3 Spring Cleaning Tasks for Your Family Tree

Two months ago I presented 5 cleanup projects, but there are always more ways to scrub your family tree.

Most days I forge ahead with my project to connect everyone from my ancestral hometowns. When working on that, I can add 100–200 people to my tree in a day. With my family tree approaching 79,000 people, it's important to keep up with my cleanup tasks.

Here are 3 areas every family tree needs some cleanup: Names, Dates, and Places.

These are the 3 most basic things you need to get right in your family tree.

Note: If you build your family tree online rather than desktop software, download a GEDCOM to your computer. Then open that GEDCOM in Family Tree Analyzer so you can see everything in one place.

1. Use Real Names

As I've said many times, your family tree is your legacy. Even if you aren't sharing it online, I'll bet you're sharing it with your family. And you must want it to live on after you've gone.

I've seen online trees use nicknames (e.g., Uncle Curly) and women's married names instead of given names. You're doing the research. You know their real names. Use them!

My whole family called my grandmother's brother Uncle Army. As a kid, I never questioned why. Then I found his given name on his birth certificate. Amelio, pronounced ah-may-lee-oh. I can remember hearing my grandmother call him ah-may—short for his full name. It was ah-may that my generation and my mom's generation heard as Army.

Am I going to record his name in my tree as Uncle Army or Army Sarracino? Hell no. Any relative seeing Amelio Sarracino's spot in the family tree can see he's Uncle Army. Likewise, I'm not going to record his wife (my Aunt Sophie) as Sophie Sarracino. I've recorded her by her birth name—the beautiful name I had to do a lot of research to discover—Serafina Eufemia.

For more tips on recording names and preserving those nicknames, see "4 Rules for the Names in Your Family Tree."

2. Use the Universal Date Format

In the 1990s I found out my business colleagues in Europe don't write dates the way we do in the USA. Today is April 2, 2024 in the USA, or 4/2/2024. But in Europe (and so much of the world) 4/2/2024 is February 4—actually it's 4 February. I adopted their style because I worked for an international company.

I never use the date style I grew up with (4/2/2024) anymore. I use the much more universal DD Mon YYYY. That's 2 digits for the day, 3 letters for the month (the first 3 letters), and 4 digits for the year: 02 Apr 2024. There's no misunderstanding that date. It's the standard for genealogists.

If your family tree has dates that aren't in the preferred DD Mon YYYY format, you're not doing anyone any favors. My son's birthday is 5/6. Will you send him a card on May 6 or June 5?

Check your dates and use the preferred format to avoid any misunderstandings.

And don't forget to use estimated dates when you don't know someone's birth date. See "When to Use Estimates in Your Family Tree."

3. Make Addresses Consistent and Accurate

When I'm entering a marriage in my family tree, I like to use the exact name and address of the church where the couple wed. I noticed I had used 2 different address variations for the church in San Marco dei Cavoti, Italy. I corrected any instances of the wrong address, and now they all match exactly.

If your addresses aren't consistent, you can't get a correct view of everyone in your tree who was there. As you scan your alphabetical list of addresses, you may find typos or slight differences.

In Family Tree Maker, you can check to see if an address is pinned properly on the map. I spotted one street address, Via la Costa, linked to one fact. When I zoomed in on the map within FTM, I saw that the street is actually Via Costa. To be fair, it was Via la Costa in 1812, but it isn't now. I want to use the current address whenever I can. If I'm visiting the town, I want to be able to go to any ancestor's address I choose. I updated Via la Costa to Via Costa to match today's map.

Take a look at your alphabetical list of addresses. Check for outliers, typos, or two seemingly identical entries listed separately. With up-to-date addresses, you can "Visit Your Ancestral Hometown at Your Desk."

Congratulations! You've made a tremendous step forward.

Are you up for more cleanup tasks?

• It's Time to Revisit & Improve Your Earliest Family Tree Research
• 3 Ways to Keeps Strangers Out of Your Family Tree
• How to Use Proper Genealogy Style

5 Ways to Find Loose Ends in Your Family Tree

After fitting 95% of the people from 3 of my ancestral hometowns into my family tree, I was eager for more. Now I'm working on a town I expected to be a problem. This town was part of the Papal State, owned by the church itself. They didn't keep civil records before 1861. (See "Becoming Italian Was a Long, Hard Journey.") I figured I'd never get very far since there are no vital records for my 3rd great grandparents and above.

