16 November 2018

The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle

This method makes cousin connections clearer than black and white.

Earlier this week I gave up hope of meeting one of my 2018 Genealogy Goals because it was too broad and may never happen.

That goal: To find out why my parents share DNA. There's a set of ancestors in my tree that ties my father's and my mother's families together.

But now I have a fighting chance of meeting that goal this year.

A friend pointed me to The Leeds Method created by Dana Leeds. To read all about it:
I jumped right in and used Dana Leeds' color clustering method with my DNA match list from Ancestry.com. In the first column I added my parents' names with a 0 in front of them. I added my one 1st cousin who took the test, with a 1 in front of his name. And I added 3rd cousins with a 3 and 4th cousins (the first page's worth) with a 4.

The numbers allowed me to sort the names by relationship and then alphabetically. In the end, I used this method on 104 people.

Assigning colors to your DNA matches reveals hidden treasures.
Assigning colors to your DNA matches reveals hidden treasures.

What you'll do is pick one of your matches and see which matches they share with you. In one column, give that person and all their shared matches a unique color. Find the next person in your list without a color and view their shared matches. This time, in a new column, give this person and their shared matches another unique color.

I was seeing a lot of blue (my dad) and green (my mom). But it wasn't until my 10th round of adding colors to shared matches that I saw something amazing.

Three people out of 104 had both green and blue. They were a match to both my mom and my dad.

This is a breakthrough!

Of those 3 people, only 1 has a tree online. I saw lots of familiar last names from my paternal grandfather's hometown. So I wrote to the person who owned the tree. She administers the DNA test for 1 of the 3 important matches.

She told me that the DNA test was for her paternal grandmother, and that I must be a match to her father, too. Yes, I am! Her father is also 1 of the 3 matches. From what she told me, the 2 most important last names tying us together are Zeolla and Pozzuto.

As I explored her tree, I saw that facts weren't sourced, but I have all the vital records from that town on my computer. So I can look up people's birth, marriage and death facts.

After a while, climbing up and across this tree, I found this one couple. Nicolangelo Zeolla and Giovannangela Pozzuto were the parents of someone in this tree. Nicolangelo and Giovannangela are my 4th great grandparents!

The Leeds Method helped me identify a potential shared branch for my parents.
The Leeds Method helped me identify a potential shared branch for my parents.

If I hadn't tried plotting the colors as suggested by The Leeds Method, I might never have found the right branch to research.

So where do I take this lead? I'm scouring the town's vital records for births and marriages of children in this family. I'll keep building out the individual families.

I hope I'm going to find a marriage of someone from this gene pool to someone with a last name from my mom's side of the family.

I'm more motivated than ever to find that cousin connection between my parents. And now, it really looks like a goal I can reach.

13 November 2018

It's Crunch Time for Your 2018 Genealogy Goals

Take another look at your family research goals for the year. What will you do differently with your 2019 goals?

I had the day off from work Monday. You know what that means, don't you?

Genealogy time!

I decided I would try to complete an item from my list of 2018 Genealogy Goals. That item was to "Fill in the 'Need to find' column on my document tracker." My document tracker is a spreadsheet noting each person with document images in my family tree.

There's a column for major items: birth, immigration, marriage, censuses, naturalization, death, and several more.

The last column is where I make note of which major documents are missing. If a person's census column contains 1910, 1920 and 1940, then the 1930 census belongs in the 'Need to find' column.

Since I was giving attention to all 1,686 lines in the spreadsheet, I thought it'd be a good time to get more detailed.

Your family tree probably has a lot of identical and similar names, too.
Your family tree probably has a lot of identical and similar names, too.

First, since so many people in my tree have the same name, I added their father's name in parentheses after their name: Lebrando, Alfred (son of Amedeo).

Second, I filled in everyone's birth year, followed by "cert." if I have an image of the birth certificate. I use the word certificate only for birth, marriage and death certificates. Everything else is a document.

Third, I put in other dates that I have reason to think are right, even though I have no document. Thinks about immigration. A census form will tell you someone's immigration year. But without the ship manifest, that's nothing more than a clue. When I do have the manifest, I enter "1909 (doc.)" for "document".

After a few hours (with plenty of interruptions), I completed this 2018 genealogy goal. For 2019, I'll set another reachable goal, like trying to find every missing census form in the 'Need to find' column.

The moment I finished this goal, I checked my list for what else I could do. I spent the rest of the day working on "Replace microfilm photos with digital document images". A few years ago, I had to view my Italian's ancestors' civil records on microfilm. Sometimes I photographed the microfilm viewer's surface as it projected a dark, blurry, awful image.

My next goal is to replace the poor-quality document images with good ones.
My next goal is to replace the poor-quality document images with good ones.

Now the same microfilm is available online in gorgeous, sharp, bright, high resolution. My goal is to replace the dark iPhone images (about 200 of them) with the great images I've already downloaded to my computer.

And when I add the improved images to my family tree, I make sure they're noted in my document tracker.

Soon it'll be time to make my 2019 Genealogy Goals official.

