16 July 2019

When Unrelated People Finally Fit Your Family Tree

What do you do when that unattached branch takes root in your family tree?

Before 1900, all my ancestors came from small towns in Italy. In the 1800s there was very little moving around. Each person stayed in one town their entire life. Unless they arranged an inter-town marriage. And even then, the spouse was usually from a town or two away.

Because of all the intermarrying, I'm related to entire towns. By blood or marriage, I can find some relation to nearly everyone in each of my town's vital records. (Find out how to download vital records from your ancestor's Italian hometown.)

I found this out by recording every vital record for my grandfather's town. The documents ranged from 1809 to 1860 and included the names of more than 15,000 people.

As I added people to a separate Family Tree Maker file, I saw how they were all related. I connected more than 10,000 people to my grandfather. Then I imported them to my main tree.

That'll boost your family tree size!

Lately, as one of my 2019 genealogy goals, I've been adding a bunch of unrelated people to my family tree. I'm adding every baby born in my other grandfather's hometown who has the last name Pozzuto. (That name has some strong DNA matches.)

The idea is to figure out their relationship to me. I add a baby and its parents. I look for the baby's siblings and then for the parents' marriage. If I find the marriage, I can learn the baby's grandparents' names. I may even learn the great grandfathers' names. (Not sure why you'd want to add unrelated people to your tree? See "2 Reasons to Add Unrelated People to Your Family Tree".)

As I add each person to my tree, I:
If I can't find my connection to that random Pozzuto baby's family, I move on to the next baby.

About 200 people in my family tree are sporting that "No Relationship Established" image. But there are magical moments that make it so worthwhile.

In Family Tree Maker, it's easy to see who's attached to any image.
In Family Tree Maker, it's easy to see who's attached to any image.

I'll be building out a family. The bride was already in my tree, and now I know who the groom is. When I attach them to one another, boom! Suddenly the guy's description goes from "No direct relationship found" to something wild, like "Grand nephew of wife of 1st great-uncle of husband of paternal grandmother of husband of 1st great-aunt" of me!

Now the groom, his siblings, their spouses, his nieces and nephews, his parents and grandparents, are ALL related to me in some way.

But they still have that big blue "unrelated" image. That has got to go.

It's beyond tedious to view each newly related person and remove that image.

So I found a shortcut. While looking at the family in tree view in Family Tree Maker:
  • Click each person and put a 1 at the beginning of their last name. Onofrio 1Pozzuto, Donato 1Pozzuto, Rosa 1Martuccio, and so on.
  • Choose one person and click to see their Media tab.
  • Select the "No Relationship Established" image and click the link icon.
  • Click the checkbox for each person at the top of the list whose last name begins with a 1.
  • Click the "Unlink Selected" button. If you select a lot of people, you may have to wait a minute for the process to finish.
  • Remove the 1 from the beginning of each last name.

You'll love this tip when a big branch suddenly has a relationship to you.
You'll love this tip when a big branch suddenly has a relationship to you.

I get such a rush out of this. I took a random baby and turned him into 50 new distant relatives.

I've visited my ancestral hometowns and felt a deep, strong connection. That's what inspired my endless, giddy pursuit of tons of relatives. My DNA is 96% from this Southern Italian region with just a touch of Greece. These towns ARE my DNA. They are me.

That's my inspiration, and it's why I'll be practicing genealogy until I can no longer use a computer.

I hope this tip will help you turn prospective relatives into deep-in-your-bones relatives.

12 July 2019

You're the Scientist in Your Family Tree

Don't have a Bachelor of Science degree? You're still an honorary scientist.

There's a reason why genealogy has that "ology" at the end. An "ology" is any science or branch of knowledge. According to Dictionary.com, genealogy is the study of family ancestries and histories.

So doesn't that make us all scientists? We're amateur scientists, exploring and studying family ancestries and histories.

That's why we should approach our genealogy passion like a scientist. I wrote about this idea 2 years ago when I saw that being as disciplined as a scientist gets you better results.

My maternal grandmother's roots are here.
My maternal grandmother's roots are here.
As an honorary scientist, I conduct experiments in my family tree. One of them involves the Muollo family of Pastene. Pastene is a little hamlet of the town of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo in the Bevento province in southern Italy.

