Where Did Your Last Name Come From?

Is there a hidden meaning behind the last names in your family tree?

You may know where your recent ancestors came from. You may even know where your much earlier ancestors came from. But do you know the origins of their last names?

You may call it a last name, a family name, or a surname. In Italian it's un cognome. In Spanish, un apellido.

Last names fall into a few different categories and can give you a clue about their background.

Are your last names tied to a particular place?

Do your ancestral last names fit into these categories?

• Monogenetic—A name that began with one family in one place. My grandfather's last name, for example, has its roots almost exclusively in one town in Italy. How lucky for me!
• Polygenetic—A name used at different times, in different places, by different families. My other grandfather's last name is ridiculously common and found in every part of Italy.

Those are general categories. Let's get more specific with these 4 types of last names:

1. Place names—Hill, Dale, Ford, Rivers, as well as specific names of rivers, mountains, and towns
2. Occupational names—Smith/Ferraro/Schmidt, Miller/Molinari/Mueller, Cooper/Bottaio, Weaver/Tessitore/Weber, Tailor/Sarti/Snyder, Shoemaker/Zapatero/Schumacher
3. Patronymics—These are names with a beginning or ending that says who was your daddy.
   
   • German: -sohn, -sen (Larsen, son of Lars)
   • Irish: Mc-, Mac-, O'- (McDonald, son of Donald)
   • Italian: d'-, di-, de-, li-, lo- (diFranco, son of Franco)
   • Russian: -ev, -evsky, -ov, -ovich, -ovsky (one of my favorite authors is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky; his middle name tells us his father was Mikhail)
   • Spanish: -ez, -es, -is, -iz (Gonzalez, son of Gonzalo)
4. Personal appearance and characteristic names. These include words for short, curly-haired, red-haired, fat, big, strong, kind. Animal names also fall into this category, such as Wolf/Lupo, Fox/Volpe.

There are also foundling names. These are the names given to babies usually born out of wedlock and abandoned to the care of the church.

• Spanish: Expósito, Iglesia, Cruz, Blanco
• Italian: Esposito, Proietti, Trovato, Casadio

Authorities might give a foundling baby boy the last name Esposito. But he will pass the name on to each of his children, and his sons will pass it on to their children. So don't assume each Esposito was a foundling.

Here's what it looks like when I apply these rules to some of my ancestors' last names.

• Caruso: A word meaning close-cropped hair, but also a term for a boy or young man.
• diPaola: A patronymic from the name Paolo (Paul), although in my family it's changed to Paola.
• Franza: From Franciscus, or someone who lives in France. We've got no French DNA, though.
• Iamarino: A patronymic from the name Giovanni Marino. The variation of Giammarino makes the Giovanni or Gianni clearer.
• Leone: The word for lion, but meaning the son of Leonardo.
• Petruccelli: A patronymic from the name Pietro (Peter).
• Pilla: Possibly from the Roman family name Pompilius. That'd be cool.
• Pisciotti: An occupational name from the word pesce, fish.
• Sarracino: From the Saracens—a non-Arab people living in the Arabian desert when it was a Roman province. Later, Saracen meant Muslim or Arabs.
• Saviano: From the Sabine people who lived in the Apennine Mountains of ancient Italy.
• Tedesco: The word for German.
• Valente: The word for talented.

The Saracens were an ancient people. Were my ancestors named for them?
Erhard Reuwich "Sarazenen", 1486, Public domain

I love that Saviano has ancient Italian roots. This is the last name of my 2nd great grandfather. He's my first ancestor to come to America. He made trips to New York and back in 1890, 1892, and 1895, then brought the rest of his family here in 1898.

In fact, my maternal grandmother's parents were a Sarracino (Saracen) and Saviano (Sabine). Their marriage may have been a union of two very ancient peoples. That could explain my mom's 100% Southern Italian DNA.

Learning their names and finding their hometowns is all I need to make me love genealogy. (See "Genealogy is the Joy of Names".)

How many last names do you descend from?

