4 Types of Family Tree Errors Only You Can Find

Place names are a big challenge in your family tree. Can you improve yours?

I'm working on a new family tree project that I hope to share with you soon. My goal is to create visualizations of my family tree like you've never seen before.

I'm preparing the data for this project, going through long spreadsheets almost one line at a time.

But I discovered something along the way. In fact, I discovered lots of things: errors that no software tool can find for me. They're human errors that are obvious only to the human that made the errors. Me!

What I had was a very long list of every address or state or country in my family tree, and each name associated with it. As I scrolled through the list, I saw my mistakes: I had people associated with places I know they've never been.

It's easy to click the wrong suggested place. Time to find those errors.

1st Error Type: Wrong Selection

Family Tree Maker is great about suggesting place names as you type. Each time I start to type "Italy" I see the next suggestion is a place called Italy Cross in Canada. And I did it. I accidentally associated two 18th century Italians with Italy Cross, Canada by mistake. I made a similar mistake with a couple that lives in Argentina. Who even knew there was a place called Argentina, Alajuela, Costa Rica?

2nd Error Type: What Was I Thinking?

I had another man from Pennsylvania associated with Hamilton, Bermuda. It's marked as a departure, citing the New York Passenger Lists as a source. But there's no date, no image, and no travel companion. It seems like a complete mistake. And since this man is the father of an ex-in-law, I'm deleting the whole fact.

3rd Error Type: Inconsistency

I also spotted a style error. My standard for U.S. addresses is to spell out the word County. For example: 328 Superior Street, Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio, USA. In the long list of places in my family tree, I saw a couple scroll by that were missing the word County. It may not be a big deal, but I'd rather have it be right.

4th Error Type: Stragglers

While looking for an example of a place name missing the word County, I found another type of error. An address belonging to no one. It probably belonged to someone who used to be in my tree. But I've decided to limit the scope of some far-flung branches. Because I deleted a lot of people, I may have a bunch of straggling place names like 17 Halls Heights Avenue.

The people are gone, but their addresses linger on.

To find these types of errors in your family tree, you can start by browsing the list of places you've used. Family Tree Maker has a Places tab. RootsMagic has a Place List. I don't use FamilySearch, but I don't see a lot of control options there.

Do any places stand out as being odd to you? I ran the Family Tree Maker Place Usage Report to generate a list, but it doesn't include places that have no people associated with them.

Add this task to your Rainy Day Genealogy List or your I'm Bored Genealogy List. It's another effort that'll make your family tree that much stronger.

And speaking of fact-checking:

• How to Spot and Fix a Big Mistake in Your Family Tree
• How Is That Possible?
• Case Study On 'How Is That Possible?'

Did I Find a Scandal in My Family Tree?

If the people involved are long gone, a scandalous story should be OK to share. Don't you think?

I've read thousands of birth, marriage, and death records in my family tree research. They're mostly in Italian and from the 1800s.

This was flagged as an error, but, unfortunately, it's correct.

In my tiny ancestral hometowns, a few babies were born out of wedlock each year. Sometimes the birth record names the mother, but not the father. Most of the time it doesn't name either one. Only the midwife knows who gave birth to the baby.

Doesn't that seem like it should have been a huge scandal in the early 1800s? Especially for the woman who admits to having a child out of wedlock. But it happened every year. That's just the way it was.

Yesterday, after making a ton of edits to my Family Tree Maker file, I thought I'd better check it for errors. I exported my GEDCOM file and tested it with Family Tree Analyzer. It's a free program with a ton of powerful tools.

What a lifesaver that program is. It found some mysterious duplicate fact entries I didn't know were there. It found a woman, all by herself, connected to no one. She was a forgotten remnant of a marriage I'd decided to delete from my family tree.

But the most interesting thing Family Tree Analyzer found may be a deep, dark family secret.

This baby was born just a little too long after his father died.

Pasquale Cormano was born on 21 November 1811, a full 10 months after his father died. The death record of his father, also named Pasquale, shows he died on 27 January 1811. Another copy of the record, written for his grandson's marriage in 1841, confirms that death date.

That supposed 10-month pregnancy made me look more closely at all the documents. It was baby Pasquale's uncle, Leonardo Cormano, who presented the baby to the mayor when he was born. That's normal when the father of the baby is dead or unable to bring the baby himself.

It was traditional to name a baby after their father if he died before the baby was born. If the dead man's child was a girl, she got a feminized version of her dead father's name. Like Pasquala, Giuseppa, or Giovanna. When Pasquale Cormano's widow, Maria Saveria Paradiso, gave birth that 21st day of November, she named the baby Pasquale after her late husband.

But…are we to believe that Maria Saveria and her husband had relations as late as the day of his death? And that the baby was in utero for a whole extra month?

Was something scandalous happening when this man was about to die?

I checked out the baby's "Uncle Leo" Cormano. He was a few years older than his brother Pasquale. And when he died, 13 years after baby Pasquale was born, he had never married. He was a 54-year-old contadino—a man who worked the land.

