3 Simple Rules for Managing Your Digital Genealogy Documents

My on-the-job organization skills help a lot with my genealogy research.

How did you begin this all-consuming hobby called genealogy? You may have started your simple family tree for a school project, or your kid's school project.

At some point, we each decided to get more serious about genealogy. We started looking for documents on genealogy websites. We tried to find our parents or grandparents on a census sheet, and we downloaded the images to attach to our family tree. Then we branched out. We found our grandparents' brothers and sisters living with their spouses and kids. Then we looked for ship manifests with the names of our immigrant ancestors.

It becomes addictive before you know it. Time passes, and we have a decent collection of facts and images.

Follow 3 simple rules and you'll always know where to find any digital genealogy file.

But what do we do with all those census and ship manifest images?

I started downloading census images in 2002 when I got my Ancestry.com subscription. Seventeen years later, I have 732 census sheet images in one folder. I have 414 ship manifest images in another folder.

You may have a lot more than that. My census collection is small compared to the size of my family tree. That's because I don't have a single blood relative who was in a census-taking country before 1900.

It wasn't long before I realized I had a problem. I had to figure out how to organize the census sheets, ship manifests, and everything else I was finding. I wanted the alphabetical organization of files in folders to make it easy to find any one image.

I had to name and organize the files in a way that would always make sense to me.

GeneaLOGICAL™ Organization

These are my 3 basic rules for taming my collection of genealogy document images.

1. Have one main FamilyTree folder. Mine backs up to a cloud automatically.
   

There are a limited number of genealogy document types. Filing by type makes great sense.

2. Have a sub-folder for each type of document:
   
   • census forms
   • certificates (birth, marriage, and death documents)
   • city directories
   • draft cards (registration cards for World War I and II)
   • immigration (ship manifests)
   • military records (different than draft registration cards, these detail a person's military service)
   • naturalization (declaration of intent, petition for citizenship, and actual citizenship)
   • passports (applications)
   • photos (including grave marker photos)

There's no doubt what's where and which file is which. All it takes is a simple naming pattern.

3. Name each file for the main person, last name first, and include the year. For example, in my immigration folder I have:
   
   • IamarinoPasquale1902.jpg. That's my great grandfather who came to America once and stayed.
   • IamarinoPietro1920-p1.jpg and IamarinoPietro1920-p2.jpg. That's my grandfather who came to America at a time when ship manifests covered two pages.
   • IamarinoPietro1958.jpg. That's Grandpa when he was a widower and went to visit his mother in Italy for the first and only time.
   In my census folder I have images named for the head of household:
   
   • IamarinoPasquale1910.jpg
   • IamarinoPasquale1915.jpg
   • IamarinoPasquale1920.jpg
   That's clear, right? Now here's an exception because my grandfather had a cousin with his same name:
   
   • IamarinoPeterLucy1930.jpg. That's Grandpa and Grandma Lucy.
   • IamarinoPeterMarie1930.jpg. That's Grandpa's cousin and his wife Marie.
   For Birth, Marriage, and Death records, it's Lastname Firstname Event Year. For example:
   
   • ZeollaPasqualeBirth1821.jpg. The 1821 birth record of Pasquale Zeolla.
   • MarinoFrancescoDeath1844.jpg. The 1844 death record of Francesco Marino.
   • IamarinoAngeloAntonioPozzutoAnnaelenaMarriage1817. Marriage records get the groom's name and the bride's name for clarity. Thank goodness for long file names. This is the 1817 marriage record of Angelo Antonio Iamarino and Annaelena Pozzuto

I've seen countless debates about family tree file storage. They all look too complicated to me, and not helpful at all. Some people suggest keeping the document images in folders separated by family.

If I had a separate folder for each family or each last name, I'd have an insane amount of folders. And where would I put my great grandmother before she married my great grandfather? In the Caruso folder or the Iamarino folder?

My file names would have to be much longer, too. How would I know the CarusoGiuseppe1900.jpg was a ship manifest and not a census form?

Say I need to look at my great grandmother's brother Giuseppe's 1905 New York State Census record. I know exactly where to find it. It's in the census forms folder, and it's named CarusoGiuseppe1905.jpg.

After 17 years, I haven't had a split-second of regret about my file-naming and filing system. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Is your filing method driving you crazy? Are you wasting time trying to find the right image? Are you ready for a genealogy file do-over?

A word of warning. I use Family Tree Maker, and I let it copy all images into a single media folder. That way, anything I do to my images' names or locations has no effect on my family tree.

Your setup may be different. Don't dive into a big file naming project before testing what it will do to your genealogy program. Let's get organized!