Is there more history and meaning hidden in your ancestors' last names? Here are some resources from "Behind the Name" to help you understand the names in your family tree:

• English
• Franch
• German
• Irish
• Italian
• Polish
• Spanish
• Welsh

For a lot more types of names, visit the Behind the Names website.

And speaking of last names:

• When Did Your Ancestors First Use a Last Name?
• How to Keep Track of All Your Surnames
• What to Do When Your Last Name Is So Common

How a Genealogy Hunch Made a Best Friend a Cousin

Building out a friend's family tree expanded my own tree in new directions.

Because of my family's origins, building my family tree to 1,000s and 1,000s of people is a given. It's just a matter of time.

You see, all my pre-1900 ancestors came from an area of Italy that's just over HALF the size of Rhode Island. And they stayed in one place for at least 500 years—and probably many more. I was able to download 1,000s of vital records from my handful of hometowns, giving me tons of data. On my computer, waiting in those birth, marriage, and death records, are tons of relatives.

I have a deep emotional attachment to these towns and each person's beautiful Italian name. I love and want them all for my family tree.

Because of how long my townspeople stayed put, I decided to follow up on a genealogy hunch.

What are the odds that these 2 best friends would be relatives? Where they grew up, the odds were good.

My parents grew up in the Bronx, New York, as children of Italian immigrants. My dad's best friend was his grade school classmate, Johnny. As they grew up, they played baseball together and shot a lot of pool together.

In 1954, my dad asked Johnny to be the Best Man at his wedding. Today, well into their 80s, dad and Johnny always call each other on their birthdays and catch up.

Here's where that hunch comes in. Johnny's last name is very common in my paternal grandfather's hometown.

So I thought…could Johnny be related to us?

Here are the steps I took to turn Best Man Johnny into Cousin Johnny.

Find Their Passage to America

I knew from Johnny's 1940 census that his mom was born in New York, but his dad came from Italy. And my dad knew he was from Grandpas' town of Colle Sannita. A quick search on Ancestry.com turned up Johnny's father Francesco's 1921 ship manifest and 1938 naturalization papers. Sadly, Francesco died one year after becoming a citizen.

Searching through Italian Records

Now it was time to trace Francesco-the-immigrant's family in my Italian document collection. Here's what I found:

• Francesco's birth record, giving me his parents' names and ages
• His parent's birth records, giving me their parents' names and ages
• Francesco's 3 siblings and the spouse of one of them
• His great grandparents, Serafino and Maria Raffaela, who turned into a gold mine. I found their 9 children and 5 of the children's weddings.

But as big as dad's friend Johnny's tree had grown, there was still no connection to us.

Looking Again at U.S. Records

When Johnny's father's tree didn't get me anywhere, I thought I'd investigate Johnny's mother. But I didn't even know her last name.

Luckily, the 1910 census and a single gravestone image told me everything I needed to know.

Johnny's mother had the same married name and maiden name! Her father came from our town of Colle Sannita, too.

Back to Italy We Go

I found the Italian birth record for Johnny's maternal grandfather. He was Raffaele, and his birth date helped me confirm the U.S. naturalization papers I found for him.

I only had to go back one more generation to make a big discovery. Our friend Johnny's maternal great grandfather and paternal great grandfather were brothers.

Think about that. Johnny's great grandfathers were brothers. That means his parents were 2nd cousins. This was getting really interesting!

You may have to climb several generations of a family tree to find the connection.

Breakthrough Time

It was the 1853 marriage records for Johnny's maternal great grandparents that blew this whole search mission wide open.

You see, the truly wonderful thing about Italian marriage records is all the vital records they include. You get:

• the bride and groom's birth records
• the death record for any of their deceased parents
• the death record for either of their deceased grandfathers, if their father is dead

The reason for this is you needed your father's permission to marry. And if your father was dead, you needed your grandfather's permission to marry. If both were dead, then OK, we'll accept your mom's approval.