My 2nd great grandmother, Maria Luigia Muollo, lived and died in Pastene. Vital records for Pastene are scarce:
  • Births: 1861–1915, with no documents for 1872, 1895, and 1906–1908
  • Marriages: 1931–1942, but 1937 is missing
  • Deaths: 1931–1942, but 1937 is missing
Based on the births of 5 children, I know Maria Luigia Muollo was born in about 1843. I hired a pair of Italian genealogists to find church records for me. They found that Maria Luigia Muollo married Giuseppe Sarracino on 9 December 1864 in Pastene.

But even the researchers didn't find much. They told me this little hamlet had avoided keeping records. Like a little rebel town giving Napoleon the finger. And I want to learn her mother's name.

What would a scientist do in this situation? She'd be logical, methodical, and follow the evidence.

This is one reason why you must find all the children; not only your ancestor.
This is one reason why you must find all the children; not only your ancestor.

Let's look at the facts.
  • Maria Luigia's birth record is not available. I found her age only on her son Biagio's 1879 birth record: 36. That's also the only record that say Maria Luigia's father is Antonio—and he's still alive in 1879.
  • Maria Luigia's death record is not available.
  • Maria Luigia's 1864 marriage record offers no information but the marriage date.
  • A search for any much-younger siblings comes up empty. There are no Muollo babies born to an Antonio who's the right age in the 1860s.
But I may have gotten lucky.

A Muollo girl was born to a father named Antonio 2 years before the available birth records. She's 16 years younger than Maria Luigia, but that's not impossible. When you have a baby every other year from marriage to menopause, the kids span a lot of years. My first-born grandfather was 20 years older than his youngest sister.

This other Muollo girl was Maria Saveria. Like my 2nd great grandmother, she also married a Sarracino man from Pastene. I found birth records for 10 babies born to this couple between 1880 and 1903.

Maria Saveria is in my tree because of her husband. Is she my great aunt, too?
Maria Saveria is in my tree because of her husband. Is she my great aunt, too?

My break came when I found that members of this family came to America. Maria Saveria and her 2 youngest children came to New York City after her husband Orazio died. At least 2 of her other children were here in New York.

Maria Saveria died in New York City on 10 January 1944, and that's why I was able to see her death certificate. (Many thanks to the generous reader who gave me the document image.) Her death record gave me these facts:
  • She was born on 24 May 1859
  • She lived on Courtlandt Avenue in the Bronx for just about her entire time in America
  • Her father was Antonio Muollo
  • Her mother—and this is what I most wanted to find—was Giuseppina Torrico
  • She's buried in the same place as nearly all my Bronx ancestors: St. Raymond's Cemetery
That gives me new data to analyze:
  • I can continue to piece together the lives of Maria Saveria's children in New York.
  • I can try to find out where her husband Orazio was living and if he died in America.
  • I can investigate the name of her mother: Giuseppina Torrico.
Torrico feels like more of a Spanish name than an Italian one. There are plenty of records on Ancestry.com supporting that.

But it is an Italian name, too. I used the Cognomix website to check the name Torrico in Italy. It's not a common name, but there are a few families with that name in my part of Italy: Campania. In the province of Caserta, not far from my Benevento province, the Torrico name exists in 3 towns.

I checked out the town of Carinola because it has the most Torrico families. I needed birth records around 1834 and they are available.

Methodically, I checked the indexes for every birth year from 1821–1839. I was looking for a Giuseppa, Giuseppina, or Maria Giuseppa Torrico.

I found two:
  • Giuseppa Torrico was born on 6 December 1828 to Felice (born 1797) and Anna Robbio (born 1798)
  • Giuseppa Torrico was born on 15 April 1837 to Francesco (born 1972) and Anna diCioco (born 1797)
Next I checked the Carinola marriage records for Antonio Muollo and Giuseppa Torrico. It was a long-shot, so I gave up after checking the 4 most likely years.

So far, this experiment is a failure due to a lack of Italian documents. I don't know if Maria Saveria is the sister of my 2nd great grandmother. Or if Giuseppina Torrico is my 3rd great grandmother.

Someday I want to spend months at a time researching in Italy. Until then, I'll keep searching for U.S. documents for Maria Saveria and her family.

I hope you see how being scientific will keep you from going down the wrong path and making a mess of your family tree. I'd like you to choose one of your brick walls and lay out all the evidence. Where does it lead you?

09 July 2019

It's Mid-Year Genealogy Goals Checkup Time

Half a year left. It isn't too late to start your genealogy goals!

I had such a wildly productive 4-day weekend of genealogy research. I want every day to be as filled with joy and accomplishment as that.

