7 Ways to Get the Most from Genealogy Documents (Part 1 of 2)

Don't miss out on the full value of genealogy documents. Here are 7 ways to get the most from the documents you want for your family tree.

I'm still plugging away at my source citations project. Each day I add citations for 70–100 of the Italian nationals in my family tree. Working on source citations makes it obvious how important genealogy documents are to family tree research. I have so many people in my tree whose existence would be unknown if I didn't have this one document image.

Let me share with you 7 ways you can get the most value from each genealogy document you discover.

1. File Naming and Storage

If you're downloading document images you find online (I hope you are), you must make sure you can find them again. Everyone has their own preference about document file naming. Whatever you choose to do, do it with consistency. Then you'll have no doubt where to find a particular document.

I've detailed my file-naming and folder storage system in "3 Simple Rules for Managing Your Digital Genealogy Documents". I know lots of people have separate folders for individual families. For me, that'd be impossible. My family tree has 81,500 people and thousands of families. And what happens with Grandma? Is she stored under her father's last name and excluded from the folder for her husband's last name? Do I put a copy of her censuses under both names? It makes no sense to me.

The vast majority of my document image files are vital records. I name these for the person who is the primary subject. That's the baby on a birth record, the decedent on a death record, the groom and bride on a marriage record. I name the files last-name-first so they're easy to sort and find. When I name a file for a female, she always always always goes by her maiden name. The only time this is tricky is when a widowed woman is the head of household on a census form. In those cases, I'll use both last names, as in OrsariSarracinoGiuseppa1920. This is a 1920 census record for Giuseppa Orsari, widow, and her Sarracino children.

When you're choosing a file-naming/folder-naming process to follow, think it through. Let's say you don't name your files last-name-first. If you need John Taylor's documents, how many hundreds of John files will you have to pore over to find the right one? There are Johns, John Anthonys, John Peters, John Philips…that Taylor could be anywhere.

Find a solution that works best with the way you use your genealogy documents.

With a logical filing system in place, any genealogy document is easy to find for use in your family tree research.

2. Source Citations

Why create source citations? Imagine you're searching online for a distant cousin whose family tree might help you. You find one, and their tree has tons of details that are new to you. But not one fact has a source citation.

You're left to wonder, where did they get this date? Is that her maiden name? Did he die in another country? Without source citations, you have no solid reason to believe any detail is correct.

Recently, I heard from someone through Ancestry.com. It may be the first time I've ever heard from another Sarracino descendant. (That's my grandmother's maiden name.) Unfortunately, a lack of pre-1861 records from their town means I can't find our connection. But I'm happy to share what I do know.

He found his relatives in my family tree and asked me where those names and dates came from. Right away, I added the missing source citations for everyone in his branch. I synced my Family Tree Maker file with my Ancestry tree and pointed him to it. I told him he could view the profile page for any person and see a list of citations in the center column. For any citation, he would find a clickable link to the web page where he could see the vital record for himself.

That's exactly the type of proof someone needs to believe your genealogy work is valid. Plus, there will be times when you need to return to a document online. What if the version you downloaded got lost or corrupted? Say you found out that a cousin lived in your grandparents' apartment building. You'd need to return to the census to look for the cousin on the next page. If you didn't add a citation, how easily could you return to the source?

Source citations have tremendous value. For tips on following a source citation routine, see "These Steps Make Your Family Tree Much More Valuable".

3. Digitization

I've lived at a keyboard since I bought my genuine IBM PC in 1985. Of course all my stuff is digital! I'm not one of those genealogists with binders full of paper reproductions. I can't even imagine a binder for each family. (Again, I have thousands of families.) I have a few noteworthy paper-based family tree projects, but that's it:

• How to Create a 'Book of Life' for Your Relatives
• Make Your Own 'Elder Scroll'
• 5+ Ways to Share Your Tree with Family

I have only a small number of paper vital records that are not online. My grandfather's 1992 death certificate. My great grandfather's 1969 death certificate, and so on. These documents all fit in one folder. But of course I need to have an image of these documents in my family tree and as part of my computer backup.

That's why I digitized each paper-only document to make sure I never lose it. To see how simple this routine can be, read "How to Make Your Family Tree Fireproof!"

