Build a Rock-Solid Family Tree Foundation

A family tree needs a well-made foundation. But unlike other construction projects, your tree needs a solid base at the top.

With a solid foundation, you can add distant relatives like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Imagine if you knew the names of all your 6th great grandparents. Plus all their siblings. And everyone's spouses. Then you could attach younger generations to the right branch as you discover them.

That's what I'm doing with my pet project. I'm piecing together everyone from my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita, Italy. I'm lucky. All my ancestors came from a handful of neighboring towns where they lived for centuries. The towns were a bit isolated, so the number of intermarriages is astonishing.

Researching the earliest birth records can take you back several generations.

A Foundational Database

In 2017 I downloaded the town's vital records from the Italian website, Antenati. I have more than 38,000 document images arranged in separate folders. There's a unique birth, marriage, and death folder for each year. The years range from 1809–1942 with several gaps. It's a total of 225 folders. (Note that civil record keeping began in 1809 in most Italian towns.)

Next, I made the files easy to use. I renamed each one to include the name(s) of the document's subject(s). Along the way, I realized it'd be helpful to include the name of the subject's father in the file name.

For instance, "007853904_01008 Damiano d'Emilia di Teofilo.jpg" is more useful than "007853904_01008 Damiano d'Emilia.jpg." Why? Because now I can search my computer for every child born to Teofilo d'Emilia.

Two Reasons for This Naming Convention

Reason #1: Keeping the number (007853904_01008) in the file name makes it easy to cite the image's URL. To do this, I keep a special text file in each of the 225 folders. The file contains a template for each image's URL. The template for the folder of 1852 death records says this:

http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+della+restaurazione/Colleoggi+Colle+Sannita/Morti/1852/636/007853904_00000.jpg.html (01006-01067)

To reconstruct the URL for this exact file, I change the 00000 in the template URL to 01008. Why keep the whole number when I need only the last 5 digits? Because the marriage files, and some other records, come from more than one location. There can be different sets of numbers within a year. The template for 1852 marriages looks like this:

http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+della+restaurazione/Colleoggi+Colle+Sannita/Matrimoni+pubblicazioni/1852/636/007853904_00000.jpg.html (01086-01147) [These are the marriage banns.]

http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+della+restaurazione/Colleoggi+Colle+Sannita/Matrimoni+processetti/1852/636/007853904_00000.jpg.html (01148-01502) [These are the birth and death records required for the marriage.]

http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+della+restaurazione/Colleoggi+Colle+Sannita/Matrimoni/1852/636/007853904_00000.jpg.html (01503-01536) [These are the marriage documents, often with a separate notation for civil and church wedding.]

The beginning of the file number (i.e., 007853904) plus the last 5 digits helps form the exact URL.

Reason #2: I use the Italian word "di" before the father's name in each file name (i.e., Damiano d'Emilia di Teofilo, or Maria Rosa Pilla di Nicola). "Di" means of, and it's a common way to show that someone is the son or daughter of a particular man. Italian records may use the word "fu" (meaning late or deceased). But to simplify my record searching, I use "di" in the file name even if the father is dead.

Understanding the Antenati URL structure helps you write the source citation.

Placing the Babies

The renamed vital records are easy to search on my computer. I use a Windows program called Everything, and it's a godsend. My plan is to fit as many babies from the town as possible into my published family tree. What an awesome resource my tree will be for anyone with Colle Sannita ancestry.

Here's the process:

1. View the document to find the baby's name, the father's name and age, and the mother's name and age. (Ages are not always included, but you can estimate.)
2. Check Family Tree Maker to see if the baby is already in there. If so, prepare the image (crop, enhance, add meta data) and add it to their profile with a source citation for each fact.
3. If the baby is not in the family tree, look for the father and mother. See if they're in the tree as husband and wife. If so, add this baby and the document.
4. If the baby and parents are not in the tree, search for:
   • The marriage of the grown-up baby. If there's a place for their spouse in the family tree, there's now a connection to this baby and their document.
   • The death of the mother or father. Their death records should include their parents' names. Check if they are already in the family tree.
   • The remarriage of one of the widowed parents. Does their new spouse fit into the tree?
   • Siblings for the original baby. One of them may have married someone who's already in the family tree.

That last idea was a game-changer. I revisited a dozen 1809 babies that I couldn't place in my family tree on the first try. Once I tracked down their siblings, I found the connection I needed and worked the whole family into my tree.