I had enough hours to bounce around, finishing off tasks that weren't even on my to-do list. Not officially. For example:
  • Upgrade my unofficial sources to official sources. I researched facts that I'd borrowed from other distant relatives. I found documentation to prove or fix what they'd told me.
  • Go through my old to-do list in Family Tree Maker. I followed up on several questions and answered a bunch of them.
  • Find the family connection for branches that are floating loose in my family tree. I knew these people had to be related somehow. I figured out a bunch of them.
Then I realized we've just passed the halfway point of 2019. It's time to refocus on our 2019 genealogy goals. How are you doing with your list?

The bigger your family tree gets, the easier it is to get lost. Your goals can keep you on the right path.
The bigger your family tree gets, the easier it is to get lost. Your goals can keep you on the right path.

Making Progress on Genealogy Goals

These are the realistic genealogy goals I planned for 2019 and their status:
  • Enter the first five years' worth of birth records from each of my ancestral towns into a spreadsheet. DONE!
  • Search for all missing census forms in my document tracker spreadsheet. DONE!
  • Enter every "Pozzuto" birth and marriage from the town of Colle Sannita into my family tree. MAKING PROGRESS. I'm up to 1841 BIRTHS going forward, and 1852 marriages going backwards.
  • Find Erie Railroad documents from the time my great grandfather worked there. TRIED and FAILED. There is a 1938 Erie Railroad magazine issue that includes my ancestor's name. Maybe the Hornell, New York, library has it.
  • Figure out when my 2nd great uncle moved to Illinois. NARROWED DOWN to between 1906–1910.
  • Search 1920–1925 New York City newspapers for the mutual aid society to which my 2nd great grandfather belonged. TRIED and FAILED.
  • Enter every "Muollo" baby born in Sant'Angelo a Cupolo into my family tree. Find all available documents for the ones who emigrated to Pennsylvania. MAKING PROGRESS.
The first 2 items on the list took a pretty long time. They were tedious. But finishing them was such a rush.

All I can think about is the next step—my 2020 genealogy goals:
  • I want to enter more vital records from my ancestral towns into that spreadsheet.
  • I want to search for the missing draft registration cards for every American man in my document tracker.
It's like potato chips. Once you start, you just can't stop. (See "Plowing Through My 2019 Genealogy Goals".)

The more I add to this database of my ancestral towns, the more valuable it is.
The more I add to this database of my ancestral towns, the more valuable it is.

Time to Get Busy

Now here's what I'd like you to do:
  • If you never made a 2019 goals list, write a short, achievable list of goals.
  • If you did make a 2019 list, see where you stand with each item.
  • Figure out which goals you can make the biggest dent in beginning now.
  • Think about which goals are better left for next year.
Never stop making progress in your family tree research. Anyone who enjoys this crazy-obsessive genealogy hobby knows the secret: Finding that next important fact is everything! That's what keeps us going. And loving every minute of it.

02 July 2019

There Are No Ready-made Family Trees

Tell me. What did you expect to get for the price of a DNA test?

When you ordered a DNA kit, did you expect a full-blown family tree? Were you disappointed to find a DNA-match list of people you don't know?

The marketing hype can make you think it's super-easy and quick. It is not.

Your DNA test is a tool that may connect you to relatives who've already worked on their part of the family tree. But there's no getting around it. There is work involved.

So ask yourself this question:

Do I want to experience the adventure of finding documents, piecing together my ancestors, and building my family tree? Or do I want a finished product handed to me?

If you expected more than this from your DNA kit, I've got a surprise for you.
If you expected more than this from your DNA kit, I've got a surprise for you.

If you're up for the adventure, you'll be part of an enormous community of fellow seekers. Amateur genealogists enjoy the thrill of discovery each time they climb up another generation in their family tree.

But if you want the finished product, it's going to cost you more than the price of a DNA test. A genealogist can use your DNA test and a good amount of basic information to build your family tree for money.

For the past 2½ years, I've used this blog to give you the tools you need for this adventure called genealogy. For free.

bookmark this page for later
If you're open to learning, to expanding your mind and your research skills, family tree-building is right for you. Here are some of the basic challenges you'll meet on this adventure. Have a look at the links below, and load up your toolkit for the journey of your life.

Organization Skills and Principles

You're going to accumulate a lot of document images in a hurry. Keep these organization methods in mind, and you won't wind up buried in a pile of your own research.
Software and Other Tools

You'll need to decide which family tree building software to use. I have always used Family Tree Maker and have absolutely no reason to consider any other program.