And speaking of digital files:

• Are You Overlooking Your Family Tree Discoveries?
• 3 Rules for Naming Digital Genealogy Documents
• 3 Ways to Prove Your Family Tree is Correct

Searching for My Only Missing 3rd Great Grandparent

What can I do to find my closest unidentified ancestor?

It bothers me that I'm missing the name of only 1 of my 32 3rd great grandparents. It's amazing to have that column of my grandparent chart all filled in. But one of the spaces says "mother of Maria Luigia Muollo"—my 2nd great grandmother.

Come along with me as I try to find her.

My Muollo family comes from a tiny little hamlet called Pastene—part of a small town in southern Italy. Because the town is so small, it seemed to fly under the radar. It didn't start collecting civil records in 1809 like the rest of Italy.

All I can access on the indispensable Antenati website are:

• 1861–1915 birth records
• 1931–1942 death records
• 1931–1942 marriage records

Those gaps in the record collection are enough to make me cry. I even hired a pair of Italian genealogists to go to the local church for records. What they found was wonderful. But they also discovered a huge lack of records.

I know that my 2nd great grandmother's father was Antonio Muollo. He was born in about 1818. I don't know when he died.

I've been piecing together families from the records I have. I've found only one other Muollo who's father is an Antonio. Maria Saveria Muollo was born in 1859.

Could she be my 2nd great grandmother's younger sister? There's a 16-year age difference between them. That's common in Italian families of the 19th century. And my Antonio was only about 41 when Maria Saveria was born. I know that Maria Saveria married Orazio Sarracino.

This is a TINY town. My 2nd great grandparents were Maria Luigia Muollo and Giuseppe Sarracino. If this theory pans out, the 2 Muollo sisters each married a Sarracino.

How can I prove Maria Saveria's relationship to my 2nd great grandmother, Maria Luigia?

The first step is always to gather as many documents and pieces of evidence as you can about the person. Let's see what I can learn about Maria Saveria Muollo.

To find more clues about Maria Saveria, I gathered the birth records for her children.

Birth Records

I have the Pastene birth records for Maria Saveria's 9 children with Orazio Sarracino:

• Maria Giuseppa, 1880
• Maria Assunta, 1884
• Antonio, 1886 (who must have died before 1892)
• Antonia, 1889
• Antonio, 1892
• Francesco, 1894
• Carmine, 1896
• Rosaria, 1899
• Maria Luigia, 1903

The last birth record, dated 24 November 1903, says Orazio was not present. He was domiciliato all'estero—living abroad. Sure enough, I found Orazio's 1903 ship manifest.

Immigration Records

Orazio and his daughter Maria Assunta left for New York THREE DAYS before his 9th child was born. I already can't stand this guy. Ships left for New York often. He had to leave when his wife was 9 months pregnant? Sheesh.

Orazio never sent for his wife to join him. Maybe he planned to return to Italy. Maybe he did return to Italy. Orazio died between 1910 and 1920. I don't know where.

In 1920, Maria Saveria and her 2 youngest daughters boarded a ship. They went to the Bronx to join her son Francesco. I like to think of her saying, "Who needs you? I'm going to America anyway."

This lady made that difficult voyage to America at 61 years of age.

Census Records

Back in the 1910 U.S. census, Orazio and his son Antonio are living in the Bronx. They're in the home of Orazio's eldest daughter Maria Giuseppa and her husband.

In the 1915 New York State Census, Antonio Sarracino is still living in the Bronx. He is married and has one child. His father is not with him.

In the 1940 U.S. census, Maria Saveria is 80 years old. She's living with her daughter Rosaria and Rosaria's family. It's amazing to find her at age 80. I would guess she didn't live a whole lot longer.

Death Records

One death record shows up on Ancestry.com that's promising. If it's Maria Saveria, she died in the Bronx in 1944 at age 84. The same record on FamilySearch.org offers more information. It says that her husband was Orazio Sarracino and her father was Antonio Muollo. It's her, alright.

But it also has the most important piece of information I'd been hoping to find: her mother's name. There it is.

Is Giuseppina Torrico my 3rd great grandmother? Is she the only 3rd great grandparent whose name I'm missing?

A check of the vital records in Pastene shows no one with that last name. Was it transcribed incorrectly because it was hard to read? What names do I have from the town that are close?

I can't accept a stranger's transcription blindly. That is not quite the right name.

My best guess, without seeing the actual death certificate, is that her last name was Errico. Maybe the E was all fancy and hard to read. Errico is a fairly common name in Pastene. There used to be a neighborhood with that name in the 1860s.

After all that research, I'm left with a theory. A stronger theory than I had before. I'm still missing marriage and death certificates from Pastene, so I can't prove anything.