But I found a couple of entry points. Two spouses of my closest relatives had families I could search for in the documents. Before I knew it, I was adding between 100 and 300 people a day to my family tree. For each of those spouses:

• I found their birth record and recorded the facts.
• Added their parents.
• Found all their siblings.
• Documented the families of the siblings' spouses.

It adds up fast.

Things got so hectic that I worried about dropping the ball. Did I follow up on all the marriages I discovered? Did I forget to find someone's father's birth record? Did I miss anyone because of a name variation?

That's when I started thinking about these 5 ways to find the loose ends in your family tree. You can use these methods to find the avenues you left unexplored.

Sometimes tying up a loose end in your family tree can break down that brick wall.

Online-only trees won't give you the sorting tools you'll need. If that's your case, download a GEDCOM file of your tree and open it in desktop family tree software or in Family Tree Analyzer (see "This Genealogy Report Shows You What's Missing").

1. Sort by Birth Date

Sort the people in your family tree by birth date. Before you go any further, everyone in your tree needs at least an estimated year of birth. The bigger your tree, the more important this is. Scroll to the bottom of your list of people. If anyone has no date at all, give them an estimate. Here are my rules for choosing an estimated birth year:

• If you know their spouse's birth year, give them about the same year (e.g., Abt. 1924).
• If you know the year either of their parents was born, make them about 25 years younger than the younger parent.
• If you know the year their eldest child was born, make them about 25 years older than that child.

Now look at your list for incomplete and estimated dates. Think about the resources you might use to fill in those dates. The majority of my tree came from Italy or the Bronx. I know I can find:

• Bronx birth records for 1872–1873, 1876, 1888–1891, and 1895–1909.
• Bronx death records for 1898–1948.
• Bronx marriage records for 1898–1937.
• Italian birth records (for most of my ancestral towns) for 1809–1915 with some gaps.
• Italian death records and marriage records (for most of my ancestral towns) for 1809–1860 and 1931–1942.

If you found some of your relatives in one record collection, see which other years are available. You may have people in your tree that you can locate in that record collection.

You know the primary locations in your family tree. Check online again to see which vital records are available to you.

2. Sort by Death Date

I have tons of people in my family tree with no death date at all. They're easy to spot when you sort your list of people by death date. As I mentioned, most of my Italian towns don't have death records available for 1861–1930. But I also have lots of people who died in the United States, and for some, I have only a partial or estimated death date. It's time to pick these people out of the list and give them a fresh search. Maybe a new database has the answers we need.

3. Sort by Marriage Date

When I sorted the people in my family tree by marriage date, I saw a long list of people with "1813" as their marriage date. I double-checked the Italian website (Antenati) to make sure those records are missing. (See "How to Make the Best of the New Antenati Website.") What I found online makes me think the Antenati team doesn't know they made a mistake. They have the combined 1813–1814 birth records labeled as marriage records.

I'll focus on Americans in my tree and search for 20th- and 21st-century marriage dates. My sons have some English ancestors whose marriages I can search for, too.

4. Sort by Missing Names

Recently I mentioned that I record unknown first names and last names as a blank (_____). That's 5 underscores. This is a tip from Ancestry's chief genealogist, Crista Cowan. (See "These Tips Find Missing Maiden Names.") I can sort my list of people by first name or last name and all the blanks are at the top of the list. When I did a fresh search for everyone missing a last name, I cut the list roughly in half.

There may be record collections that are newer than the last time you searched for these people. Give them another search.

5. Keep a Running List

This is something I don't do often enough. Now I see how critical it can be.

On my 4th day of adding hundreds of people to my family tree from one Italian town, I got overwhelmed. As I'm searching for siblings or children, I leave open the record of anyone who needs more research. Usually that's a birth record with a marriage annotation in the column. I leave the document open until I research the spouse and their family from that marriage note.

Using this method, one person (like Vincenzo's wife) can keep me on the hunt for hours.

On Friday at 5 p.m., I was getting tired of the research and wanted to pack it in for the day. But I had at least a dozen documents open, each needed a lot more research. The only way to keep from losing my place was to make the following list of leads to follow next time:

• add Angelo Michele Barricelli's family (husband of Marta Maria Salerno)
• add Filomena dePierro's family (wife of Giuseppe Vinciguerra)
• add children of Nascenzio Vinciguerra and Angela Gaudino
• add Maria Carmela Santucci's family (wife of Agostino Gaudino)
• add Anniballo Iscaro's family (husband of Rosa dell'Oste)
• add Caterina Pasquarelli's family (wife of Martino dell'Oste)
• add Maria Saveria deFiore's family (wife of Michelangelo delNinno)
• get military record for Alvino Alfonso Salerno, born 1887, died in WWI
• get military record for Gennaro Repole, born 1889, died in WWI

Those two World War I deaths came to my attention because of a note on their child's birth record. I did download the 2 Italian military records (see "Free Italian Military Records for WWI and WWII"). But the other 7 lines represent a ton of people who belong in my family tree.