But there are some other tools and lots of websites you should explore.
Finding and Understanding Documents

These titles explain themselves. Read these articles to understand what you want to get out of each type of genealogy document.
Foreign Languages and Handwriting

If you're working with foreign documents or just old documents, the handwriting will seem impossible to you at first. It does get easier! I'm so used to reading Italian documents from the 1800s, it's easy as can be.
DNA Tools

There's a lot more to DNA than your list of DNA matches.
Now that you've seen a bit of what's involved, it's decision time.

Do you want to join in the fun and the thrill of the genealogy hunt? Do you want to hire someone to do it for you? Or are you satisfied with your ethnicity pie chart?

28 June 2019

It's Time to Tame Your Family Photos

Set your goals and dive into this photo scanning and filing project.

I may not always follow my own rules.
I may not always follow my own rules.
I have a confession to make. I may have bragged a bit recently about my super-tidy document image filing system. It is foolproof, and I do swear by it. (See "4 Important Steps for Each New Document".)

But there is one area where I've fallen flat on my face: Photographs of relatives. Not document images, but photos. I can never find the one I want when I want it.

Here's how I got myself into such a mess.

Bad Profile Photos

My husband gave me Family Tree Maker as a birthday gift in 2002. I thought a profile photo measuring 72 pixels wide by 80 pixels high was the best fit. That's very tiny! I should have been using any square photo and letting the software display it in that small box.

In the updated program, all these years later, those tiny photos aren't clear. They're stretched to fill the space. They look like low-resolution photos.

Every time I notice one of those undersized, blurry profile photos, it bothers me. I know I've got to do something about it.

You know how sometimes you know you're doing it wrong, but you just keep doing it?
You know how sometimes you know you're doing it wrong, but you just keep doing it?

Save it for Later

Ancestry.com has a feature called a Shoebox. I haven't used it much, but I like the idea. If you find something you think you need, but you're not ready to do the work, you can put it in the Shoebox. Hopefully you'll remember to go back to it another time.

I decided to have a shoebox on my computer. I created a folder on my desktop called "gen docs". Whenever I come across a document I might need, or a family photo I might want to add to my tree, I put it in that folder.

Now my gen docs folder has 17 filled sub-folders and 52 loose items. It has census forms, city directory pages, ship manifests, naturalization papers, research I did for friends, and so much more.

It's safe to say my virtual shoebox is overflowing. I need to dig in and deal with these items.

That feeling when you plan to get to it soon, but years have come and gone.
That feeling when you plan to get to it soon, but years have come and gone.

Not in the Family Tree

When I'm not shoving photos into my gen docs folder, I usually stick to my plan of:
  • naming the file for the main 1 or 2 people in it, LastnameFirstnameEventYear.jpg
  • adding a title and description to the image file's properties
  • storing it in my FamilyTree/photos folder.
But some of the images in the photos folder are not named properly. I've got mom&grandma.jpg, MomDadWedding.jpg, DadAuntLil.jpg, and so on.

Each of these photos needs to go through the process above so I can add it to my family tree.

I've got my digitized family photos in too many locations. I've lost track of them all. There's a folder called "Oct 2011 scans". That dates back to when I moved near my parents and scanned my mom's photo albums. Did I forget to do anything with them?

It's quite the mess.

So what am I going to do about it?
  • Replace those tiny profile images. Re-scan the best photo I have of the person, crop it into a square head shot, and make that their profile image.
  • Check the file names of photos in my FamilyTree/photos folder. Make sure they follow my file-naming system so I can find any photo when I need it.
  • Add images to my tree. I never meant for my gen docs folder to get so full. I have to attach these photos to my family tree.
  • Better organize my non-family tree photos. I've done a good job organizing my vacation photos. They're in folders named for the vacation (Finger Lakes Aug 2016, France-Italy Sept 2015, etc.). Most have sub-folders for the different towns we visited on that vacation. But I've got to do something about the more vague folder titles, like "old photo album" and "so miscellaneous".
  • See if I still need to scan anything in my old family photo collection. I'll evaluate them, name them properly, and put them where they belong.
This is a project I've been saving for the right weekend. Now that I've got a firm plan, this is going to happen.

Are you neglecting your family photo collection?

25 June 2019

3 Ways to Tell If That Hint is No Good

A hint is only a suggestion. It isn't how you build your family tree.

I rarely look at hints for my family tree.

That's so me, of course. Not trusting anyone to do the job the way I want it done. I know which facts I'm missing. I'd rather search for them myself, thank you.

If you look at hints, and other people's family trees, how do you decide which facts to accept and which to ignore? How do you know that hint belongs in your family tree?