But perhaps—just perhaps—Maria Saveria Muollo is the younger sister of my 2nd great grandmother. And perhaps Giuseppina Errico is my missing 3rd great grandmother.

It's a good enough theory to record in my family tree.

Drawing Inspiration from the Genealogy Pros

Do high-profile genealogists inspire you to do better family tree research?

If this sounds like I'm writing a grade school assignment, stick with me.

The genealogy professional I find most inspiring is Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak. She's a key researcher behind my favorite genealogy shows, "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Finding Your Roots". She's an author and the former Chief Family Historian at Ancestry.com.

Megan works to identify the living descendants of deceased military personnel. She helps get the remains of these service members back to their homes.

Ms. Smolenyak also solves the mysteries of unclaimed bodies in the morgue. Finding living descendants is hard! You can watch a well-produced video to get a feel for Megan's work.

Megan's work with fallen military personnel reminded me of a website in my Favorites list. It's a database of Italian soldiers who died in World War I. There's another site for soldiers who died in World War II.

Long ago I searched for any Italian soldier with my maiden name who died in the first world war. I found only one: Alfonso Iamarino, born in my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita on 15 Feb 1892.

Alfonso's birth record and military record led to a ton of names, and our relationship.

Finding living people is hard. But I should be able to identify this soldier's ancestors and siblings. My goal was to see where Alfonso fits in my family tree.

The fallen soldiers website tells me Alfonso's birth date and his father's name. The collection of the town's vital records sitting on my computer will make it easy to find his relatives.

But how will I find his relationship to me? Step by step.

Initial Facts

In 1892 when Alfonso was born, his father Pasquale was 30 years old. His mother Orsola Marino's age is not stated.

Since Pasquale was 30, I looked for and found his birth record in 1862. It even says at the bottom that he married Concetta Orsola Marino on 21 Dec 1889. I'll be sure to search for Alfonso's siblings later. But I want to go up his tree first.

Pasquale Iamarino's parents were Nicola Iamarino and Concetta Zeolla. The 1862 birth record said his parents were both 40 years old. But I couldn't find Nicola's birth record.

Don't know when a couple got married? Work your way back to their first baby.

Searching Sideways

Since I couldn't find Nicola's birth record around 1822, I needed more information. If Nicola and Concetta were 40 in 1862, they should have several older children.

I checked the index of births for each year, going backwards from 1861. Nicola and Concetta's ages were so inconsistent! I found these babies:

• Michele Arcangelo Iamarino, born 5 Apr 1859
• Francesco Saverio Iamarino, born 19 Jan 1857
• Giuseppantonio Iamarino, born 19 Feb 1852
• Antonio Iamarino, born 13 Nov 1850
• Angelantonio Iamarino, born 2 Apr 1849

I couldn't find any babies born before Angelantonio. It was time to search for Nicola and Concetta's marriage record.

I found them quickly. They married on 21 Feb 1848. The marriage records should include their birth records and their parents' names.

I found Concetta's 1824 birth record. But Nicola was different. Instead of the usual birth record, there's a 2-and-a-half-page document in hard-to-read handwriting. After staring at it for a while I was able to read it.

It says, in effect, "Oops! We can't find Nicola's birth record in the register. It isn't written there, and we don't know why. But we do know he was born in September 1819."

Family Tree Maker's color coding keeps me from overlooking these important relationships.

Making the Link

The unusual birth record for Nicola tells me who his parents were, as does his marriage record.

And that's where I found a lucky surprise. Nicola's parents were Angelo Iamarino and Anna Elena Pozzuto. Those names were familiar to me because I'd been looking at them about an hour earlier.

It turns out Nicola's sister Liberantonia was married the same day as he was. Their documents are listed one after the other in the 1948 marriage register. An hour before I found Nicola's marriage record, I discovered that Liberantonia's grandparents were my 5th great grandparents.

That makes Libera my 1st cousin 5 times removed. Her brother Nicola is also my 1st cousin 5 times removed.

Suddenly I realized Alfonso Iamarino, the only Iamarino to die in World War I, is my cousin. Alfonso's 2nd great grandparents are my 5th great grandparents. Poor Alfonso is my 3rd cousin 3 times removed.

Hey. I like this. I'm ready to choose another fallen soldier from my ancestral towns and figure out how we're related. For those of you who are of Italian descent, be sure to bookmark these sites:

• Search for fallen soldiers from World War I
  
• Search for fallen soldiers from World War II
  

How do your genealogy heroes inspire you?

And speaking of finding someone's ancestors:

• 3 Ways to Find Your Ancestors in a Huge Pile of Documents
• How to Find More Great Grandfathers for Father's Day
• How I Gained 2 More Generations in 1 Day