Here's what I've learned about annual goals over the course of this year.
  1. Your goals should include grunt work. Choose tasks you need to do to make your research better. But make sure you have a good chance of finishing during the year. Filling out my document tracker was grunt work. And I finished it.
  2. Your goals should include projects with a definite ending. Last week I wrote a nice biography of my grandfather. I want to write more of them for about 10 of my ancestors. That's got a definite end. I know I can do that. Keep your projects to a manageable size.
  3. Your bigger goals should be broken into chunks. One of my goals for 2018 was to log the info from those thousands of downloaded Italian records into a spreadsheet. That's too big a goal. So next year I'll break off a chunk I think I can finish. Like, "Log all the birth records from Colle Sannita" (my grandfather's hometown).
  4. Save things you may not be able to finish in a year for your Genealogy To-Do List. One of my goals this year was "Find my parents' connection". DNA tells me they're about 4th cousins. I've been trying to find their connection, but nothing so far. That's not a good item for the goal list. It's leaving me feeling disappointed.
Here are 2 things I'd like you to think about now.
  1. What goal can you possibly finish in the next 6 weeks?
  2. What grunt work, tasks or chunks of a bigger project should you put on your list of 2019 Genealogy Goals?

09 November 2018

5 Steps to Writing Your Ancestor's Life Story

You've got the raw materials. Shape them into a remembrance of your ancestor.

Have you ever thought of writing about your family history? Do you have an ancestor who's interesting enough to write a whole book about, but you don't know where to start?

It's very possible you haven't started because the whole project seems too big.

Your tree on Ancestry.com has a LifeStory view.
Your tree on Ancestry.com has a LifeStory view.

Let's end that problem here and now. Stop thinking of your ancestor's story as a book. Don't even think about it as a short story.

Break things down to 5 simple steps and watch the project take on a life of its own. To show you this simple process, I'll use my grandfather Adamo Leone as an example. Since he was a World War I veteran, this is good timing.

Step 1: Gather Basic Facts

I've gathered almost every major document possible for my grandfather. Only his naturalization papers are missing. I'll start this process by looking at this facts chronologically.

In my Family Tree Maker software I can view a timeline of every recorded fact. On Ancestry.com I can view his "LifeStory".

No matter how you view your collected facts, this is where you'll begin. Use whatever word processing software you prefer. Put your ancestor's name at the top and start a bulleted list using the simple format of Date: Event.

Family Tree Maker has a nice timeline view. Does your software?
Family Tree Maker has a nice timeline view. Does your software?

Copy the main facts, in order, into your outline. Try to use complete sentences, but don't worry about making things perfect. If you're inspired to add a sentence or two to describe something about a fact, go right ahead.

Step 2: Add Historical Context

My grandfather fought in World War I and was a prisoner of war in Austria for a year. I've gathered facts about the battle where he and 300,000 other Italian soldiers were captured. Earlier this year I went to Italy and photographed his Italian military record. That document is packed with dates I can add to his timeline.

I'll add the name and date of his battle. I'll add the dates of his imprisonment. I'll add the time he spent recuperating before returning to New York.

I'll add some facts I've gathered about the places he worked or owned a shoe store.

In short, I'll try to paint a picture of what was going on in my grandfather's life and in the world.

Step 3: Add Documents and Photos

You don't want to make your file too big to share. So don't add every document you've collected to this file.

There's probably no one who cares as much about every single census record as you do. Be conservative as you add images to your ancestor's life story.

Place some photos and document images where they belong in the timeline.

When you break it down, writing your ancestor's story can be pretty easy.
When you break it down, writing your ancestor's story can be pretty easy.

Step 4: Personalize Facts with Basic Details

Now that you've got so many facts listed in chronological order, it won't be hard to make them more fun to read.

Go through all the facts one by one. Add words to make more complete sentences. Add details that you know from memory or from family stories.

For instance, when my grandfather had his own shoe repair store, he once made shoes for the famous actress Gloria Swanson. She was only 5’1” tall and had tiny feet. She wore a size 4 shoe. Sometimes he would make sample shoes for her. If there were any that she didn’t want, Adamo brought them home to his wife, Mary. No matter how tiny the sample shoes were, she would cram her feet in there and wear them proudly. Eventually he stopped bringing them home, maybe because he saw how much pain they caused his wife.

Step 5: Add Memories

Step outside of your list of dates. After all the facts, start writing some of your personal memories about your ancestor. If you're too young to remember them, ask your parents or older relatives for their memories.

When I think about my grandfather, I mostly think about when I was a little girl—even though I was 28 when he died.

I remember being in my grandfather’s house for every holiday. The house was actually an apartment building. He and my grandmother lived upstairs, and my great grandparents lived downstairs. As kids, we were running up and down those stairs all the time. My grandfather would take a chair and sit in the hall outside his apartment. All he ever said, in Italian, was something that sounded like "sorda sord". I understood it to mean "quiet down, stop running, behave". Now I think he was saying "sotto, sotto", short for sottovoce: whisper or quiet down.

Put each story in a separate paragraph. Once you're done, arrange those paragraphs in chronological order as best you can.

Now all you need is an ending. It may be a quote from the person or a quick summary of their life.

My grandfather was a quiet man who always had a smile on his face. He loved his family and his life in his adopted country. How I wish I could have him with me when I've gone to visit his hometown in Italy. But, of course, I do feel his presence when I'm there.

You can complete a life story for one ancestor in a single day. Where and how will you share them? Consider:
  • saving the file as a PDF so it's easy to share
  • adding the file to your family tree
  • printing the file to create a booklet to give to your interested relatives
  • publishing the contents on your blog or your Facebook page.
Several years ago I went to a seminar about writing your ancestor's story. I was focusing on my great grandfather Giovanni. But I never wrote his story. I didn't know how or where to dive in.

But now I've created this story about my grandfather so easily. (Here's how it turned out.) There's nothing to stop me from doing the same for:
  • my great grandfather
  • my other grandfather
  • my parents
  • and anyone else for whom I've collected enough facts.
What's stopping you?