First of all, don't take anything for granted. Carelessly accepting a hint could add a branch to your family tree that has no relationship to you at all.

It's your job to evaluate the hint. These 3 basic rules will help you swat away the hints that are no good for your tree.

Follow these 3 basic rules to figure out if a hint is worthless.
Follow these 3 basic rules to figure out if a hint is worthless.

1. Does the Birth Year Make Sense?

I have a family in my tree that must be related to me. But I haven't found the proof. They came from my great grandparents' tiny hometown in Italy. The patriarch, Angelo, settled in a small Pennsylvania town with my cousin. Angelo has the same last name as that cousin's grandmother—my 2nd great grandmother.

Because I have no proof, these possible family members are in my tree sporting a big blue profile image. The image says No Relationship Established. (See "How to Handle the Unrelated People in Your Family Tree".)

Feel free to use this image.
I've been collecting a decent amount of documents for this family. I have Italian birth records, ship manifests, and U.S. censuses.

This Pennsylvania family does belong to a person I found who has them in his family tree.

But he made a big mistake with them. Angelo, the patriarch of the family, was born in 1849 and married in 1878. He and his wife Teresa had children in:
  • 1879
  • 1882
  • 1884
  • 1885
  • 1890
That's all fine. But this person gave Angelo 2 more children by another mother. They were born in 1881 and 1899. Compare those years to the list above.

Is it logical that Angelo married in Teresa 1878, had a baby in 1879, then had a baby with an unnamed woman in 1881? Then he went back to his wife Teresa and had kids in 1882, 1884, 1885, and 1890? And he returned to the unnamed woman to have a baby in 1899?

Those hints aren't as smart as you are. You can make a timeline.
Those hints aren't as smart as you are. You can make a timeline.

No. It is not logical. When I checked my own family tree for these 1881 and 1899 babies, I saw the problem.

Their father was not Angelo. He was Michelangelo. Michelangelo was Angelo's brother! His wife was Marianna. The 2 babies' birth records say their parents were Michelangelo and Marianna. Not Angelo and Teresa.

But let's assume this person didn't see those babies' birth records. Maybe he figured Angelo was a nickname for Michelangelo. That's not uncommon.

But a timeline of all the children should have told him these 2 were not Angelo's children by another woman.

Their birth years did not make sense for Angelo. A timeline would show that.

Pay attention to the birth year when you review a hint.

2. Does the Location Fit Your Family Tree?

Someone added my great grandfather Giovanni to her tree. He does not belong there. She added him and some of the documents I attached to him:
  • His 1850 birth record from the town of Baselice, province of Benevento, Italy
  • His 1881 marriage record to my great grandmother Marianna in Baselice
  • His 1942 death record from Baselice that shows he's the widow of Marianna
This person made my Giovanni the father of a man with a different last name. From a different region of Italy.

Her tree has several other impossible facts, like siblings born in 1836 and 1918. (Let that sink in.) Clearly this is someone who isn't proceeding with any care at all. (See "3 Ways to Keeps Strangers Out of Your Family Tree".)


That's not you.

You wouldn't take a man whose documents show he was born, married, had 5 children, and died in one part of the country, and make him the patriarch of a family from a different region. You wouldn't make him the father of a man (whose birth year you don't even know) who has a different last name.

You know how families worked in the 1800s.

Pay attention to the location.

3. Do the Family Members Work for Your Tree?

I had a hint for a woman in my tree named Irene. I knew very little about her. She's the mother of my 2nd cousin's husband, and I have this in-law policy.

If you're an in-law who hasn't asked me to research your family, I'm only recording facts about your parents. Not your siblings. Not your grandparents.

I was open to finding birth and death facts for Irene. I decided to look at the hint so I could tell you about it.

The hint was a link to the Find A Grave website where I saw Irene's obituary. The basic facts seemed right. But I wasn't willing to accept these facts yet. Not until I saw the proof in the obituary:
  • her husband's name
  • her maiden name
  • my 2nd cousin and her husband's names
All the names were a perfect fit. Only then was I willing to record her birth and death dates in my family tree.

Pay attention to the names of the family members.

We all make mistakes in our family tree from time to time. We make typos, click the wrong thing, or go too far on a hunch. But there's no excuse for ignoring glaring mismatches in dates, places, and names.

Now that you know what to look for—and what to look out for—you can handle your hints like a pro.

21 June 2019

4 Important Steps for Each New Document

I want you to slow down and do it right the first time. It's your legacy!

