A Random Search Led to a Detailed Life Story

While figuring out a new DNA match, I found her great grandfather's 1903 ship manifest. His last name told me he came from my grandfather's town of Colle Sannita. I even have a copy of his 1884 Italian birth record in my family tree.

But his immigration record itself was an amazing find. Of the 30 lines on the page, 25 are men from the same town. Now that I've finished my One Place Study of Colle Sannita, I'm perfectly positioned to ID these 25 men. My colossal family tree should contain each one of them.

The beauty of following through on this one ship manifest is that it will add data points to 25 cold trails.

Let's examine one of the more fruitful searches to see how much we can learn from this random find.

Your person is likely to have traveled with others from their hometown. Don't overlook other members of your family tree.

Subject: Onofrio Zeolla

The clues from the 1903 ship manifest include:

• He is 33 years old
• He is married
• He is joining his brother-in-law Nicola Palmiero in Adamsburg, Pennsylvania

When I looked for him in my family tree, there was only one good choice. Onofrio, born in 1870, is my 2nd cousin 3 times removed. Since his wife's last name was Callara, I checked his sisters to see if one had married a Nicola Palmiero.

Yes. His sister Maddalena married Nicola Palmiero. They had 2 children before he left for Pennsylvania.

I know Onofrio and his wife had at least 7 children between 1896 and 1914. I noticed I'd left a standard note on the 1903 birth of his daughter. It says, "Her father was in America when she was born." This fact comes from a note on the daughter's birth record.

Knowing that I'd found the right Onofrio Zeolla, I searched for any other U.S. records he may have left behind.

I found another ship manifest from March 1909. Onofrio went to join his cousin Giorgio Zeolla in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. Sure enough, a note on the September 1909 birth record of his son Angelo says his father was in America when he was born.

I found Onofrio's name listed on his eldest son Michele's U.S. World War I draft registration card. (Michele is Italian for Michael.) He was born in Colle Sannita in 1896. In 1918 Michele was working at the U.S. Cast Iron Foundry in Scottdale, Pennsylvania. His draft card has a unique note written in the center. It says, "Wants to go soon." So Michele was not planning to stay in America. Like his father, he came here only to earn some money to keep his family afloat.

Searching for one man, I wound up constructing the lives of his eldest son and grandson.

But did Michele ever go home? I found his 1952 Pennsylvania death certificate. He was 55 years old, married, and still working at a foundry in Scottdale.

Clearly Michele needed more research. I found:

• His 1913 arrival in the U.S. at age 17. He was joining his uncle Giorgio Zeolla in Connellsville, Pennsylvania.
• His 1918 U.S. Army service card. He was a Private, honorably discharged on 13 Dec 1918. I guess he wanted to go home but never did.
• His 1934 application for veteran's compensation. This wonderful find lists his wife's maiden name, and their son Nicholas. He was the informant on Michele's death certificate, but it didn't say his relationship. This document has both his parents' names; his mother is missing from his death certificate.
• His 1942 U.S. World War II draft registration card. He and his wife Edith live in Scottdale.
• His 1952 veterans burial card. A photo of his gravemarker lists his military rank and unit proudly.
• His 1930, 1940, and 1950 censuses. Michele, his wife and son are living with his wife's parents in Scottdale each time.

I searched for more about Michele's son Nicholas. He graduated Scottdale High School in 1944 where he played in the band. He served in the U.S. Army Air Force, signing up immediately after graduation. He's buried in a military cemetery. He and his wife Margaret married in Nevada and honeymooned in Mexico.

I began with nothing but birth records for my Italian townspeople. Then a single ship manifest took me on a journey through their lives in America. And there are 24 other townsmen on that ship manifest!

Lessons Learned from My One Place Study

Last week I finished the biggest genealogy project I've ever imagined. My blog posts tell me I began this One Place Study 2 years ago.

The idea was to work every available vital record from Grandpa's hometown into my family tree:

• Births, marriages, and deaths from 1809–1860
• Births from 1861–1915 (with 6 years missing), and
• Marriages and deaths from 1931–1942.

That adds up to more than 38,300 documents!

Why did I start such a big project? I believed I could connect 95% of the people in those Colle Sannita records by blood or marriage. And I did! My ancestors came from small hill towns. Before modern roads, people stayed put and married their neighbors. That connected everyone.

The moment I finished my project, I felt adrift at sea. I tackled a small project, then I jumped right into the same project for my other Grandpa's town of Baselice.