I can't stress the importance of this list enough.

As you work through the first 4 ways to find loose ends, keep a simple running list of what you need to do next. Let's say I'm working on "add children of Nascenzio Vinciguerra and Angela Gaudino." It looks as if they have 6 kids, and some have a marriage noted. Let's say I'm in the middle of it when my research gets interrupted. This is when it's very important to add notes to your running research list. I'll have to add the names of the kids whose in-laws are still in need of research.

If your family tree is somewhat small, you can spend time on each family unit and seek out what's missing. But my tree is way beyond that. Currently boasting 76,611 people, I can't hope to make every single family complete. I can do it for my closer relatives, but not for everyone.

If you have any other methods for finding people in need of research, please let me know in the comments.

And speaking of loose ends:

• Create a Genealogy Task List to Keep Track of Loose Ends
• 2 Ways to Find the Loose Ends in Your Family Tree
• How to Tie Up Loose Ends in Your Family Tree
• Tying Up Loose Ends with Naturalization Papers
• Make November Genealogy Loose Ends Month

4 Ways to Safeguard Your Digital Family Tree

Imagine starting up your computer to add a new baby cousin to your family tree. But all you see is a File Not Found error. Nooooo! Panicked doesn't begin to describe how sick you feel.

I'm someone who curses a blue streak in the face of computer problems. I can't describe the pain in my head and stomach at these times. That's why I take extreme precautions with my digital family tree files. (And many other types of computer files, too.)

To avoid disaster, here are 4 crucial ways you can safeguard your digital family tree files. Get started before disaster strikes!

Keep your family tree safe in a virtual vault with these 4 methods.

1. Take advantage of cloud storage

Important! Your desktop family tree program should NEVER open your cloud-stored files. The cloud will try to update your file while you have it open, and corrupt your file. This happened to me.

You must open the file from a computer folder that does NOT get backed up to the cloud automatically. When you're done for the day, close your file and exit your software. Then you copy the family tree file and paste it into a folder that does get backed up automatically. Also, make sure your family tree software stores its own copy of every image you put in your tree. Don't point to their location if that location is a cloud folder; let the software make its own copy.

I use Microsoft Outlook for email, and Outlook will not let me work with a mailbox file that's on the cloud. My backup routine includes exiting Outlook and copying the file to a cloud location. This is true for other programs, too.

With that understood, you should use a cloud storage program for your non-active files. My Family Tree folder contains sub-folders for the types of documents I gather. These include:

• ship manifests
• censuses
• vital records
• naturalization papers
• draft cards
• and so much more.

These images are separate from those Family Tree Maker stores in your tree's media folder. (The media folder must not be on the cloud.)

I use Microsoft OneDrive because it comes with my subscription to Office 365. An added benefit of any cloud storage is that I can access any of my cloud files from my travel laptop.

To decide which cloud program is right for you, read "How to Back Up Your Family Tree Files Automatically."

2. Copy files to external drives often

Decades ago a client told me kept copies of his important information in 3 places. One of those places needed to be offsite in case of fire.

My cloud storage is the offsite location. My important files are on my desktop computer, of course. Plus I make a weekly backup to 2 one-terabyte external drives.

Each Sunday morning I back up my family tree, financial, and email files to these external drives. If you work on your tree a lot, a weekly backup is so important. I've had days where I added hundreds of people to my tree. I don't want to lose that much work!

To read about my backup routine, see "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree."

3. Export a GEDCOM after each session

I used to export a GEDCOM file from Family Tree Maker only when I wanted to do something in Family Tree Analyzer. Then I realized the value of always having an up-to-date GEDCOM. Now I export one at the end of each day's Family Tree Maker session. (You can export a GEDCOM from your online-only tree, too.)

When I'm done for the day, I export a GEDCOM and make 2 kinds of backup files: one with and one without all the media. My tree is so big that a backup with media is about 12 gigabytes, so I only keep 2 full backups and delete any older ones.