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Have you ever heard the phrase "Pix or it didn't happen"? When it comes to genealogy, it's "Documents or it didn't happen". Take the time to:

• follow a file-naming and file-storage routine
• prove your work by citing your sources
• safeguard your work for posterity.

More people than you will care about your family tree. Make it the best you can.

There's so much to say about genealogy documents that this article got quite long. Please come back next week and I'll wrap up the rest of the 7 Ways.

Free Tool Finds Details You'll Want to Fix

Quality control for your family tree includes being consistent in how you record facts.

Consistency is so important to me. That was true when I wrote code for web pages, and it's true now that my family tree is my full-time work.

Recently I discovered an inconsistency in my family tree. For months now, I've been working my way through a long, long list of people in my tree with no source citations. Saturday was my most productive day ever. I completed the source citations for 110 people!

During the citation process, I noticed the inconsistency. Years ago when adding baptisms to my family tree, I recorded only the date and town. After visiting these places, I started adding the name and address of the church, too. (I found a handy website that lets you look up the names and addresses of churches in any town in Italy.)

Whenever I notice one of my early baptism facts—one without a church name and address—I fill it in and cite my source. But I'm sure I've missed plenty. I wish there were an easy way to find every baptism fact that's missing a church name.

Once again, it's Family Tree Analyzer to the rescue! Using this free tool, I can:

• Open my latest GEDCOM file
• Click the Facts tab
• Select all 7 Relationship Types
• Select only the Baptism fact
• Click the button marked Show only the selected Facts for Individuals

This opens a new window that looks like a spreadsheet. It contains only those people with a Baptism fact. (In my case, that 23,077 people.) I can click the top of the Location column to sort the results in alphabetical order.

One of the churches I discovered late in my research is in Santa Paolina. This list shows 700 baptism entries for Santa Paolina that are missing the church name. I'm afraid to count how many church names are missing for the first town I documented long ago: Baselice. There are tons of them! I can also check which Marriage facts don't use a church name.

It's a big job, but I'm glad to have a way to locate and fix them all. I want that consistency for my family tree.

How else can we use Family Tree Analyzer's Facts report? Here are 3 ideas.

One report in a free family tree program is perfect for finding and fixing your less-than-perfect early genealogy work.

1. Pin Down a Specific Oversight

Lots of times a birth record tells you the father and mother's occupation, and I like to add that fact to my family tree. But I worry that I've forgotten to add the baby's birth citation to the parents' occupations.

Using the Facts report in Family Tree Analyzer, I view Occupation facts only. Then I can sort them by the Num Sources column. The number of occupations with 0 sources is staggering!

I can also sort the Occupations by the Comment column. This shows me a ton of farmers and laborers among my Italian relatives. Can you spot any occupation trends among your ancestors? Every dentist in my tree is one of my husband's relatives from Hawaii. I'm surprised to find only 5 miners in my tree, but I have a decent number of railroad workers.

I get a kick out of the more specialized occupations I've found in the U.S. censuses:

• hop picker at the Wigrich Hop Ranch
• bacon packer in a packing house
• chemist at a steel mill
• bottle washer for a soft beverage company
• garters maker
• chick sexer (I have two!)

What are the most unusual occupations you've recorded in your family tree?

2. Get Rid of Early Variations

Over time I developed consistent wording to use on Emigration and Immigration facts. In the description field of an Emigration fact, I type, "Left for [city name] on the [ship name]." In the description field of the Immigration fact, I type, "Arrived [with family members] to join [family member] at [address]."

But I wasn't using that format from day one of building my family tree. Family Tree Analyzer can show me all Emigration and Immigration facts. It's easy to spot the inconsistencies this way. I found only one Emigration fact that had no description at all—the rest follow the right format.

As for Immigration facts, when I sort them by the Comment column, I find:

• 2 entries with a typo (Arrive instead of Arrived)
• a lot of entries following my original format ("Arrived aboard the [ship name]")
• a small number of entries that cite a ship manifest but have no description at all

These are all items I can fix. The number is small because I completed all my immigration source citations long ago.

