I ever did for my family tree is rename downloaded vital records that aren't even in my tree. Years ago I downloaded entire collections of Italian vital records using third-party software. But websites don't like when you do that, so they throw up roadblocks against such software. (What can you do? See "Semi-Automated Process for Downloading Antenati Images.")

With those images on my computer, I began to view and rename them all. I made them easy to search for on my computer. If someone asks me about their branch in my tree, it's no problem at all to:

• search for more records
• build out their branch more completely, and
• share it with them.

For these documents, I use a different, more readable format. It contains the document number and the full name of the subject(s) of the birth, marriage, or death record. If it's a marriage record it includes both the groom and bride's names. If it's a birth or death record, it also includes the first name of the person's father. This is a tremendous help in finding the right record or putting together families. Here are some examples:

• Birth record: 1 Giovanni Luigi Stanziale di Antonio
• Death record: 16 Guglielmo Ciampi di Andrea
• Marriage record: marriage 7 Angelo Carpenito & Giuseppa Fioretto
• Marriage banns: banns 2 1st Francesco diFreda & Petronilla Panza

While a computer search may find what you're looking for, I want more power. I use a search program for Windows called Everything. (Find out how well it works in "My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives.") It's so good at finding a particular record, and this helps a lot with my source citation project. I can find the document I need to cite, see its document number, and go right to it online to capture details.

Can you find any genealogy document on your computer in an instant? Consistent file-naming formats and a good search tool may be exactly what you need.

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A lack of efficient genealogy research methods can be a big source of frustration for you. Think about what you can change to work smarter, not harder—and make constant progress.

Apply Your Genealogy Superpower to Other Families

Use your genealogy superpower in unexpected ways. I built a celebrity's family tree and discovered he fits into my tree!

Genealogy skills are a superpower. Researching your own family history teaches you how to go back another generation. Sometimes it's a lot of fun to flex your genealogy muscles on someone else's family tree. Inspiration for this type of project can come from anywhere.

In the past, I was inspired by memorials in my grandfathers' hometowns or questions posted in Facebook genealogy groups. TV has played an inspiring role, too.

An Old Movie Triggers a Question

I watched a 1952 Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis movie on TCM called "Sailor Beware." I knew James Dean was in one scene, and I spotted him before I had remembered to look for him. But I also noticed one sailor who was in a lot of scenes but may not have said a word. It was actor Vince Edwards in his second-ever movie role. Vince was in a TV show called "Ben Casey" when I was too young to remember watching.

I started to wonder about Vince, with my first thought being, "He looks so Italian. How can his name be Edwards?" So I looked him up and discovered he was the son of Italian immigrants living in Brooklyn, New York. With a little more digging, I found his real last name was Zoino.

Bells went off immediately. I know that name from a couple of Italian towns that were home to my maternal grandmother's ancestors. Today you can find that name in the city of Benevento.

To begin, I went to the 1930 census to find Vince as a two year old. Then I search Ancestry records for Vince's father Vincenzo Zoino. I had his birth date and place narrowed down to two men: one from Avellino and one from Benevento. A set of naturalization papers ruled out the man from Avellino.

I went to the Antenati portal to find the right Vincenzo's 1887 birth record from the city of Benevento. With a bit more digging, I found Vince's mother's Benevento birth record, too. Both her parents had last names I've seen often in my own research.

I texted my mom to tell her that "Ben Casey" was our paesan. Not a relative, but a close countryman.

"Finding Your Roots" Strikes a Chord

A couple of years ago an episode of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s "Finding Your Roots" featured Tony Danza. The moment the show began, I wondered if his name used to be Iadanza—a name I know from my own research.

Sure enough, Tony Danza's grandfather was Antonio Iadanza. He came from exactly the town I thought he should: Pietrelcina. This town neighbors my great grandmother's town of Pesco Sannita in Benevento.

I went up to my TV and took a photo when they showed Tony's family tree. Now I knew who to search for. I'd already downloaded all the Pietrelcina vital records from the Antenati website. I knew the town had plenty of intermarriage with Pesco Sannita and I'd need those records sooner or later. Having them on my computer made it easier to piece together Tony's ancestors.

I got as far back as two pairs of Tony's 6th great grandparents born in the early 1700s.

A genealogy hunch became reality with good old-fashioned research. Now this celebrity's family tree fits within mine.

The fun part of this research is that Tony and his ancestors fit into my family tree. Are Tony and I cousins? No. But his grandmother, Giovanna Zarro, has 22 different connections to my family tree. Each one ties back to my ancestors from neighboring Pesco Sannita.

I think it's fun to have Tony Danza in my family tree. And he could very well share some "Identical By State" DNA with me. (For insight into "Identical By State" DNA, see "This Spreadsheet Sorts DNA Matches By Branch.")

Use Your Superpower for Good

Keep your eyes open for a genealogy challenge that means something to you. Anyone with Benevento or Avellino roots is going to grab my attention.

Does someone have a last name from your family? My Girardi ancestors led me to research Joe Girardi, former manager of the New York Yankees. It turns out his family is from Northern Italy, so there's no relation. I have a 3rd cousin I never met who was a child actor. When he was a regular on a TV show, I saw his last name and had to wonder—is he one of ours? Now I know he is!

Is there someone you admire whose roots make you curious? See what you can learn about them. You may need to find an article to learn their parents' or grandparents' names. Then use the census, ship manifests, draft cards, naturalization papers and more to dig deeper. Prove to yourself how accomplished you are at this genealogy hobby!

How to Become a Genealogy Efficiency Expert

A production line mentality is 1 of 4 concepts to make you a family tree efficiency expert.