GEDCOM files use an industry-standard format. You can open it with any family tree software or upload it to a family tree website. It's so easy to export one, why wouldn't you do it after every session?

To see my full backup process, read "9 Steps to Really Safeguard Your Family Tree."

4. Publish your family tree in more than one place

A while ago I had a series of mishaps while trying to sync my Family Tree Maker file with Ancestry.com. Then MacKiev improved the FTM sync function dramatically. So I'm back to syncing every morning.

But when I had these problems, I stopped syncing my FTM tree with Ancestry for quite a while. I found another website, Geneanet.org, where I could overwrite my tree each day with a new GEDCOM. This now serves as a public-facing backup for my family tree. And it puts more international eyes on my research, too. The one thing I haven't been able to manage is to upload all my document images to Geneanet. The instructions don't seem to work for me, and I don't see how they make sense.

I won't put my family tree on any site that lets other people try to "collaborate" with or overwrite me. I made the mistake of putting my tree on Geni years ago. Each time someone wants me to update a person on Geni, I relinquish ownership of that person. (They're always people from a huge branch I lopped off years ago.)

To understand how and why to use Geneanet, see "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem."

If you love genealogy, the loss of your research files would devastate you. Get busy and safeguard your digital family tree files today.

Top 5 Uses for the Free Family Tree Analyzer

Family Tree Analyzer (FTA) is a free and powerful program from Alexander Bisset (see ftanalyzer.com). FTA has so many features that I've written about individual uses for the program many, many times. If you haven't tried it yet, here's a taste of the top 5 ways FTA can improve your family tree.

Family Tree Analyzer has unlimited abilities, and it's free.

1. Finding accidental duplicates

Your family tree may have hit a software glitch. You may have clicked the wrong fact type in a menu. Or you may have gotten a little loopy during a late-night genealogy session. No matter what the cause, FTA can find all your accidental duplicates. To create your list, read "Let Family Tree Analyzer Find Your Duplicates Duplicates."

2. Finding missing source citations

Source citations help you as much as they help someone else viewing your family tree. How can you be sure of a fact when you can't remember where you found it? FTA can give you a list of all the unsourced facts in your family tree. You can create a list that ignores certain facts you don't want to source. For instance, I don't add a source for someone's sex.

Now that I've finished an all-consuming genealogy project*, I'm working on my missing citations. To find out how to do this, read "Catch and Fix Your Missing Source Citations."

* I finished my 6th (and possibly last) complete index of every available vital record for my ancestral Italian hometowns. They're free to download at www.forthecousins.com.

3. Finding inconsistencies in your family tree

No matter how long you've been at it, there will be inconsistencies in your family tree. Unless you're working at it day in and day out, you're bound to forget how you recorded a certain type of fact in the past.

I've always been an advocate for consistency. To me, consistency is a sign of good quality control. That's why I investigated some oddities FTA found when it opened my GEDCOM file. You can simply scroll down the Main Lists/Individuals table to spot wording that stands out. Sort by different columns and scroll on through. To find out what to look for, read "It's Time to Make Your Family Tree Clear and Consistent."

4. Finding all kinds of errors

No one wants their work to be messy, but it happens. If you'd like to find and fix your errors, here's a deeper dive for you. Take a look at all you can do by reading "One Report, Endless Possibilities for Improving Your Family Tree."

5. Finding missing details you need to research

Have you ever discovered a new treasure trove of genealogy documents? Nothing could be more exciting! Sometimes we add people and facts so fast that we overlook our mistakes. That's why we need FTA as our safety net. Find out how to use the program to point out all those missing facts by reading "How to Plug the Holes in Your Family Tree."

No matter where you are in your genealogy journey, FTA offers so many ways to improve the value of your family tree. It needs to be in your genealogy toolbox.

21 Genealogy Tools I Can't Live Without

There have been only two times when I used paper and pen to record genealogy information:

1. While visiting relatives and asking them questions.
2. When I first began this hobby with nothing but the Ellis Island website.

I'm digital by nature. As a child of IBM, I owned my first PC in 1985, and earned a living on computers since 1983. I can barely hold a pen anymore. And I do not have folders full of genealogy printouts or binders of any kind.

I work on my family tree every day, and I do every speck of the work on my computer. In fact, in my list of tools below you'll find only one paper book. That's because it's uniquely indispensable to my family tree.

Here are my 21 crucial genealogy tools:

Set yourself up for family tree success by having your essential genealogy tools close at hand.