3. Remove Unwanted Facts

I used to find it interesting that draft cards and ship manifests stated a person's height and weight. When I view all the Height facts in my tree, I find only 7. And one is an obvious error (my cousin Bella was not 11 inches tall at birth). I've removed these unreliable, and often varying, sources of height from my family tree. Only 2 people in my tree had a Weight fact, and one was weight at birth. I've deleted them both.

There's a fact type called Medical Condition that I used random in the past, but only 13 times. Some of the 13 are details about the cause of death, and one mentions my great uncle's artificial eye. But most of the others make no sense in this category. I can fix these easily.

I also recorded 8 phone numbers in the Phone Number category. Two are for dead men, two are Italian phone numbers for cousins I've never met, and the rest are for people I'll never call. I'm sure that years ago I was so excited to find these pieces of information online that I recorded them. Now I'm going to delete them. Okay, I'm saving one phone number, but not in my family tree. I'm putting it in my iCloud contact list.

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If you've been working on your family tree for a while, I'm sure you've formed opinions on how you want to save details. And I'm sure your style has evolved over time. Spend a day using the Facts report in Family Tree Analyzer to bring your old work up to speed. Your consistency makes your family tree—your legacy—more professional.

For more help with family tree consistency:

• How to Batch Process Your Genealogy Documents
• Consistency Makes Your Family Tree More Professional
• The Basics of a Well-Crafted Family Tree
• Make Consistency King in Your Family Tree

10 Details Not to Miss on Italian Vital Records

You can't spend 8 hours a day examining Italian vital records without learning a few things. When I began searching these records, I knew nothing at all. I'm sure everyone starts out that way. No matter how long you've been researching your Italian family tree, you may be missing some details. Take a look.

Even if you've mastered the basics, there's more to learn from an Italian vital record.

Note that the way they recorded documents varies by era, and from place to place.

1. Stillborn Babies

If a birth record has a note in the margin saying nato morto, the baby was a stillborn—literally born dead. Or, on the line containing the baby's name, you may see the words senza vita—without life. Usually the clerk writes, "io riconosco essere senza vita"—I recognize the baby to be lifeless. How awful.

If the stillborn births are not included with the live births, they may be in the category called diversi. In many of these documents, the child has no first name, but the record tells you the baby's sex and the parents' names.

2. It's Twins!

Most of the time, town clerks recorded twins' births on separate documents. If you're looking at one record and see the word gemelli, you know it's a twin. These records often state which baby was born first. You may also see a senza vita note since infant mortality was high (see #7 below).

On some documents, they list both twins together. In the area where they write the baby's name, if you see multiple names, see if the word e (and) is between any of the names. This would tell you that it's two different babies. If the babies are different sexes, you'll notice that, too.

3. Grandfathers' Names

In some towns between 1866 and about 1873, they wrote vital records in longhand. They didn't use pre-printed forms. These record take a bit longer to dissect, but they do have a great advantage.

Birth records from this time often include the baby's grandfathers' names. This is a tremendous way to get a positive ID on the mom or dad. These documents also tend to give both the father and the mother's age, too. That's great because the mom's age is so often left out in other years.

Look for the grandfather's name immediately after each parent's name.

Once you know where to look, you won't overlook these important genealogy details for your Italian family tree.

4. Father Died in World War I

Sometimes you'll find a special notation in the margin of a 1913-1918 birth record. This tells you that the baby's father died in the war and gives you a date. This may answer an important question for you: Why didn't this couple have any more children?

The typical format looks like this:

"Il genitore è morto per la guerra nazionale come da comunicazione della Ministero della Guerra in data 8 Luglio 1917 number 142604."

Translation: The parent died in the national war as per communication from the Ministry of War dated 8 July 1917 number 142604. Note that this 1917 notation appears on a 1913 birth record.

5. Different Dates

It's amazing that many 1800s' babies were registered at town hall and baptized on the day they were born. That's unthinkable today for health reasons.

But remember this: The day the clerk wrote the document may NOT be the date of the birth, marriage, or death. Always look for a second date in the document that is a declaration of the day of the event.