I started this blog because my business approach to genealogy was somewhat unique. I build my family tree using as much discipline and efficiency as I used on the job. That approach made me more productive than my work colleagues. Now it's the reason why I make so much progress on my tree each day.

Family tree-building efficiency boils down to these 4 concepts.

1. Stay in One Place

I had a great time last month following "6 Steps to Finding Your Living Cousins." But there were times when I felt overwhelmed and had to take a break. I got bogged down in processing all the different types of documents, facts, and citations. If I started with one man born in Italy, and tried to find his living descendants, I had to find:

• His immigration record, extract the facts, and add the source citations.
• His census records, add new family members, addresses, dates, jobs, and give everyone their source citations.
• Vital records for each family member and add facts and source citations.
• Obituaries, search for any new names, gather more facts, and add source citations.

It could take all day to do this for one immigrant in my family tree. Having so many types of documents to find felt exhausting.

But, if you choose one type of resource, you'll spend less time moving around. You won't have to think as much because you're repeating the same few steps over and over.

Here's an example. What if you had a book filled with information that applies to certain people in your family tree. Instead of finding every document for those people, work through the book. You'll fall into an efficient pattern of work.

I own one such book (see "Imagine a Register of Your Entire Ancestral Hometown"). It's a detailed description of more than 500 households in my grandfather's hometown. As I worked through the households, it became easy to follow the same steps:

• Locate the right family.
• Go to the head of household and copy the book's description of his assets and family members to his notes.
• Create the source citation and copy it to each member of the household.
• Move on to the next household.

It's more efficient to cite one source for the whole family, than to find every document for the whole family. You'll get to them later.

Here's an example my fellow Italian genealogy researchers can relate to. I've gone back to my unfinished project of creating my missing source citations. (See "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). The majority of these citations are for Italian vital records. I've been skipping the citations because the documents are on my computer, and I can find them in a snap.

But I want my online family tree to be a resource for anyone with roots in the same ancestral hometowns as mine. So I have to find the documents online (on the Antenati website) to get the URL and image number to add to my citation.

The most time-consuming part of the process was locating pre-1809* birth and death records. You can only find these documents in the priceless matrimoni processetti. (See "The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'").

*Italian civil records may exist as early as 1805, but for all my Italian towns, the records begin in mid-1809. One exception is a town that didn't start civil record keeping until 1861.

The only problem is, there are a lot of pages in each year's processetti, and they can be in no particular order. Finding the page I need to cite can take a while. I needed a way to simplify this process.

Here's what I did to save all that search time. This works well for me because every person in the town is in my family tree. I'm going through each page of a given year's processetti one-by-one. For every pre-1809 birth or death, I check the person in my tree to see if I need the citation. If yes, I create it immediately. If no, I move on.

Working through this one resource, eliminating the tedious searches, saves a lot of time. And on top of that, I save more time by using the next concept.

2. Reduce Keystrokes

In 1985 I worked for a printing company. I generated templates on a computer, printed them on a plotter, and cut and folded them to look like the finished product—a direct mail piece. These templates were a guideline for creating the piece's text and artwork.

Words can be a template, too. I keep a handful of source citation templates handy so my citations are consistent. They also reduce the amount of typing you have to do. Anything that reduces keystrokes can save time and avoid errors.

Here are 3 source citation templates I keep handy. For each one, I add the right numbers and replace CAPITALIZED words to keep a consistent format.

1. For New York City Municipal Archives vital records: New York City Municipal Archives; NYC Department of Records & Information Services; YEAR BOROUGH TYPE certificate #xx; URL
2. For a resource of fallen soldiers from the Benevento province of Italy: From the Benevento State Archives, military records, fallen soldiers; register #xx, record #xx, class #xx; page URL, PDF URL
3. For any vital record from Antenati: From the PROVINCE State Archives, YEAR TYPE, TOWN, document xx, image xx of xx at bookURL; https://iiif-antenati.san.beniculturali.it/iiif/2/TARGET/full/full/0/default.jpg

3. Form a Production Line

Factories use production lines to save time, increase efficiency, and ensure quality. To get through so many searches for living relatives, I used a production line mentality.

I knew I had to search for several documents:

• ship manifests
• naturalization papers
• censuses
• draft registration cards
• vital records
• obituaries.

Keeping one person as my focus, I went through each stop on the production line. I searched for each document. I added the facts to my tree, made the source citation, and copied facts and citations as needed.

I kept my eye on the production line to produce a complete, accurate, quality product each time. But you can bet production line workers get bored, so on to concept 4.

4. Keep Yourself Happy

Boredom can keep you from getting the job done. If you get bored with one task, pick a logical stopping point, and jump to another task that suits your mood.

When I'm working through those big matrimoni processetti collections, it can get overwhelming. When I finish one year, I may dread starting the next year. Of course I always want to make progress, so what's the answer? Jump to another task.

After finishing one year's processetti, I went back to my list of people missing citations. (Find out how to generate your list in "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable"). Then I picked off people whose early birth records were already cited. All I had to do was track down their marriage and death records. That made me happy because the hard part was already done.

Reap the Benefits of Efficiency

If you're ever frustrated by your genealogy research, try adding these efficiency measures. Don't follow whims and bounce all around. It's inefficient! Focus on what you need to do to increase the value of your family tree. Always remember that your family tree is your legacy.

Pay attention to what you're doing and look for ways to save steps, reduce keystrokes, form a production line, and stay happy. Of course you're happy. You're doing genealogy! Best. Puzzle. Ever.

And speaking of efficiency:

• 4 Ways to Fit Genealogy into Your Busy Day
• This Genealogy Research Log Boosts Your Efficiency
• 4 Ways to Make Big Genealogy Progress When You Have Little Time