1. Family Tree Maker. My daily genealogy sessions begin with Family Tree Maker. It's the only family tree software I've ever used. I've tried a few others but they pale by comparison. If you build and keep your family tree online only, you're missing out on so many robust features. My 2 favorite Family Tree Maker features are the relationship calculator and the locations list. Plus, I can sync my work with my tree on Ancestry for the benefit of distant cousins. See "Comparing Family Tree Programs Is an Eye Opener."

While I'm working in Family Tree Maker, these are the spreadsheets, websites, and book I refer to most often.

Document Searches

2. Ancestry.com. If you're serious about this hobby, 87 cents a day for Ancestry.com isn't extravagant. Ancestry is my go-to for document searches. I love how the advanced search can pull in facts about the person I need from my Ancestry tree. It saves a lot of typing. I also use AncestryDNA and manage 4 kits.

My family tree has mostly Italians. Their documents are not on Ancestry, but on Antenati (see #6 below). Ancestry is perfect for all my American relatives.

Maps

3. Bing Maps. I consult online maps every time I add an address to my family tree. I find that Bing Maps is better at naming every little street in my ancestral Italian hometowns. And I love how it always shows you the county/province the location is in.

4. Google Maps. I often switch from Bing Maps to Google Maps to get a closer view of a building. Google's Street View is a treasure. I also love Google Earth for creating wonderful family tree projects. Find your best options in "Which Global Map is Best for Genealogists?."

New York-Specific

5. New York City Municipal Archives. My ancestors didn't start coming to America until the 1890s, and they all came to New York. The majority lived in the Bronx in New York City. I was beside myself with joy when the New York City Municipal Archives put its vital records online.

I've downloaded 172 high-quality birth, death, and marriage certificates for my family tree. Thanks, New York! Find out how to locate your ancestors' NYC vital records.

Italy-Specific

6. Antenati. When Italy decided to put digitized copies of their vital records online, my life changed. Before that, I didn't know the names of any of my 2nd great grandparents. Now my family tree has 75,000 people going back to the 1600s. That's a very big deal for an Italian! Try it yourself. Read "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives."

7. Familysearch.org. Sometimes Italian vital records not on Antenati are available on Familysearch. I also rely on the list of Latin genealogy words found in the Familysearch Wiki.

8. Italian place names. When I can't read a town name on a document, I go to Comuni-Italiani.it to find it and make sure I'm spelling it correctly.

9. Italian surname map. The Cognomix website helps you see if you're spelling an Italian last name correctly. Italy has more last names than any European country. To get the spelling right, and make sure the name actually comes from the town you think it comes from, this site is key.

10. Italian parishes. When I'm lucky enough to find a birth or baptism record that names the church, I like to place it on the map. But many times the handwriting is tough to decipher. The Parishes in Italy website helps you figure out that spelling and get a street address.

11. Italian military records. Luckily for me the province of Benevento has placed many documents online. If a soldier from Benevento died in World War I or II, you can download his military record. I've downloaded 148 of them. Find out how to download "Free Italian Military Records for WWI and WWII."

They crammed these military records with details. I had to go to the Benevento archives in person to see my grandfather's record because he lived. The amount of detail shocked me. And I finally learned which POW camp they held him in, and that he was there for a solid year!

12. "Colle Sannita nel 1742" (a book by Fabio Paolucci). This 1742 census of Grandpa's town helped me find more generations of my family tree. I have ancestors named in this book who were born in the 1600s. It's been remarkable to be able to fit so many of these 1742 households into my tree. This book never leaves my desk.

Spreadsheets

I resented all the spreadsheets I had to maintain for my job, but they're oh so valuable for genealogy. I created or adapted these 3 spreadsheets that you can download for yourself.

13. Ahnentafel spreadsheet. Each of your direct ancestors has an ID number. You are number 1. Use this spreadsheet to keep track of who you've identified and see who you're missing. Download your own spreadsheet by reading "3 Things to Do with Ahnentafel Numbers."

14. Relationship chart. I especially like this spreadsheet when I'm trying to figure out a DNA match. If they're the grandchild of my 4th cousin 3 times removed, I can use this chart to put a name to our relationship. Download yours.

15. Document tracker. When I noticed a cousin's 1924 marriage certificate on Ancestry, I went to my document tracker to see if I needed it. I did! The document tracker is a quick way to see which documents you have and which you need for anyone in your family. Download one for yourself.