If there's a baptism column on a birth record, or a church ceremony column on a marriage record, the same holds true. A baptism column may say, "On this date I recorded that on that date I baptized this baby". Or, "On this date I recorded that on that date I married this couple".

Here's a simple rule to follow. If there's more than one date surrounding any event, use the earliest one. You can't record an event before it happened.

Need more help with Italian vital records? Try these articles from Fortify Your Family Tree:

• How to Read an Italian Birth Record
• How to Read an Italian Death Record
• How to Read Italian Marriage Records
• The Italian Genealogy Goldmine: 'Wedding Packets'
• How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives (Antenati)

6. More Dates on the Bottom

I felt disappointed that my 2nd great grandmother's town had no matrimoni processetti. These are the birth and death records associated with a marriage. Then I realized her town handled those dates in a different way.

They didn't record copies of the associated vital records. They wrote the dates at the bottom of the marriage record itself. Look for a list of:

• Exact birth dates of the groom and bride.
• Exact death dates of their parents and paternal grandfathers, if appropriate.
• Exact death date of a previous spouse, if appropriate.

These dates may help you find the original record. But if the birth or death happened before record-keeping began, this is all you'll get. Don't overlook it!

7. Who's Alive and Who's Dead

Any Italian vital record may tell you the name of any person's father. Even the name of a witness on a document may include their father's first name right after their name. Their father's name helps distinguish them from the 5 other guys in town with the exact same name!

Sometimes you'll also see the name of a person's mother—always using her maiden name^*. But did you know there are hints to tell you if a person's mother or father is dead? If you see the word di (of), as in Giovanni Bianco di Antonio, then the father (Antonio) is alive. But if you see fu (was) instead of di, or defunto (deceased), the father is dead.

* Italian women use their father's last name for life. It's only if they emigrate to another country that they may use their husband's last name.

Some death records may tell you the person's mother and father are both dead. If you see "figlio dei fu Giovanni e Maria Cocca," for example, you know that both parents are dead. The dei in dei fu is plural, so both parents have died. The document may say degli furono, which is also plural. Or it may use the Latin version: quondam, sometimes abbreviated as qm. I used to think I could only assume that their father was dead until I realized dei, degli, and furono are all plural.

And don't forget about widows. If a man's death record mentions says "vedovo di Angela Galdiero," then we know he was a widower and Angela died first. Keep an eye out for vedovo di or vedova di. There's also an abbreviation, ved, which I've seen on grave markers in Italy.

8. No Parents or One Parent

There was a lot of hanky panky going on in some of our ancestral hometowns. That adds up to lots of out-of-wedlock births. Some birth records name only the baby's mother and padre incerto (father unknown). In rare cases, a man will report his child's birth but he won't name the mother. These documents will say that he recognizes the baby as his own. And then there are the projetti. The midwife usually reports these births. Of course she knows who the mother is, but she doesn't name anyone. The midwife, the mayor, or the clerk gives these babies a random name.

There were women in town who nursed and cared for the babies for some form of payment. Sadly, a lot of these babies died young.

Here are 3 more genealogy details you need to capture for your Italian family tree.

Two more details apply more to families than a specific vital record.

9. Same-Named Children

Have you found a family that seems to have 2 or more children with the exact same name and wondered what's going on? While I have seen an exception^* or two, you can assume the first baby died before their same-named sibling was born. This is a handy piece of information if the death records aren't available for the right years.

* My only explanation for 2 brothers named Giuseppe Nicola who grew old is that they called one Giuseppe and the other Nicola. It's still weird.

On a related note, if a man or woman dies and their spouse remarries, they are likely to name their next child after the deceased spouse. And if a man dies while his wife is pregnant, she will name the child after him.

10. Marriage Missing

When I began recording vital records, I was curious about couples with no marriage record. I recorded their marriage banns, and they had a bunch of legitimate babies. Why wasn't there a marriage record?

Later I learned the reason why. If a bride and groom came from different towns, they usually married in her town. But they had to publish their intention to marry in both towns. If you have a situation where there's no marriage record , see if the wife came from another town. If she did, try to find banns and a marriage record in her hometown.

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Take another look at the Italian nationals in your family tree. Have you overlooked any of these 10 important details?

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.