With the Colle Sannita records behind me, I reflected on lessons learned from the project. These will help me as I work on my other ancestral hometowns.

Have a Broad Foundation

Before starting a One Place Study like this, 3 things are essential:

1. Access to vital records from the town.
2. A broad family tree of your relatives from the town.
3. Lists. It's a tremendous help to create lists to work from. Page through the birth records for a year (or the index) and make a list of the names. I like to do this in one big spreadsheet.

Tons of my ancestral hometowns' vital records are available on the Antenati website. And I'm eternally grateful.

Set yourself up for One Place Study success with lists of available vital records.

Lessons Learned

Before I began, my family tree already spread far beyond my cousins. While gathering cousins from the Italian vital records, I routinely added:

• Who each cousin married
• Each cousin's spouse's family
• The spouses and children of everyone I added to my family tree.

That gave me the broad foundation I needed for this One Place Study. Here's what I learned over the course of the project:

See Who You Already Have

Before working through the records, sort your family tree by birth date, marriage date, or death date. Consult your list of names for that year (see "Lists" above), and tick off any who are already in your tree.

Do a Reasonably Exhaustive Search

If you can't place someone in your tree at first, expand your search. Was one of the parents listed by a nickname? If you still can't place them, mark that on your list, too.

Go through the List a Second Time

After you've reviewed all the records, you may find that some problems are now solved. Go through those unplaced records again. I was able to place about 25% of the people I skipped over the first time.

Some Documents Contain Errors

Sometimes the clerk will write down a wrong name. Or a parent may change the name they use. My great grandmother was born Marianna, but she's called Mariangela on later records.

Another Italian researcher told me that sometimes they refer to a woman by her mother's maiden name. I have no idea why, but I have seen this happen. Now I know to look for it when something doesn't add up.

When I'm sure I know who someone is, but there's an error on their vital record, I note it prominently in my family tree.

Leave Yourself Breadcrumbs

I had a lot of fun following the documents wherever they led me. Let's say I'm adding a child to a couple in my tree. While I'm there, I look for all the kids from that family. If some have a marriage notation on their birth record, I find the spouse. Then I add the spouse's family. This can go on for quite some time, and you can get lost.

Leave breadcrumbs so you can make your way back where you started. I did this by keeping the documents open until I finished with them. If a birth record contains a marriage note, I leave it open until I finish adding the spouse and their family. When all documents are closed, I can go back to where I left off in my list.

Highly visible notes in my family tree explain discrepancies found in vital records.

Keep a Map Website Open

There will be place names you can't read. Maybe someone who died in your town was born in another. But what does it say? Or maybe there's a street address, but it's very unclear to you.

Try to find the correct spelling by looking at Google Maps or Bing Maps. Bing Maps does a much better job of naming every little street in my ancestral hometowns. When I'm unsure of spelling, I crawl the map until I find it.

Enjoy the Journey

There will be times when you're not in the mood for a big project. And times when you feel driven to complete a year before calling it quits for the day. Do what makes you happy at that moment.

If I start to feel like this is tedious, I switch to a related project. For instance, in the 1900s, many people from my town married people from the next town—Circello. If I needed a break, I'd go work on my list of Circello vital records for a while.

Final thoughts. I was able to mass-download the vital records from my towns a long time ago. Since then, Antenati and FamilySearch have worked to prevent mass downloads.

But I started this type of project before anything was online. I was viewing bad quality microfilm at a local Family History Center a couple of days a week. I sat there with a laptop in my lap and typed the basics for each record. My shorthand looked like this:

-Pasquale Maria Cernese b 1 apr 1809 to Giovanni di Saverio 35 (bracciale) and Battista di Giovanni Colucci

That means a baby named Pasquale Maria Cernese was born on 1 Apr 1809 to 35-year-old laborer (that's bracciale) Giovanni Cernese, the son of Saverio, and Battista Colucci, the daughter of Giovanni. That information was all I needed to build a 10,000-person family tree of that town. So you can do this project by accessing the vital records on Antenati or FamilySearch.

If you do this, share your work! I share my lists of vital records from my towns on my website. Plus, my gigantic family tree is public on Ancestry. Share the genealogy wealth!

Share Your Family History in a Fun New Way

As I sat down to watch the Yankees game and wait for Aaron Judge to make history, two things caught my eye:

• Baseball statistics on the TV screen
• My Trivial Pursuit^® games on my bookshelf

Then it hit me. What if I combined baseball cards and Trivial Pursuit cards family tree style?