Other Software

16. Photoshop. I spent my career creating websites and printed material. I've been using Photoshop since before it was Photoshop. (Anyone remember Aldus PhotoStyler?) Now I use Photoshop for genealogy documents and blog images. I straighten, crop, enhance the contrast, and resize each document image before it goes in my tree. You can use any photo editor, but you should fix those images before you place them in your tree. See 6 Steps to Make Your Family Tree 10 Times Better.

17. OneDrive. There are a bunch of cloud services available for backing up your important files. Because I subscribe to Microsoft Office 365, I get tons of OneDrive cloud storage. Each evening when I'm finished with Family Tree Maker, I make a backup and copy the latest files to OneDrive. On Sunday mornings I also copy my latest files to two external hard drives. Choose your best cloud storage option. Important: Do not open your family tree file from the cloud. You must open the file on your hard drive or all hell will break loose. It happened to me.

18. Family Tree Analyzer. I discovered some new benefits to this software in its map feature, which I'll write about in the future. For now, see "Report Finds Marriage Mishaps in Your Family Tree."

Other Websites

19. Shared cM Project for DNA. Whenever I'm trying to figure out a new DNA match, this graphic on the DNA Painter website is a big help. Find out your expected relationship based on your number of shared centimorgans (cMs).

20. Cause of Death decoder. Have you ever tried to read the doctor's cause of death on a death certificate? It's enough to make your eyes hurt. But if that death certificate has a code number in the cause of death area, you're in luck. This website will help you see in plain, neatly typed letters why your great uncle Harry died.

21. SteveMorse.org. The One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse have tons of uses, but I have one favorite. It tends to come in handiest every 10 years when I need to track down census sheets manually. If the census isn't yet indexed or your family's name is misread, Steve Morse's census tools can help you find them. Find out more in "Try This Tool to Find a Missing Census."

I may have a lot of windows and tabs open at any given time, but I wouldn't want to give up any of these genealogy tools.

4 Rules for the Names in Your Family Tree

I've been on a rampage this year, adding thousands of people to my family tree. Once I discovered that everyone in my ancestral hometowns had a connection, I set out to prove it. Each town's vital records (1809–1942 with gaps) added at least 20,000 documented people to my family tree. (Discover the Lessons Learned from My One Place Study.)

The documents come from Italy's Antenati website. Thank you, Italy! Find out how to harvest the Antenati website for your Italian family tree.

During this journey I've learned a lot about the first and last names in my towns. I realized that I've developed 4 rules that make it easier to manage my 23,073 families. (That number comes from the powerful and free Family Tree Analyzer and my latest GEDCOM file.)

Here's a look at 4 naming rules to use in your own family tree.

Follow these simple naming rules to avoid errors and confusion.

1. Use Birth Names

The best way to record any person in your family tree is by their birth name. If you have their birth or baptism record, then you know what name their parents chose. We all knew my grandmother as Mary Leone, but Leone is her husband's name, not hers. And Mary is an Americanization of her given name—which is different than the name she claimed was hers! Her birth record calls her Maria Carmina Sarracino, so that is the name I recorded in my family tree.

Why record a woman in your family tree with her husband's last name when you know her father's last name? When you view her, it's plain to see who she married.

It's important to use original last names so all the siblings in a family unit show the same name. Anything else looks like a research blunder.

2. Use Original Spelling

I have examples from my ancestral hometowns where the spelling of a last name changed over time. The name:

• Esci became Iesce
• diRuccia became Ruccia
• Cifaldi became Gifaldi
• Italian names ending in an o later ended in an i.

Since my family tree covers many generations, I use the original last name for continuity. Then, since the name may change over time, I note this in an easy-to-find place. In Family Tree Maker, I use the description field for a person's birth fact to note alternative spellings. (Don't overlook this important feature to leave research breadcrumbs in your family tree.)

Many times a person will use a first name variation during their life. That causes problems when you're searching for the children of a particular couple. If the father was born Domenico but goes by Giandomenico as an adult, you may overlook his children.

In these cases I make 2 kinds of notes in that birth fact description field:

1. For the father, Domenico, I'll type "aka Giandomenico"
2. For their child, I'll type that their "father is called Giandomenico on their birth record"

These notes have bailed me out time and again when I find a vital record that doesn't seem to fit.

Because I researched all the town's records that I know people named Gifaldi were the descendants of people named Cifaldi. To make sure I found every family member, I changed my inventory to show only the original spelling.

