How to Turn Your Family History into a Great Read

There is an appealing story in your family's background. Find your story's hook and run with it!

In 1976, my brother Jay had a college assignment to write a paper about his family history. He sent home letters with questions for our parents to ask their parents. During the Easter break he talked over the details with mom and dad. Back at school he wrote the paper and got an A-.

Jay updated the paper in 1992. I wouldn't get involved in genealogy until 2003. That's when I started finding all the errors in his paper!

Despite some faulty memories and no documentation, he did write an engaging story. The key was finding a good hook and weaving it throughout. Jay chose the number of coincidences in our family history as his hook:

• Our father grew up in the same building as his future brother-in-law.
• Our mother once dated her other future brother-in-law.
• Our father and our uncle were both stationed at Langley Air Force Base. Each had to bail out of a plane, though several years apart. (See "What Story Does Your Ancestor's Job Tell You?".)

Take it a step at a time. Choose your theme, gather your facts. Keep climbing.

That's the tip of the iceberg. My grandfathers came from neighboring towns in Italy and ended up one block apart in the Bronx, New York. That's the only reason my parents met.

My brother tells a story about one set of our great grandparents. My research turns out to blow family lore out of the water:

• He says her name was Rosemarie Ferrara. It was Maria Rosa Caruso.
• He says they married in Italy. They met and married in upstate New York.
• He says our great grandfather Pasquale had to convince his reluctant wife to come to America. Actually, she got here first and was single at the time. It was her brothers who introduced her to Pasquale in New York.
• He says it was a coincidence that our grandparents had the same last name. No…they were 3rd cousins.

When Grandpa was answering questions for Jay's paper, he left many things out. The truth is, Grandpa took a room in Pasquale's house because Pasquale was his father's 2nd cousin. That's why they had the same last name. That's why Grandpa married our grandmother. It was no coincidence. (See "Spinning Genealogical Facts into Your Family Story".)

Still, the coincidences do make a good hook. The fact that all branches of our family tree started in the same Italian province is a pretty good coincidence. I'd like to run with my brother's idea and add to it the benefit of my research and documents.

What about you? What might the hook be in your family story? Here are some suggestions:

• coincidence
• sacrifice
• loyalty
• love at first sight
• injustice
• survival
• suffering
• achievement
• freedom
• forgiveness
• religious beliefs
• cultural influences

If something in that list makes you think "that's my family, for sure," consider diving in. Start with lists of facts to support your hook. Pad it out with stories supporting the hook. Put more and more together. Outline it. Will you tell the story in chronological order? Or will you start with a key moment and tell the story in flashbacks and flash-forwards? (See "How to Share Your Family Tree Research with Relatives".)

You may not be ready to write your story today. But consider these possible hooks and keep them firmly in mind. During your family tree research, be on the lookout for that hook when it shows up in the facts and stories you uncover. (See "How to Use a Paper Trail to Recreate Your Ancestor's Life".)

You've got a good story there. Don't leave it untold.

5 Ways to Find Your Female Relative's Married or Maiden Name

Are lots of distant female cousins dead ends in your family tree? Here's some help.

How great is it when an elderly relative can tell you the married names of all the women in your family tree? Or the maiden names of all the in-laws? These women are in your tree, but your research on them is stuck.

You have to be more of a detective to find out who those young ladies married. Or what their maiden name was. Here are a few tools to help you find out.

Using examples from my family tree, I'll show you how these 5 resources led me to missing married or maiden names.

1. Census Sheets

Make sure you search for every possible census form for the family you're researching. Sometimes an elderly parent will come to live with the family. If that parent is the head of household's in-law, they'll have the maiden name of the head of household's wife.

I have one family in the 1940 census that has the man's mother-in-law living with him. Because of her, I now know the wife's maiden name is Abbate. When Mrs. Abbate was younger and her husband was alive, her parents lived with them. Because of that earlier census, I found out her maiden name and married name were both Abbate. (See "3 Unique, Key Facts about Every U.S. Federal Census".)