Hurray! You found a 1940 census form you needed for your grandmother's first cousin with his wife and son.

How many steps do you need to take before moving on to something else? If you don't want to have any regrets later on, you should take all 4 steps below. What kind of regrets are we talking about?
  • Working to find that census again in the future, going to add it to your tree, and realizing it was there all along.
  • Thinking a relative died before the census date, then seeing you forgot to add their census facts.
Census documents are only one type of genealogy image you're going to want for your family tree. But the census is one of the most important documents, so it's a good example.

Follow these 4 steps each and every time you find a new census document for your family tree.

Genealogy is a journey. You can't take a journey without taking steps.
Genealogy is a journey. You can't take a journey without taking steps.

Step 1. Rename and Store the Image

Download the census sheet and name it for the head of household. My preferred format is LastnameFirstnameYear. Examples are:
  • AkiyamaTomoko1940.jpg
  • BlancatoSebastiano1920.jpg
  • ColabellaCarmella1925.jpg
File your document image away immediately. My system is logical and simple. Each of my census images goes right into the "census forms" folder.

Step 2. Annotate the Image

Add metadata to the image file itself. Metadata are the key facts you need to know about this document.

The way you do this on a Windows computer is to:
  • Right-click the image and choose Properties.
  • Click the Details tab.
  • Fill in the Title field with a descriptive caption for the image.
    For example, "1920 census for Sebastiano Blancato and family". Start with the year and each person's images will sort themselves chronologically.
  • Fill in the Comments field with all the details about the location and source of this image:
    • the lines numbers the family is listed on
    • the name of the document collection
    • the image's URL
    • the enumeration district, sheet number, and any other page-specific info
If you fill all that in, there's no mistaking—or forgetting—the source of this image.

Step 3. Add the Image and Facts to Your Family Tree

Attach the image to the head of household in your family tree. Now pull out all the facts you can.
  • Record a Residence fact for the head of household. "12 Jan 1920, 260 East 151st Street, Bronx, Bronx County, New York, USA."
  • Record an Occupation fact for the head of household. "19 Jan 1920, building painter in Bronx, Bronx County, New York, USA."
Everyone who lived in that household needs the facts on their census sheet.
Everyone who lived in that household needs the facts on their census sheet.

Now add the same image and Residence fact to each family member listed in that census. You don't have to attach another copy of the image to each person. The image is there, so share it with each person in the household.

See who else in the household has a job, and give them an Occupation fact.

Search for other facts that matter to you:
  • Does it say how long the couple has been married? If so, figure out their marriage year and use this census as your source.
  • Does it say when they immigrated?
  • Are they naturalized?
  • Is someone widowed?
  • Is anyone living with them who's not in the immediate family?
  • Is the wife's family in the same building?
These are all good facts to record.

Step 4. Keep Track of What You Found

Let future-you know you've got this image. I record all my found documents in a spreadsheet I call my document tracker. In the Census column, I add the year of this newly found census image to each member of the household. If I don't do this immediately, my inventory will be unreliable.

Do this as you go, and it isn't such a chore. It's worth it.
Do this as you go, and it isn't such a chore. It's worth it.

Now, Make it a Routine

If you take your time, get into this groove, and follow all the steps, you'll only handle each census image once. You'll have everything perfectly documented from the start. You'll greatly reduce your own human error. You'll save yourself from searching for documents you've already got.

I follow these rules for each type of document image I find.

If it's a birth record, I add the baby and all their facts (birth date, baptism date, birth address). I make sure I have the correct names for the parents. I decide if the parents' ages in this new document are more reliable than what I currently have for them. I add their occupations if they're included.

If it's a marriage record:
  • I record the dates of their marriage banns, license, and marriage, if available.
  • I record the bride and groom's birth dates, their parents' names and ages.
  • I note any occupations and addresses.
  • I add a title and description to each image before putting it in my family tree.
  • I attach all documents to the groom and share them with the bride.
  • Finally, I add a notation to my document tracker for both bride and groom.
When I've been adding documents to my tree all day, following all these rules, it takes quite a bit of time. When it's getting late, and I'm only able to add one more document before calling it quits, I have to steel myself. I know how important it is to the quality of my family tree that I do it right—and do it thoroughly—the first time.


Is your document-processing routine fortifying your family tree?

18 June 2019

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.
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.
There are a limited number of genealogy document types. Filing by type makes great sense.
  1. 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.
There's no doubt what's where and which file is which. All it takes is a simple naming pattern.
  1. 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!

14 June 2019

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.
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.
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.
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.