3. Record But Don't Use Name Variations

On a similar note, if someone's vital record uses a different spelling of their name, I'll note that fact, too. I record the Esci children whose vital records say Esce, Iesce, or Iesci as Esci. But I add a note to the description field saying, "Her last name is Iesce on her birth record."

This happens with first names, too. A woman born as Concetta is Maria Concetta on her death record. During review, that may look like I made a mistake. So I put a note in the description field of the death fact saying, "She is called Maria Concetta on her death record." This assures me that I did my careful research, and there is a discrepancy in the documents.

I leave her name as Concetta, but understand that she may be Maria Concetta on the birth records of her children. And I'll note that for each child.

4. Expand Searches to Include Name Variations

You must take all the name variations into account when you're searching for records. I've created my own extraordinary database of the vital records of my ancestral hometowns. I've named each record image with the subject's name and their father's first name. That way, I can easily search for all the children of a particular man.

But what happens when that man's first name has variations? It's simple. You have to search for all the logical variations. A man named Giambattista at birth may be listed on his children's birth records as:

• Giambattista
• Gianbattista
• Giovambattista
• Giovanbattista
• Giovanni Battista
• Giovanni
• Battista

When a father has a compound name that has variations, I search for all possibilities. In this case, I can search for children with the right last name and a father whose first name begins with "Gi." (I'll search for Battista alone as a second search.) Then I can view the results, checking for Giambattista's wife's name, their ages, etc.

One huge benefit to my quest to get entire towns into my family tree is name familiarity. I can:

• spot a spelling variation
• decipher the worst handwriting, and
• identify an out-of-towner in an instant.

That's because I know all the names in my towns. I know their original spellings and their common variations.

How familiar are you with the names from your ancestral hometowns? Are your naming styles causing confusion?

Finding and Fixing an Awkward Typo in Your Family Tree

I spent too many months fixing errors in my family tree to tolerate any more. I knew my previous lemon of a computer was the main source of the errors. Tons of duplicate source citations were born of failed syncs between Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com. (See "Take the Time to Improve the Sources in Your Family Tree.")

Recently, I keep seeing another type of error. I'll notice a person with a male name marked as a female. I wondered if it was a typo I kept making. When I add a new name, my fingers are so fast on the keyboard that I sometimes press F for female before I realize it. I've caught myself doing it, and then I can fix it before moving on.

How many of these typos are in my huge family tree? How many men did I mark female? How many women did I mark male? How can I find them all?

Don't read anything snarky or political into this subject matter because it isn't there. There's one very important reason to make sure you've used the right gender. If you wind up with a wife labeled male, the couple's children will get her last name. Is that how names work in your culture?

The less important reason for fixing this error is you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing. If you're recording history, you've got to strive for accuracy. I record each person by the name on their birth certificate, even if they went by another name in life. So I'm going to record their sex, too.

Looking for an Easy Way to Spot the Error

Since I use Family Tree Maker to build my tree, I wondered if a filter might help. I created a filter of all people in the tree with a sex of female. That cut my 66,000-person family tree list of names about in half. But that's too many names to scroll through and spot the out-of-place names.

I thought of Family Tree Analyzer because I knew I could sort the data like a spreadsheet. I opened my latest GEDCOM file and went to the Main Lists / Individuals tab. I sorted the Forenames column from A to Z (an important first step). Then I filtered the Sex column to display only F for female.

Is this type of error hiding in your family tree?

If you only keep your family tree online and do your work there, download a GEDCOM from the website. Open the file on your computer with Family Tree Analyzer, and make all the corrections one by one.

My list was still long, of course, but it didn't take too long to scan. With the first names in alphabetical order, I could scroll quickly past everyone named Maria, for instance. I acted on 4 types of first names:

1. Clearly male names. If you have lots of names based in another language, understand the rules of that language. Most of my Italian first names ending in the letter a will be female, but there are exceptions. Nicola, Mattia, Andrea, Giambattista, Zaccaria, etc.
2. Possibly male names. Among my Italian ancestors, the first name Felice could belong to either a male or a female. In English, think of a name like Dana.
3. Typos that stood out in the alphabetical list. I saw Antona instead of Antonia.
4. A last name as a first name. A name like Viola may be a first name, but in my tree it's also a last name. I need to see this person's full name. Italian names are often written last-name-first on vital records, so I may have absentmindedly entered a name backwards.