Reaching Higher Than the Foundation

The earliest documented babies have parents born around the 1780s or earlier. If I find their death records, I learn the names of their parents, born around the 1750s or earlier. And if I'm lucky enough to find that generation's parents' names, I can check my ultimate reference book. My friend from Colle Sannita, Dr. Fabio Paolucci, published a book detailing every family in Colle Sannita in the year 1742. When I connect someone from the book to my family tree, I can wind up with ancestors born in the 1600s!

If you have Italian ancestors, see if a similar book is available for your town. You won't regret the investment. Use the search box on https://abenapoli.it to look for your ancestral hometown. The book I bought is called "Colle Sannita nel 1742" ("nel" means in the). The book for another of my towns is called "Apice nel 1753." A search for "nel 17" brings up a long list of books detailing the residents of many towns in the 1700s.

This rock-solid foundation will help me place more and more townspeople in my family tree.

I connected all the 1809 babies, and I've already got 31,000+ people in my family tree. Thank goodness I retired last month, because this obsession is an absolute blast!

This New Template Charts 5 Generations

Even after finding the Family Tree Generator Excel template, I needed another template. You see, the Excel template works best when you already know the names of the eldest generation. But while researching, you often know only the youngest generation.

When I research someone else's family, I create an Excel chart to keep track of their ancestors as I find them.

It was confusing—and a hassle—to build that chart from scratch each time. So I made my own Ancestor Chart template in Excel. It starts with the main person at the bottom, center. (The center is way over in column AH.) It has "father" and "mother" placeholders for five generations of ancestors. It goes all the way back to the main person's 3rd great grandparents.

This new template is perfect for use while researching an unrelated family tree.

Each generation is color-coded. Plus, the first column always tells you which generation is which. As you're researching, replace "father" or "mother" with the full name of the ancestor you've found.

I do more than keep track of my research in a spreadsheet like this. I give the finished chart to my client so they can visualize their ancestry. It's so helpful when they're reviewing the documents, translations, and explanations I provide.

This template is very wide, but you can print it if you like. Set your printer to landscape mode and this tree will span six pages.

Imagine using this template to work up from your DNA match until you reach your own ancestor.

Keep in mind that the main person doesn't have to be living. Often it's my client's grandparent or great grandparent. You can use this template to visualize any particular branch of a family. You can duplicate the chart to make separate trees for a husband and wife.

Download your copy of the file from Dropbox and let me know how you've used it. If you don't have spreadsheet software, you can copy and use this Google Sheets version of the same template.

What You're Losing With Your Private Family Tree

My family tree software almost gave me a heart attack. I routinely make a backup of my Family Tree Maker file after working on it for a while. It's not uncommon for me to make 3 or 4 backups in a long day of research. Then I close and compact my file before I synchronize any changes with Ancestry.com.

Still, there's a feeling of dread when my file takes to long to respond. Last week the FTM program stopped dead. I'd opened my family tree file to make one change and output an updated family tree chart. I began clicking my way up the generations, trying to get to the eldest Ohama in my husband's family tree.

But I couldn't click anything! Nothing was responding. I decided to leave it alone and do something else for a while. But the program was still stuck. After an hour, I held my breath and killed it.

When I relaunched Family Tree Maker, I saw the expected error message. I clicked Continue. I was confident I'd made only one edit that day, so I restored my tree from the full backup I made the day before.

Everything was fine! I repeated the change I made earlier and output that family tree chart I wanted.

Why do I stick with Family Tree Maker when it can cause me so much worry? Because I can share my up-to-date, uneditable family tree with every member of Ancestry.com. I want people to find my research, but I don't want them to change it. The shared trees of Family Search, Geni, and elsewhere are horrifying to a control freak like me. Plus, Ancestry has the best interface for viewing a family tree.

Share your family tree on a big stage for your own benefit.

I've been building two other family trees lately that I'm not sharing online. One is for my son's girlfriend and one is for my college roommate. These trees don't belong online because I wasn't asked to share this information.

But my enormous family tree is another story. When the Italian government started posting vital records online in 2017, my genealogy goal changed.

I'm not satisfied with documenting my direct ancestors and cousins. I want to connect everyone from my ancestral hometowns. I don't care if someone is the mother-in-law of the 2nd husband of my 1st cousin 5 times removed. She's from one of my towns and has a connection to me. She belongs in my tree.

Strangers often thank me for the people, facts, and documents I've put together for their family. Sometimes they turn out to be a DNA match to my parents or me.

When all goes well, I can build onto my new contact's branch of the family. I can follow their ancestors to America, picking up what might otherwise have been a dead end. Sharing your family tree is the surest way to open up those dead ends.