Check the census to see if her parents are living with her.

2. U.S. Social Security Indexes

Catherine Theresa Leone, born in 1917, was my mother's 2nd cousin. I found her in the U.S. and New York State Censuses for 1920, 1925, 1930, and 1940. She was only 23 in 1940, so it isn't surprising that she was still living with her parents.

Dead end, right? No! A simple search brought up her record in the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index. I know it's my Catherine Theresa Leone because the index lists both her parents' names. They match what I already knew.

It turns out Catherine Theresa died at age 76 and did not go by another other name. She never married. I found another record to support these facts. The U.S. Social Security Death Index has the exact same birth and death date for her. (See "This Expanded Resource Provided an Elusive Maiden Name".)

3. Marriage Indexes

I never knew my Aunt Sophie's maiden name. Without her maiden name, I can't find her parents or siblings.

Fortunately, almost all my recent ancestors married in New York City. I can use the Italian Genealogical Group's online database to search for my uncle's marriage to Aunt Sophie. I entered his name into the Groom's Index and found him. The listing gives me the marriage date and certificate number in Manhattan.

When I click the Bride Lookup link, there's Aunt Sophie's real name: Serafina Eufemio. With that name, I was able to find Aunt Sophie earlier in her life, living with her parents and siblings.

Search marriage indexes to find out who she married...or who he married.

4. Family Obituaries

My aunt's sister-in-law died in 2004. I knew only a little about my uncle's family. I knew his sister's first name, that she was born in Italy, and the name of one of her sons. Her obituary, as short as it was, told me several facts about her. I learned:

• She moved from New York to Florida in 1974, but she died in New York.
  
• She married twice, and had converted to Judaism for her 2nd husband.
• Her 2 sons' names, and their different last names.
• The married name of her 2nd husband's daughter.
• Her sister's married name. (That's my uncle's other sister, so this tells me the maiden names of her 2 daughters.)
• Her 2nd husband died before her.

A more detailed obituary can tell you the names of siblings and their spouses, children and their spouses, and grandchildren, too.

Even if the woman you're researching is still alive somewhere, you might find an obituary for one of her parents or siblings.

5. DNA Matches and their Trees

Emma Leone, born in 1906, was also my mom's 2nd cousin. She was living with her parents on census forms through 1930. It was a DNA match—Emma's son—who told me who and when Emma married. With her married name, I was able to find her Social Security death records. These contained her birth date, which matches the 1906 birth index listing for Emma Leone.

Because my DNA match (my 3rd cousin) told me her married name, I found her and my new cousin in the 1940 census, too. (See "Bringing in Your Genealogy Harvest".)

One big caveat to finding facts in another person's tree: That's not proof. You must find documents to support the details you find in anyone else's tree.

An obituary tends to be more reliable, but may contain errors. My own first cousins didn't know our grandmother's maiden name. They had it wrong in their mother's obituary. When my sister-in-law wrote her father's obituary, she knew no one's names but her aunt and grandparents.

Whatever evidence you do find, take it as a clue, but don't take it for granted. All the clues I've mentioned in this article were details I was able to support with other evidence.

Don't give up on the ladies. They're the reason we're all here.

How to Set Realistic Genealogy Goals for 2019

Love crossing things off your to-do list? Set achievable goals to reach that feeling of satisfaction.

A few days ago, I polished off one more of my 2018 genealogy goals. While working through that task, I realized something very important:

Setting goals for yourself that are entirely possible will make you feel so much better at the end of the year.

Set your 2019 genealogy goals with purpose for a better result.

Here's what I mean:

Break It Up

Break big, time-intensive tasks into achievable chunks. Don't put all those chunks on this year's list.

One of my 2018 genealogy goals was "Log Antenati documents into spreadsheet". My "Antenati documents" are thousands and thousands of Italian vital records. I want to enter all the facts from these documents into an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will make the entire collection easily searchable and shareable.