Of all the females, there were 92 I needed to review in my family tree and a much smaller number to change to male. When I finished, I changed my filter in Family Tree Analyzer to display only people with an M in the sex column. I scanned the long list for any female names, questionable names, or typos. I didn't count them, but there were at least 10 I changed to male.

If you're working on your family tree, a wrong-sex error is very visible when you find one. The person's name may be in a field of pink instead of blue, or they're on the left side when you expected them to be on the right.

I don't know how each of these errors happened. Now that it's top-of-mind, I'm hopeful I won't keep making the wrong choice out of muscle memory.

Pinpoint Important Places in Your Family Tree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Your Results Get Better

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make Your Map Pins Portable

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

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

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

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

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

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

And speaking of map projects:

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

Make a To-Do List with FTM's Media Usage Report

When I told you I'd finished cleaning up all the source citations in my family tree, I left something out. I didn't want to get into it because it may not apply to many people. But there is something I should share with you.

I wound up with about 2,000 vital records attached to people but not to a source citation. Let's say Angelo Bianco has a birth record attached to him in my family tree. He has his name, birth and baptism dates, and his parents' names and ages. But somehow, there is no citation. All the information I need is there, but the last step remains undone. I don't know how this happened.

I started to fix them by paging through all the vital records in the Media tab of Family Tree Maker. I have 8,533 vital records! I was looking for those attached to a person but missing a citation. When I found one, I'd go to the person and create the source citation. But I had no clue how many of these there were.

After doing that for a couple of days, I wondered if there was a better way. There is. It's called the Media Usage Report. To find it in Family Tree Maker, go to the Publish tab and choose Media Reports under Publication Types. You'll see the Media Usage Report. Click the Create Report button and you'll see a bunch of options you can change.

FTM's Media Usage Report helped me find and fix a long list of missing citations in my family tree.

By the way, I opened my tree in RootsMagic 8, complete with media items, and it has nothing like this report. You can view media items one at a time, but you can't even double click to go to the person or citation attached to it. I'd never looked at FTM's Media Usage Report before, and it turns out to have some great uses.

In my case, all the images missing a citation use an obsolete URL from the Antenati website. (See "How to Make the Best of the New Antenati Website.") I wanted to be able to see the description for each image because it contains the obsolete URL. Here's what I did to create my Media Usage Report:

• Select All individuals in the Individuals to include section.
• Select Show description in the Items to include section.
• Select Show person media in the Filter media by section.

To save a report, click the Share button in the top right corner of FTM and export to the format of your choice. I chose to export to CSV to create a spreadsheet. That way, I can simply delete each entry once it's fixed. And now I can do a search in Excel to count how many obsolete Antenati URLs I need to update. I can see my progress and estimate how long it'll take me to finish.

Here are some other Media Usage Report options that may suit your needs.

Options in the "Items to include" section:

• To include media items you've marked private, be sure to select Include private media. I made all my photographs private to keep them off of Ancestry.com. They won't show up in my report unless I make this selection.
• To find media that's missing a date, select Show date. I always put the date of the document in the image's details. If I forget, I'll see the file's creation timestamp instead of a proper date.
• To find media that's missing a category, select Show categories. It's helpful to assign a category to your media so you can find the one you need fast. FTM comes with several built-in categories, but you can create your own, too.
• If you keep details in the image's Notes field (not the Description field), select Show notes to see them.

Options in the "Filter media by" section:

• Once upon a time, I was attaching media to a fact, rather than to the citation attached to a fact. I thought that was what I needed to do. Selecting Show fact media lets me find those and fix them. (See the image to better understand.)
  

  

  When I discovered I could add a media item directly to a fact, I did. But attaching them to the citation is much better.

• Show person media displays all the media in your family tree that's attached to anyone. This is the most important choice to make.
• To find media that isn't attached to anyone, select Show unlinked media. If you save this report, you can work through them and either attach or delete them from your family tree.

For me, choosing to show source, citation, and relationship media shows nothing. Try them and see if you have any results.

Before closing my FTM file, I exported a GEDCOM file with media links. I opened that file in Family Tree Analyzer, and I didn't see any report that makes use of media. But I did find an unusual error in my tree. When I looked at a list of all the occupations in my tree, I found 11 blank occupations. That meant I'd created an occupation fact, but forgot to enter the occupation itself. I fixed them one-by-one in my tree. Three of them were actually death dates recorded as occupation facts. What happened there?

You never know what you'll find while doing quality assurance on your family tree. That's why you've go to do it!