The latest person to write and thank me for his ancestors turns out to be my 5th cousin once removed. Just knowing who my mom's 5th cousin is blows my mind. Thank you, internet.

This week I'm gathering vital records for his ancestors, adding them to my family tree, and sharing them with him on Ancestry. To me, this is the ideal collaboration. Don't touch my work. But let's work together. We can benefit one another.

You can talk to me all day long about your preferred family tree software. But nothing compares to the combination of Family Tree Maker on my desktop and Ancestry.com.

Free and Easy-to-Use 4-Generation Family Tree Chart

I found a very nice family tree template in a surprising place. It seems perfect for those times when you're building a tree for a friend. Or showing a cousin why family trees are so amazing.

To find this free template, launch Microsoft Excel and click the link for More templates. Search for Family tree generator. (Or download it now.) When you open the template you'll see two tabs: Family Members and Family Tree. When you enter names on the Family Members tab, you're generating a chart on the Family Tree tab. It's pretty cool.

When you're explaining family relationships to someone, this simple visualization is a big help.

As an example, I entered a pair of my 4th great grandparents in the Grand Parents fields of the spreadsheet. Here are the steps to follow:

• Click the spreadsheet's Reset Family button to empty all the sample names from the fields.
• Enter the names of the ancestor couple you've chosen. For me, that's Francesco Iamarino and Cristina Iapozzuto. While the original template uses only first names, I want to use first and last names.
  • If you use both names, you'll need to turn on Wrap Text for the rows of names, and adjust the row height.
  • To do this, use your mouse to select rows 10 through 50 or so. Select Wrap Text (Home / Alignment section). Then select AutoFit Row Height (Home / Format in the Cells section).
• Each time you add a descendant, you can pull down a menu to choose their parents from a list. (Look for the arrow beside the Parents field.)
• Fill in names for each generation.
• Once you finish the "Third Generation Children," click the Create Family Tree button at the top.
• The names may appear cut off. If so, you need to turn on Wrap Text and change the Row Height. But you can't yet, because the row numbers and column letters are not visible.
  • Turn on the row and column headings by clicking the View menu and checking Headings in the Show section.
  • Set the Wrap Text as explained above, but this time, start at line 5.
  • Set the row height by clicking Format on the Home tab and choosing Row Height. I found that a row height of 50 worked well for the names I'd entered. You can experiment with different values until you're happy with the result.

Enter names for each generation, select their parents, then fine-tune your easy family tree chart.

When you save your Excel file, you'll see a message about your file containing macros. These macros are the functionality that generates the family tree chart. To keep the functionality:

• Choose Save As.
• Select the 2nd option in the list, Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook.

Now you can print the family tree chart as a PDF file to share. I chose the 11" x 17" tabloid setting and selected Fit Sheet on One Page. This way, I can print the tree onto two letter-sized pages and tape them together. Or I can find someone with a bigger printer tray.

Don't have Excel? Download the Family tree generator template and open it with your spreadsheet software. Let me know if that works or not.

The result is simple-looking (no photos or birth or death years). But what an easy way to help a friend or relative visualize their part of the family tree. Think how nice it would be to create a bunch of these charts for the holidays.

And speaking of genealogy templates:

• How to Make Custom Family Trees for the Holidays
• This Chart Finds Hidden Relationships in Your Family Tree
• How to Visualize Your Ancestor-Finding Progress

It's Time to Organize All Your Family Photos

I thought my family photos were well organized. My digital photos have file names that include the names of the people in the picture.

Then my uncle died, and I wanted to share a couple of photos of him as a teenager. One photo shows my Uncle Silvio as a teenager, laughing. The other shows Uncle Silvio and his future wife, my Aunt Lillian. In that photo, they seem to be part of a cheerleader squad for their school's football team.

It was awful to discover that I couldn't find either of these precious photos when I needed them!

First I looked in my "Family Tree\photos" folder for any file name that included my uncle's last name. Then I checked any family folders in my separate "Saved Pictures" folder. No luck!

I turned to my favorite search program ("Everything" for Windows) to scour my computer for Silvio's last name.

With this tool, I found the photo of Silvio laughing in a folder called "FamilyTree\etcetera\scans". That's a great way to lose your stuff. Put it in a folder called etcetera! The folder contains pages I scanned from my Aunt Lillian's photo album more than 10 years ago. She had the teenage photo of Silvio. But I still can't find the cheerleader photo. Is it possible I never scanned that one?