The mother of this miracle baby, Maria Saveria, was a young mother of two when her husband died. When she finally gave birth to little Pasquale, she was 25 years old with 2 toddlers and an infant.

Isn't it easily possible that the ill-fated Pasquale was not the father of the baby? Isn't it intriguing to think that "Uncle Leo" may have been more involved than it seems?

So, what happened after baby Pasquale was born to a dead father? In 1814, widow Maria Saveria had 3 children, ages 7, 6, and almost 3 years old. That's when she married a widower named Giovanni Palmieri. The year before, Giovanni's 9-year-old daughter died, leaving him with 5 young children.

It's hard to imagine that their marriage, creating a household of 8 children, was a better option. But they each needed a partner to help raise the children and keep a house.

Ten years after Maria Saveria and Giovanni married, "Uncle Leo" died alone. Maria Saveria lost her 2nd husband in 1831 when she was 45. By then, another of Giovanni's children had died, the older children were married, and only her 3 Cormano children were still with her.

You know what that means, don't you? I have to search for Maria Saveria's third marriage!

What will a routine check of your family tree file reveal?

Which Genealogy Apps Are Right for You?

With the right apps, that computer in your pocket can be the ultimate genealogy tool.

The first time I went on a genealogy research trip, I brought a stack of papers and a notebook. I couldn't bring my family tree with me. I wouldn't dare bring my expensive laptop computer on the New York City subway!

That was before I had the computer-in-my-pocket we call an iPhone. With the abundance of free apps for iOS and Android cellphones, there's no reason you can't take it with you.

Say you're visiting a cousin who's never seen a photo of your shared great grandmother. Pull out your phone, open your tree, and there's great grandma. Then you cousin takes out her collection of family wedding portraits. Pull out your phone, open your scanner app, and take a digital copy of the photos with you.

Here are some of the top-of-the-line genealogy apps for you to try. They're all free. Only the Ancestry and Ancestry Academy apps require an Ancestry.com login.

Whichever genealogy websites you like to use, there's an app for that.

Family Tree Apps

These apps deliver your web-based family tree in a mobile-friendly format. Choose the app that applies to you. My tree is on Ancestry.com, so I have the Ancestry app.

You'll have access to everyone in your tree with every fact and document you've attached to them. It's ideal for taking your entire tree with you, in your pocket.

I had my tree loaded in the Ancestry app before I went to a family wake recently. With the tree loaded, there was no waiting and no data usage. I had it ready when distant cousins were curious about everyone's relationship.

• Ancestry (iOS version, Android version)
• FamilySearch Tree (iOS version, Android version)
• Find My Past (iOS version, Android version)
• MyHeritage Family Tree (iOS version, Android version)
• RootsMagic (iOS version, Android version)

Two views of my family tree in the Ancestry app.

Cemetery Apps

You can use cemetery apps in two main ways. First, imagine you're in a cemetery where you think your ancestor is buried. But you don't know which section or row they're in. You might find that information in a cemetery app.

Next, imagine you're in a generous mood on a nice day. You want to snap some photos in a cemetery and upload them for relatives to find. You can see which photos people need, and if a grave has been photographed already.

• BillionGraves (iOS version, Android version)
• Find A Grave (iOS version, Android version)

The Find A Grave app shows you where the closest cemeteries are.

Digitizing Apps

How many times has someone taken a cellphone picture of a photograph in a frame and sent it to you? You're grateful, but the photo is crooked, the frame is leaning backwards, and the faces look distorted. Don't do this to someone you love.

You can avoid taking crooked photos. With Cam Scanner, I've photographed a wrinkled, discolored sheet of paper and output a clean, perfect image. These apps are smart enough to find the edges and make intelligent corrections.

• Cam Scanner (iOS version, Android version)
• PhotoScan by Google Photos (iOS version, Android version)

Education Apps

There's always more to learn about genealogy. There are new perspectives, great advice, and step-by-step procedures.

For Ancestry.com subscribers, Ancestry Academy videos are free. Watch them wherever and whenever it's convenient for you. Brush up on the basics of genealogy research, or try out a new method for analyzing your DNA results.

If you don't subscribe to Ancestry, fear not. The Ancestry channel on YouTube is free. It offers tons of inspirational, helpful, and eye-opening content. I enjoy watching videos from Crista Cowan, aka the Barefoot Genealogist. She works for Ancestry, but her focus is on genealogy. So don't ignore their channel if you don't use Ancestry.com.

You'll find YouTube channels for MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, FamilySearch, experts like Amy Johnson Crow, and many more. When you find a channel you like, subscribe to it. It's like putting something in your Favorites list. Now you'll find those videos more easily.

Watching genealogy videos keeps your head in the game when you're on the train, having lunch at your desk, or waiting at the doctor's office.

• Ancestry Academy (iOS version, Android version)
• YouTube (iOS version, Android version)

Genealogy doesn't have to keep you tied to your desk. Take it out into the world and share your family tree.

And speaking of helpful freebies:

• Let YouTube Tell You What You Don't Know
• Why You Should Be Using the Free Family Tree Analyzer
• 7 Free Resources for Frugal But Fanatical Genealogist