When this couple married in 1853, the groom's father and grandfather were dead. (Yay!) Their death records were part of the marriage records.

Finding out your best friend is part of the family.

And that was the key. The groom's grandfather, Innocenzo, died in 1846. His 1846 death record shows his parents' names: Ignazio and Maddalena. They were already relatives in my family tree!

I attached the parents to Innocenzo. At that moment, the 50 people in our friend Johnny's family tree changed from "No direct relationship found" to actual relatives.

I texted my dad. "Your best man Johnny is the 5th cousin of your Aunt Susie's husband." Aunt Susie was the younger sister of my father's father.

While this is an in-law relationship, there's more to it. Aunt Susie's husband's brother, still alive and well, is a DNA match to my dad and me. We're in the neighborhood of 4th to 6th cousins.

"Johnny just got promoted from Best Man to relative." That's what my dad texted to me.

Acting on this hunch took less than 2 days—from finding Johnny's 2nd great aunts and uncles, to making him my grandfather's in-law.

Behold the power of adding unrelated people to your family tree!

And speaking of unrelated people:

• How to Handle the Unrelated People in Your Family Tree
• When Unrelated People Finally Fit Your Family Tree
• 2 Reasons to Add Unrelated People to Your Family Tree

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:

• Compare their facts to anyone in my tree with a similar name.
• Attach my "No Relationship Established" image as their profile image. (Find out how to find the unrelated people in your family tree using Family Tree Analyzer.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

• 4 Ways to Protect Your Genealogy Research from Disaster
  Use a combination of storage systems to protect your family tree research from the start.
• 4 Ways to Decide Where to Spend Your Family Tree Research Time
  Your family tree can get really big, really fast. These 4 ideas will keep you on the right track.
• 3 Top Safety Tips for Your Family Tree Data
  Back up your family tree files and information both manually and automatically.
• How to Back Up Your Family Tree Files Automatically
  This is a more in-depth look at how you can back up your files automatically.
• It's Time to Tame Your Family Photos
  Follow these rules early and have no regrets.

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.

• Why You Should Be Using the Free Family Tree Analyzer
  This free program is a must-have for anyone who's working on their family tree.
• How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives
  Italian genealogy is my specialty. I've logged countless hours reading these old documents. Now you can view them at home.
• Which Genealogy Apps Are Right for You?
  You won't regret trying out all the top genealogy apps on your mobile devices.
• Try This Tool to Find a Missing Census
  Having trouble finding a particular family in the census? See what Stephen P. Morse's tools can do for you.

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.

• How To Squeeze Everything Out of the Census
• 27 Key Facts to Extract From a Death Certificate
• Why You Need Your Ancestor's Draft Registration Cards
• Your Family Tree Needs Your Ancestor's Passport Application
• What to Find on Your Ancestor's Naturalization Papers

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.

• What Language Barrier?
  There are helpful tools for many, many languages, all available for free.
• Tips & Tools to Help You Translate Foreign Genealogy Records
  Think you can't read those foreign documents? Give this article a try.
• You Can Read Foreign-Language Genealogy Records
  When you know which words to look for, the mystery disappears.
• The Single Best Technique for Reading Old Genealogy Records: Immersion
  After spending a lot of time pulling facts out of Italian documents, I'm fluent in vital records.

DNA Tools

There's a lot more to DNA than your list of DNA matches.

• The Leeds Method May Have Solved a Big Family Puzzle
  The Leeds Method helps you see who's connected to whom using blocks of color. Doing this, I saw that my parents share a few DNA matches.
• How to Find Your Strongest DNA Matches
  Pairing 2 DNA tools can help you make more sense of your matches.
• Use Every Tool to Solve a Family History Mystery
  Don't stop at 2 DNA tools. Use every means you can.

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?

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 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?

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.

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?

And speaking of getting organized:

• How to Tame Your Jumble of Genealogy Leads
• 4 Keys to Make You a Better Genealogist
• Find Your Happy Place in Your Favorite Genealogy Tasks

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.

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".)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?