This wasn't the first time I had trouble finding a particular photo. It's time to come up with a better system.

My family photos took a big step forward when I placed them all in a safe. But there's much more organizing to do.

Take Stock of Your Collection

In my "Family Tree\photos" folder, image files are generally named for their subject (last name first):

• IamarinoPasquale.jpg
• IamarinoPasquale2.jpg
• IamarinoPasqualeWithGreatGrandchildren.jpg

I'd like to reserve my "Saved Pictures" folder for vacation photos. Each vacation has its own folder (like "California Feb 2016"), plus sub-folders for individual destinations during that vacation ("Santa Barbara", "Hollywood", etc.). But it also has my family's digitized slide collection stretching back to the 1950s.

My mother has given me tons of old family photos that I keep in a fireproof safe. I can't guarantee that I've scanned every single one of them. And I know I have a thick 1980s–1990s photo album somewhere in my house, but I can't find it.

Determine Your Goals

To organize any digital photo collection, start by asking yourself what you need from it. I would like to have only one or two places to look for any given photo.

Rename your digital photo files with descriptive names. This will help you organize and locate them later on.

When I want to pull up a photo from Lyon, France, for example, I go to "Saved Pictures", open "France-Italy Sept 2015" and find the Lyon folder. I'll continue to keep all the destination photos in one place. But I'm going to review them and give them more descriptive file names. This will make specific photos easier to find.

Rather than sifting through 132 images of Paris, I can give them descriptive names, like:

• Versailles-exterior-front.jpg
• Versailles-Hall-of-Mirrors.jpg
• Notre-Dame-Rose-Window.jpg

These descriptive names will make similar photos group together in the folder. Plus, I can use "Everything" to search for that famous rose-window.

Goal #1: Make all destination photo names more descriptive than IMG_1569.JPG.

In my case, it's the family photos that need more urgent attention. There's the folder I found called "scans" hiding on my computer. Its images don't follow my usual LastnameFirstname.jpg format. I'll begin by renaming them.

Like most genealogy fans, I'm going to wind up with TONS of family photos in one folder. They'll need some separation. Which organization method would you choose?

• Put a date in the file name (whether it's general [1940s] or specific [1949])
• Use sub-folders for each decade (1940s, 1950s, 1960s)
• Use sub-folders for place (Ohio, Bronx, California)
• Use sub-folders for family groups. I would need to include the name of the head of the family for this to work (IamarinoPasquale, IamarinoPietro, IamarinoFrank).

When you gather up and rename your family photo files, look for one or more of these ways to further organize them.

As you examine your collection, one or more of these filing methods may make the most sense to you. I know, for example, I have tons of photos from the Bronx. I could divide them by decade or exact location (mom's apartment house, dad's apartment house). But I know my California family photos are only from the couple of years my family lived there. They can all stay in one folder with descriptive file names.

Whichever method you choose, the purpose is to help you more easily find a particular photo.

Goal #2 has two parts:

• Bring all digitized family photos into one location, improving their file names as you go.
• Assess the entire collection for how best to divide them up.

Once your digitized photo collection is in good shape, it's time to take stock of your paper photos.

If you had to find a particular old photo of yourself and two of your best friends, could you find it? This happened to me last month. I needed a specific photo so my friends and I could recreate our funny pose 23 years later.

The photographs I've taken over the years are in a few cardboard boxes. They have dividers to separate them by time or place. I didn't see any photos from around 1998 in the boxes. I checked my "College" section, but the photo I wanted wasn't there. In the end, I found a forgotten 1990s photo album sitting in my safe. And there it was, along with a ton of photos of my sons as little kids. I need to digitize all these photos!

I also have two boxes of old photos from my mother, along with a stack of larger format photos. Are they all digitized? How should I organize them?

Goal #3: Go through your paper photo collection. Make sure you digitize and sort everything.

When you digitize your photos, remember to scan at the highest resolution available. This will allow you to zoom in and see details more clearly. If you have photo editing software, you can work to undo creases and spots on your photos.

This is a big project, for sure. In my case, it's long overdue. And I still need to find that cheerleader photo with my aunt and uncle!

As with any big family tree project, it's best to divide and conquer. Here's how I'll start:

• Enhance the file names already in my "Family Tree\photos" folder. Those 700+ file names will group similar subjects together alphabetically.
• Search for other photo folders on the computer. Then rename and bring everything into the main folder.
• Check the digitized collection for natural breaks. Will organizing by time, place, or family group work best?
• Check paper photos to see that you've got them all digitized.
• Organize the paper collection to make future searches easier.

