7 Genealogy Projects We All Need to Do

Have you ever given someone genealogy advice, and not followed it yourself?

This is my 297th blog article in 2½ years. I publish twice a week. To keep up with that schedule, I spend time each day working on my family tree. Then I write about whatever I've been doing.

If I'm working to connect with a DNA match, I write about that. If I'm developing a system for naming and tracking my files, I write about that. If I discover a useful website, I write about that.

But with all the writing, I rarely get a chance to complete the projects I recommend for you. This is a recap of some of my favorite recommendations that I wish I had time to complete. Which ones appeal the most to you?

1. It's Time to Revisit and Improve Your Earliest Family Tree Research

We all need to take another look at our earliest genealogy work and make improvements. I still have some unofficial sources I want to replace with better sources and images. I have some facts that came from the family tree of a distant relative. That's not good enough. I need to find a reliable source.

I liked this idea enough to write about it again in Trade Up to Better Family History Sources.

Imagine the look on your future descendant's face when she finds your collection of family history books.

2. How to Share Your Family Tree Research with Relatives

One of my biggest desires as a genealogist is to find the best way to share what I've found with my relatives. This article describes how to create a family tree book you can share. Imagine presenting a book to everyone at a family reunion.

I covered this idea again in 5 Steps to Writing Your Ancestor's Life Story, and the very popular article, How to Create a 'Book of Life' for Your Relatives.

3. Add Proof and a Breadcrumb to Family Tree Documents

I've been really good about following this advice. But my older documents need my attention. If you add facts to the properties of your digital documents (like census sheets, ship manifest, etc.), you'll never wonder where they came from. And you'll be able to get right back to their source.

Annotate your image the moment you get it. You'll never forget where you found it.

4. How to Find Official Sources for Family Facts You Just Know

Yes, we need to replace unofficial sources with official ones. But we also need sources for the modern-day facts we just know. For example, I was baptized in a church in the Bronx, New York. The only source for that fact is my baptismal certificate. I could scan and add it to my family tree. I could add my birth certificate, too. But if you're adding documents for anyone who's living, make the images private. They're mainly there for you.

5. Closing the Book on One Family at a Time

One of the genealogy goals I set for 2019 (and completed) helped me close the book on some families. "Closing the book" means finding all the documents you're missing for a family. For example, think of your great uncle. Do you have every census record for him? Do you have all his immigration and naturalization papers? His birth, marriage and death records? What about documents for his children?

When you have all the documents, you can "close the book" on that family.

6. This Memento Provides Key Facts for Your Family Tree

When I wrote about the funeral cards I'd collected for some relatives, my cousin texted me photos of a ton more. Funeral cards serve as evidence for death dates. And sometimes they can say more—or have a photo. I still need to clean up the images my cousin sent me and place those funeral cards in my family tree.

A "Book of Life" isn't meant for celebrities only. Make them for your family.

7. It's Time to Tame Your Family Photos

I started dealing with my family photos, but I have a long way to go. They're stored in too many folders on my computer. That makes it hard to find the exact one I want. I've got to name and file them properly. Then I've got to double-check that I've scanned all the old photos my mother left with me when she moved. Finally, I have to make sure they get into my family tree.

Make Your Digital Genealogy Documents Searchable

Who needs a search engine? Your computer is a search engine!

I'm constantly bouncing all around in my genealogy research. One day a person with my last name mentions their grandparents' birth dates. Another day a DNA match reaches out to me looking for our shared ancestors.

I need a quicker way to search for these connections.

One of my genealogy goals this year is to enter the details from thousands of Italian vital records into a spreadsheet. Then I can use Excel to search for a particular man's name and find the one who's married to the right woman. Or I can find all the babies born to a particular couple.

I've done a chunk of that work, but it's going to take years to complete.

Luckily, I found a faster method I can use in the meantime. Now that I've somehow become a "morning person", I'm using the evenings for an easier genealogy task. It's not exactly a no-brainer, but it is simple. And the benefits are really big.

This can apply to you, too, even if you don't have a huge collection of vital records on your computer.

Don't worry where you filed that document. Your computer knows where it is.

Whenever you're not quite up to serious family tree research, but you have your hands free, you can do this, too.

Rename your digital genealogy files to include the name(s) of the primary person.

I'll bet you've done that with census sheets, ship manifests, and other documents.

But did you realize you can search for any and all of a particular person's files on your computer at once?

This will really help you when you need to:

• answer a question from a new possible relative
• find the marriage record for a new person you added to your family tree
• figure out if the "Pasquale Iamarino" in this document is the same as the one in that document

I was especially happy to see how smart the search function can be. For instance, if I search for "Mary Murphy", but her full name is "Mary Jane Murphy", I'll still find her.

If I had any doubt about the value of renaming my files, one search washes all doubt away.