I can't possibly reach this goal in a year. In fact, the sheer size of the project tended to keep me away from it.

This project is important to me, though. To make it more achievable, I can break it up into chunks.

Goal #1: Log the first five years' worth of birth records from each town into spreadsheet.

When I finish that goal, I may move on to the first five years' worth of death records from each town.

Change Expectations

Another of my 2018 genealogy goals was "Find my parents' connection". I discovered from a DNA test that my parents are 3rd or 4th cousins. I basically asked myself to find a needle in a haystack within a certain amount of time.

If your goal involves a ton of research that may lead nowhere, change your expectations. I made a breakthrough on this front in November. (See "The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle".) Evidence tells me to look at the last name Pozzuto in the town of Colle Sannita.

I've started adding every Pozzuto baby in my collection of Colle Sannita birth records to my family tree. If the baby's parents aren't already in my family tree, I give them all same profile picture. It's a blue and white graphic that says "No Relationship Established". (See "How to Handle the Unrelated People in Your Family Tree".)

So far I've added babies born between 1809 and 1820 and between 1858 and 1860. Whenever possible, I found the baby's parents' marriage documents. I've built out some unrelated families to the point where they became related to me.

One of these families will hold the key. But I don't know when I'll find that connection, so I have to change my expectations.

Goal #2: Enter every Pozzuto baby from Colle Sannita into my family tree.

Get Specific

The rest of my unfinished 2018 genealogy goals were too vague. They had no specific plan:

• Verify the upstate New York railyard story and the Agostino Sarracino fight story I heard
• Find out Antonio Saviano's position in that Italian-American society
• Figure out my connection to the Muollo in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania

That first one contains two completely different goals (bad idea). They both involve finding out the truth about the flimsiest of rumors. I have done a few newspaper searches, but honestly? I don't have enough information to go on.

Rumor #1 says that my great grandfather and his brothers-in-law moved away from their railroad jobs in New York because of an accident. One of their sons was playing in the railyard without permission. He had an accident and lost some toes.

Goal #3: Find a resource for Erie Railroad documents during the years my great grandfather worked in New York state.

Rumor #2 is even flimsier. It says my other great grandfather's brother Agostino had to leave the Bronx and flee to Illinois. He either witnessed or took part in a fight that may have left one man dead.

Goal #4: Gather every available document of Agostino's time spent in the Bronx to figure out the year he moved to Illinois.

The second vague goal involves a ribbon pinned to the chest of my great great grandfather in his coffin. I learned that the ribbon is from a mutual aid society in which Italian immigrants helped out newer immigrants to America. But I haven't been able to find out any more than that.

Goal #5: Search 1920–1925 New York City newspapers for any mention of the mutual aid society to which my great great grandfather belonged.

The third vague goal is about my great great grandmother Maria Luigia's last name of Muollo. A Muollo family from her town came to settle in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, along with Maria Luigia's nephew. I want to find the exact relationship between the Muollo family and my great great grandmother.

A specific approach to this goal would be to log all the Muollo babies and gather all the documents for the Muollo who came to America. I'll see where that gets me.

Goal #6: Log every Muollo baby born in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo into my family tree, and find all available documents for the one who emigrated to Pennsylvania.

Keep It Interesting

I've listed six genealogy goals for myself in this article. But I'm not sure I'll put them all on my list. I want to keep it interesting, challenging and fun so that I'll do it. Goals #1 and #2 above are definitely going on the list. I'm deeply involved in these now, and I want to see them through.

Goal #6 above is also interesting to me, and I don't think it'll take a lot of time.

But I want to keep thinking about this. I want to add a goal or two that will teach me more about genealogy, or get me excited each time I sit down to work on them.

As you begin thinking about your list of 2019 genealogy goals, remember to:

• Break It Up
• Change Expectations
• Get Specific
• Keep It Interesting

Set yourself up for success and you'll be eager to work toward completing each goal. Happy 2019!