My family often turns to me to produce a certain photo. I want to make dead sure I am the family historian who can meet that need.

How to Be a Family Tree Myth Buster

I've been building a robust family tree for my son's girlfriend since August. She lost her father in late July, and my son told her, "I'll bet my mom can build your tree for you."

It's been easy because her family has been in one corner of Pennsylvania for centuries. To someone like me, whose first immigrant ancestor set foot in America in 1892, that's amazing.

Proving or disproving family lore should be a fun challenge for any genealogy fan.

At first I struggled with how big I wanted to make this family tree. There's so much documentation, and each couple seems to have had ten children. To get this done, I shifted my focus to her direct line. I especially wanted to identify the country of origin for each immigrant ancestor.

She doesn't know what (as in, what nationality) her last name is. I can't imagine not knowing. I discovered her last name was originally French—possibly with a different spelling. Plus she has Austrian, Irish, and English ancestors.

I've generated a few large family trees and descendant reports so far. Then I remembered a memory she shared with me.

Myth #1: This Acclaimed Artist is My Relative

As a student, she visited a local museum and saw a painting by a man with her last name. She pointed to it and said, "That's my family." The tour guide or teacher gave her a look that seemed to say, "Sure, kid. Whatever you say." But her mother had told her that this famous artist was her relative.

I set out to discover the artist's relationship to her family. Wikipedia told me who his parents were, and Ancestry helped my find the rest. Now I can prove this artist is her 2nd cousin 5 times removed. Interestingly, his death certificate says he poisoned himself due to "melancholia."

As I worked to place the artist in the family tree, I saw that his parents were not yet in there. But this Quaker family left behind many records. The artist's grandfather, who was already in the family tree, had 10 children listed on a church record. The 9th child was the father of the artist.

Myth #1: TRUE

It's great when the facts and documents come together. This bit of family lore is TRUE.

Does your family have its own myths about notable relatives?

Myth #2: The Captain of the Titanic is My Relative

My sons' paternal grandfather told us his great uncle was Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic. As a great nephew, he became a member of a Titanic historical society. His mother Lillian felt ashamed that her father's brother was the captain.

Years later, when I caught the genealogy bug, I decided to document my sons' famous ancestor. Immediately I hit a dead end. Not a brick wall. A dead end that made the captain's relationship to my sons impossible.

The captain had no brothers. He had a half-sister and a daughter. The captain was born in Staffordshire, England. He married in Lancashire, and lived with his wife and child in Hampshire.

Meanwhile, the Smith family in my tree is very incomplete. I haven't found Lillian's father Walter Smith's town of origin in England. (To keep things straight, Lillian is my sons' great grandmother who said she was the captain's niece.) But Walter married a woman with a long history in Derbyshire.

I'm not familiar with all the shires in England, so I turned to a map. The captain's place of birth (Staffordshire) is a one-hour drive from Lillian's mother's place of birth (Derbyshire). (One hour on today's modern roads.) I'm going to ignore Captain Smith's professional time in:

• Lancashire (he moved there because it's a northern port)
• Hampshire (he lived there because it's a southern port).

I wondered if Walter Smith was Captain Edward Smith's 1st cousin, since he had no brothers. To prove that, I need to trace Walter Smith further back to see if he ever lived in Staffordshire. It won't matter that their name is Smith, will it?

I know Walter Smith sailed to America in 1891 from the northern port of Liverpool in Lancashire. I know he returned to England because he married his wife Elizabeth Merrin in Derbyshire in 1896. I hoped to find his U.S. arrival in 1897 with his wife.

Derbyshire records have helped me a lot with Elizabeth Merrin's family already. Now I see a marriage record for Walter Smith and Elizabeth Merrin. It seems they lived at the same street address in Derbyshire when they married.

Of course I went straight to Google Maps with the address. I wondered if it was a big apartment building. Nope. It's a store with an apartment or two above it. Maybe their families were close (literally).

Looking at the suggested records for Walter Smith on Ancestry, I found an 1871 census. His age and the name of his father are a match, but I need many more documents to prove this is Walter. Right now it seems as if he was born and raised in Derbyshire.

My working conclusion: There's no reason to think Walter Smith from Derbyshire is a close relative of Captain Smith from Staffordshire.

Myth #2: FALSE

When trying to prove or disprove some bit of family lore, be sure to investigate both sides. Gather as many documents as possible on family members. And research the famous person who somehow worked their way into your family's story.