To save tons of time on future document searches, I've been renaming files like a madwoman.

At night, with the Yankee game on TV, I open my collection of Italian vital records. I've renamed every marriage record image from 1816–1860 to include the names of the bride and groom.

That means I can search at the town-folder level to find a marriage between any particular couple. A search for "Antonio Martuccio Maria Maddalena Paolucci" delivers their 1849 marriage record. Instantly!

The benefits are so important that I'm excited to rename more and more files. Plus, doing this makes me an expert on the names that come from each town. While renaming one file I thought to myself, "the groom must be from my other grandfather's town". And I was right.

Is your genealogy document collection named so it's searchable?

Untangling Our Twisted Family Relationships

Build your DNA match's family tree until you find the true relationship.

This article took a sharp turn from where it started. I thought I discovered an easy way to figure out your connection to a confusing DNA match.

And it is a good method. But then I realized the confusing DNA match I was looking at didn't have a direct line to me. It took a marriage to make the connection. Her 1st cousin 2x removed married my 4th cousin 3x removed.

And maybe that's where our shared DNA comes from.

Click Your Way to a Common Ancestor

Here's what I found. While it didn't work on this DNA match, it did reveal a blood relationship between my great aunt and her husband.

Originally I thought my DNA match was directly related to my great aunt's husband Donato. To see if Donato had a blood relationship to me (not just an in-law relationship), I went to Family Tree Maker. The software displays your relationship to the selected person clearly.

1. I clicked Donato's parents one at a time to see their relationship to me.
2. His mother Colomba is my 4th cousin 3x removed. A blood relative.
3. I clicked Colomba's parents to see their relationship to me. Her mother Maria is my 3rd cousin 4x removed.
4. I clicked Maria's parents to see the relationship description. Her father Vitangelo is my 2nd cousin 5x removed.
5. I clicked Vitangelo's parents. His father Pietro is my 1st cousin 6x removed.
6. Pietro's father Vitangelo is my 6th great uncle.
7. Finally, Vitangelo's parents are my 6th great grandparents, Liberatore Pozzuto and Libera Zeolla.

My 6th great grandparents are both Donato's and my great aunt's 4th great grandparents. With a shared pair of 4th great grandparents, my aunt and uncle were 5th cousins.

Are unknown relationships hiding in plain sight in your family tree?

Follow the Evidence

You're going to find that many of your DNA matches have posted a small, sparse family tree. (That's better than the matches with no tree.) Use their tree as a guideline only. Do the research yourself and try to prove what you see in their family tree.

This particular DNA match caught my attention recently. She was borrowing names and documents from my family tree and a distant relative's tree. I wanted to figure out who she is. Her tree on Ancestry.com seems to be facts she knows personally:

• her parents' names and birth dates
• her grandparents names and birth dates
• as many siblings as she knows for her parents and grandparents

Her family names tell me we're related through my paternal grandfather's hometown. Ancestry says she's about a 3rd or 4th cousin to my father and a 4th to 6th cousin to me.

Believe Nothing Without Proof

I wrote down her parents', grandparents', and great grandparents' names. Only a few had birth years included.

Then I opened my collection of vital records from my grandpa's hometown. Her parents were born too recently for my document collection, so I searched for their parents.

Bit by bit I added verified names and dates to my tree. I attached birth and marriage records as evidence. No one had a direct connection to me yet. But something had to be there.

When I found the 1866 birth record of my DNA match's mother's father's mother, a funny thing happened. The parents happened to be a couple I'd added to my family tree the day before!

Coincidentally, Libera and Giovanni are the parents of my DNA match's great grandmother. Now my DNA match was firmly rooted in my family tree. But it's one of those wacky "1st cousin 2x removed of wife of uncle of husband of 1st great aunt of" me relationships.

I thought we were related through the marriage of my great aunt and uncle. That's why I examined Donato's direct ancestors and found he was his wife's 5th cousin.

If that DNA match is distant, you're gonna need a bigger tree.

Always Look for More

Oh, these small Italian hill towns. They're infuriating and amazing at the same time. Everyone is related in some way. Donato, who married my great aunt, is related to me in his own right.

Family Tree Maker's relationship tool says Giovannangela, my grandfather's sister, is all these things to her husband Donato:

• wife
• 1st cousin of his brother-in-law, Pietro Iamarino
• sister-in-law of his 1st cousin 1x removed, Donato Paolucci
• 5th cousin

Actually, Family Tree Maker isn't displaying the 5th cousin relationship. It's as if it's throwing up its hands and saying "whatever".

Now that I've figured out how to follow the blood relationship, I can revisit more DNA mysteries. But be warned! It's easy to get lost. You may find you can't wrap your head around it. It helps to take notes along the way.

Can you find your DNA match's connection by climbing their family tree?