Baseball cards have a picture of the player and the name of his team on the front, and a bunch of statistics on the back. My Trivial Pursuit Simpsons Edition cards have a character image on the side that faces the player. On the other side are the questions to ask, and their answers.

So imagine this. Our Ancestor Trivia Cards will have two sides:

• The side facing the player features the shape and name of the ancestor's state or country of birth.
• The other side has the ancestor's:
  • photo, if you have one, or a generic silhouette
  • name and basic facts: date and place of birth, marriage, and death
  • name(s) of spouse(s)
  • name(s) of child(ren)
  • occupation

Add a sentence that captures something special about the ancestor. Was he the mayor of his town? Did she lose several children in infancy but raise several more? I have an ancestor who was a rebel against the unification of Italy, and died in a skirmish.

Imagine a set of trivia cards featuring your ancestors! Here's a new genealogy project for your whole family.

To make a real game of it, ask your relatives to guess who you're describing as you feed them one fact at a time. If they don't want to play, let them go through the cards to find an ancestor whose facts interest them. Then tell them everything you know about that ancestor.

Here's a Microsoft Word template (or a Google Docs template) you can use to make your Ancestor Trivia Cards. Print on card stock or a heavier-than-usual paper stock. Print the front of the cards, then turn the paper over and print the back of the cards.

Wikipedia is a good resource for an image of the shape of your ancestor's state or country of birth. You can do a Google search for different silhouettes or outlines of a man and woman. I found a website called pixabay.com that has graphics you can download for free. You'll find choices that evoke different periods of time and different physical qualities.

Start with your closest ancestors so your relatives will be able to play the game. Then go ahead and make cards for the ancestors who've inspired you with their stories.

Use your Ancestor Trivia Cards to memorialize important members of your family tree.

*Trivial Pursuit is a registered trademark of Hasbro.

And speaking of fun family history projects:

• How to Create a 'Book of Life' for Your Relatives
• 3 Things to Do with Ahnentafel Numbers
• How to Master the Unrelated People in Your Family Tree

9 Steps to Really Safeguard Your Family Tree

Ever since I quit my day job, I've been spending all day, every day building my family tree. When you're adding 200 people to your tree a day, you've got to make sure not to lose any of your work.

That's why I developed an iron-clad routine so I'll never lose a day's work. I follow this routine without fail. It's a long list, but when you make something a habit, the steps move right along.

This list assumes you're using desktop family tree software. I cannot imagine building your tree only online. I want that data on my computer, in my control at all times. Don't you?

Here's my obsessive-compulsive routine. I should be this careful with everything in my life.

Together, these 9 steps make your family tree as safe as you can imagine.

Throughout the Day:

1. Save the Change Log

When it's time for a break, I take advantage of a Family Tree Maker feature I learned about last year. When you click the Plan tab in FTM, you'll see 2 tabs: Tasks and Change Log. Change Log is a list of your last thousand changes.

Click the printer icon to save the list as a PDF. The name of my family tree file is Iamarino, my maiden name, so I save this file as "temp Iamarino Change Log.pdf." Each time I save it, I overwrite the previous version.

2. Make a Backup

Since I make a few backups throughout the day, I add a letter to the end of each file's name:

• Iamarino_2022-09-20a.ftmb
• Iamarino_2022-09-20b.ftmb
• Iamarino_2022-09-20c.ftmb
• Iamarino_2022-09-20d.ftmb

Once I make the final backup of the day, I delete these interim files. But if disaster strikes my file in the middle of the day, I can rely on my latest backup.

You may have overlooked these important family tree maintenance and backup options.

At the End of the Day:

3. Export a Full GEDCOM

This is a new step for me. After a long day's work, why wouldn't I generate my latest and greatest GEDCOM file? As the days go by, I keep only the 2 most recent GEDCOMs on my computer.

An up-to-date GEDCOM means you're always ready to:

• upload it to a new website
• search it for text you need to find
• open it in different software.

4. Make a Final Backup

Now it's time for the final backup of the day. This one has no letter added to it: Iamarino_2022-09-20.ftmb. You may want to include media in this backup. I had to stop doing that because backups with media for my 55,000-person tree were about 18 gigabytes each. It took forever!

5. Compact Your File

When you add or edit anything on your computer, the new data could be stored anywhere on the drive. Family Tree Maker lets you compact your file to make it run more efficiently. After adding 200 people, I want to clean up the data storage.

You can compact your tree with your FTM software open, but your tree file closed. I prefer to do it this way to avoid potential errors. Next, exit FTM and let it generate another backup: Iamarino_AutoBackup.ftmb.

With my FTM file closed and compacted, I can delete any earlier backups I made that day.

6. Sync the Day's Files with the Cloud

I keep my family tree files on my computer and on Microsoft OneDrive. When I'm done for the day, I turn on OneDrive to upload my new files to the cloud. Note: Do not keep your working FTM file on the cloud. That is, don't work on a file that is also synchronizing with the cloud. Keep the file on your hard drive, then put a copy on the cloud.

The Next Morning:

7. Sync the Tree with Ancestry.com

An early morning sync with your Ancestry tree gives the best results. Website traffic in your region is going to be lighter early in the morning than any other time of day. If you're a night owl, consider syncing very late at night.

8. Save the List of Changes

During the sync process you can save the list of changes that FTM is about to upload to Ancestry.com. I keep these dated PDF files for a few weeks. They're very small files, so there's no harm in keeping them a while.

• FamilySyncChangeLog 2022-09-17.pdf
• FamilySyncChangeLog 2022-09-18.pdf
• FamilySyncChangeLog 2022-09-19.pdf
• FamilySyncChangeLog 2022-09-20.pdf

At the End of the Week:

9. Copy All Files to External Drives

This is my Sunday morning ritual. I sync my tree and copy the most important files on my computer to 2 different external hard drives. Plus they're on the OneDrive cloud. Because, you know, obsessive-compulsive.

Now that I've written it out, nine steps sounds positively insane. But your genealogy work is priceless! It's worth your time to protect your files like a mama bear protects her cubs. How safe are your files?

And speaking of safety:

• 4 Ways to Protect Your Genealogy Research from Disaster
• Prepare Your Family Tree for Your Computer's Demise
• 3 Top Safety Tips for Your Family Tree Data

3 Key Steps to Identify a DNA Match

Wouldn't it be great if they made everyone who took a DNA test post a family tree? We want your family at least up to your great grandparents. That's only 15 people, and the living people will be private.

We'd all have an easier time of figuring out our DNA matches if we could see their great grandparents. That's why I'm hopeful when a DNA match's family tree shows a double-digit person count.

I figured out 2 new DNA matches today by following 3 key steps. Now, it doesn't always work out. And I skip right over any match with no tree or a single-digit tree. But if they have a decent tree, these steps can lead straight to the solution.

1. Check Shared Matches to Isolate a Branch

Which DNA-testers do you and your match have in common? Seeing familiar names here can tell you which branch your match fits into. For example, if shared matches include Dad's maternal cousins, they belong on Grandma Lucy's line.

It helps a lot to know you're looking for family members from a particular branch of your family tree.

Your shared DNA matches can pull your focus to a particular branch of your family tree.

For one of the matches I solved, there were only 4 distant matches in our shared list. But 3 of the 4 had last names from a town on Mom's maternal side of the family. Right off the bat, I knew our connection came from the town of Santa Paolina, Avellino, Italy.

2. View Their Tree for Familiar Names

My Santa Paolina match has a tree with 16 people. I noticed she's only Italian on her mother's side. I'm nothing but Italian, so that's all I need to investigate.

Her mother's maiden name was not familiar to me, but her grandmother's name did ring a bell. My match's grandmother was a deSpirito, the daughter of Felice deSpirito. I was pretty sure deSpirito is a Santa Paolina name.

Having taken steps 1 and 2, I'm very confident this DNA match has roots in Santa Paolina. My connection to the town is only through my 2nd great grandmother and her paternal family. We're off to the races!

3. Research Their Family to Find the Connection

My DNA match's tree says her grandmother was born in 1889. That told me her Italian birth record should be available online. As it happens, I've downloaded and renamed every available Santa Paolina vital record. They're searchable on my computer with a desktop search program called Everything. I typed in my match's grandmother's name and found her birth record!

While the grandmother and her parents were not in my family tree, their ancestors were. I searched the town's records to build out this family tree branch. Now I know my DNA match's grandmother is my 3rd cousin 3 times removed. My match is my 5th cousin once removed.

The other DNA match I figured out today is a shared match with my Dad and my maternal 1st cousin Nick. Nick and Dad are DNA matches, and both have roots in one town. All the shared matches for this DNA match point to my paternal town of Colle Sannita, Benevento, Italy.

This DNA match is Italian only on her father's side. I recognized one last name immediately. It's a name that has morphed into 2 or 3 spellings in America.

Her family tree has 67 people, so brava to her. I checked out her father's line and saw a few Italian document images that she'd borrowed from my family tree. That's a good sign!

This DNA match has obviously seen my family tree and cashed in on my research.

When I went to her ancestors in my own family tree, I saw that her 3rd great grandfather is my 4th great uncle. His brother is the great grandfather of my paternal grandmother Lucy.

So where is the connection to my maternal 1st cousin Nick? As I looked at these people in my family tree, I found my answer. My DNA match's 3rd great grandfather married Nick's 1st cousin 4 times removed. I saw this because of the color-coding in my Family Tree Maker file.

Color-coding your family tree is like planting seeds you'll harvest later.

My DNA match shares ancestors with me through my paternal grandmother Lucy. And with my maternal cousin Nick through his father's side. I know exactly where this match belongs in my family tree.

As I said, things won't always work out. But you can set yourself up for lots of DNA success stories if you:

1. Check shared matches
2. View their tree
3. Research their family

How many DNA mysteries can you scratch off your list now?

9 Bonus Facts on Italian Birth Records, Part 2

Last week we covered 5 out of 9 bonus facts you can find on Italian birth records. They can be game changers! Here are the rest of them.

6. Multiple births

Look next to a baby's given name on their birth record for gemello (twin). In a paragraph after the baby's name, look for "é il primo nato" (is the first-born) or "é il secondo nato" (is the second-born). Of course the birth order is the same as the record order.

If baby is a twin (or triplet), look for special wording. Also, did baby grow up to marry? Look for who and when, and sometimes where.

7. Baby's dead father's date of death

This is a bonus I discovered last week. Many times when a midwife reports the birth instead of the father, the documents tells us why. Typically I see:

• the father is in America
• the father is out of the country
• the father is ill
• the father is in jail

But sometimes he didn't present the baby because he's dead. And you may find his death date on that birth record. That's fantastic if that year's death records are unavailable.

On Libera Filomena Zeolla's 1887 birth record, the levatrice (midwife) presents the baby. The document says Libera was born to Damiana Palmiero, the widow of Giovanni Zeolla. So we know Giovanni died shortly before his baby was born. But in a bonus paragraph we see:

La dichiarante ha denunciata la nascita suddetta, per aver assistito al parto della Palmiero, e in luogo marito di questa, perche morto sin dal dicciasette agosto mille ottocentottantasei.

That translates to: The declarant presented this baby, having witnessed Palmiero giving birth, and instead of her husband, because he died on 17 August 1886.

It's always sad to see a baby born after dad died. Silver lining: This record tells us his date of death.

8. Marriage notation

It's great when your ancestor's birth record has their marriage notation in the column. If you already know who they married, this confirms you've found the right birth record.

The marriage notation can include:

• Date of marriage
• Town of marriage
• Spouse's name

In another town I know, if a woman married an out-of-town man, her birth record even includes his parents' names. Bonus!

If your person married more than once, you'll see multiple marriage notations. They made these notes at the time of the marriage when the bride or groom had to prove their birth and parentage. While the clerk is getting that proof, he can add the marriage notation.

9. Baby's father died in the war

One genealogy project that's waiting for my attention is identifying men who died in the war. I photographed their names on a monument in my ancestral hometown's piazza. I can find their military records online.

As I add babies to my family tree from the early 1900s, I'm finding a few records that note the baby's father died in the war. When I see that, I rush to get the father's military record.

Seeing this "died in the war" notation tells you to look for the soldier's military record.

This notation in the column of a birth record will say something like:

Il genitore é morto per la guerra addi 27-10-1917

That translates to: The parent died in the war on 27 Oct 1917.

This particular soldier, Angelo Giovanni Mascia, had at least 3 children. I found this important note written on his sons Antonio and Giovanni's birth records. His first child was stillborn, so he did not get the note. I'll bet the note is there because the surviving children are due some compensation.

It's very easy (with practice) to pull the important facts from an Italian birth record. Be sure to look at the rest of the document, especially after 1865, for more details. Be on the lookout for notations in the columns and a paragraph written after the baby's first name.

Now you're ready to cash in on all these bonus facts!