Overwhelming Clean-up Task? Start With Direct Ancestors

This source citation clean-up task is so rewarding, it won't bog you down.

You may remember I recently had a disaster with my family tree software. While synchronizing my Family Tree Maker file with my Ancestry.com tree, the file got corrupted. The only cure was to download my Ancestry tree as a new FTM file.

That blew up my "simple sources" system. Ancestry stores the source information differently than Family Tree Maker. It fed my sources back in a most un-simple way. That forced me to rethink my sourcing process. I had to step up and commit to improving my method.

And I'm glad I did. The bulk of my tree consists of 17th and 18th century Italians. I'm very lucky to have access to high-quality images of many of their vital records. Cleaning up how I cite these sources means I can do the following.

Copy the Source Wherever it Applies

Say I'm working on my 6th great grandfather, Giuseppe Iamarino. His son's 1815 marriage documents included Giuseppe's 1792 death record. I can create a source citation for Giuseppe's death that:

• provides a link to his death record
• says where to find the original (in his town's 1815 marriage records)
• includes the image itself in the citation

Plus, his death record is my only source for the names of his parents, my 7th great grandparents. So I can copy the source for Giuseppe's death date and use it as the source for each of his parents' names.

It's all a simple copy-and-paste job.

That's a big improvement over what I was doing. My "simple source" system meant a lot of sharing. For example, everyone with a fact from the 1930 U.S. Federal Census shared the same source. In my family tree, you had to view the notes on a document image to see exactly where it came from.

Last night I found a new document for my grandfather, Pietro Iamarino. It's his World War II draft registration card that was not online before. So I made a new source citation for this card and used it for:

• Grandpa's 15 Feb 1942 home address
• Grandpa's work address in 1942 (I knew he was working for a costume jewelry company, but now I know where!)
• Grandma's shared 15 Feb 1942 home address (Her name is on the card.)

Now anyone viewing my family tree online can see the:

• title
• citation detail
• document image, and
• the exact link to the document online.

It works for any document you found online.

An Efficient Shortcut

Here's a new tip I want to share with you today. I've got more than 23,000 people in my tree. Fixing all the citations is a monumental task. So I want to take care of my direct ancestors first. All 293 of them.

Here's how I'll get that done efficiently. While making my Elder Scroll, I created a filter in Family Tree Maker. The filter lets me display only my direct ancestors in the index of people. (See how I used Ahnentafel numbers to show only my direct ancestors.)

It's easy to work my way down that alphabetical list, caring for each person's source citations one at a time. I don't have to worry about missing someone.

If I can get through all my direct ancestors in a few sessions, it'll all be worthwhile.

And it's really satisfying. There are lots of cases where I only know someone died "Bef. 10 Aug 1812" because his grandson's 1812 birth record says that his father's father is dead. That connection (fact to source) was getting lost. But now I can go to the grandson, create his birth source citation, and make it the source for his grandfather's death.

Now, I'm not recommending you have a family tree software catastrophe. But I am encouraging you to think about how to make your sources better. Think about the day when your grandchild inherits all your research. Or about the DNA match who's looking at your tree to figure out your connection. How believable will your facts be?

The more traceable your facts are, the more professional your family tree is. And that's been my mission for 3 years. I want you to fortify your family tree—and have fun while you're doing it.

Can't Connect to Your DNA Match? Keep Trying

I've got my super-charged database ready to help crack those connections.

It was my day off. And there isn't anything I'd rather do with my free time than work on my family tree. But where to begin?

After a quick look at GEDmatch, I decided I wanted to finally figure out why John is my DNA match. And my dad's match, too.

You see, my dad has 1st cousins I've visited in Italy. Their mother was my grandfather's sister Assunta. So Dad and I are blood relatives on their mother's side. But John is on their father's side. He is their father's brother. How am I related to their father's family?

I've built out my cousins' father's tree (and their Uncle John's) far and wide. His roots are in my grandfather's town where everyone is related somehow.

But all the people in John's family tree were related to me only through my Great Aunt Assunta's husband. How frustrating! Where was the hidden connection?

With extra determination, I finally found my connection to an unusual DNA match.

Be Methodical

I began by viewing John's ancestors. Right away I saw a hole. I didn't have his maternal grandmother's birth date or ancestors. Another relative had a family tree showing her birth date as 6 Nov 1867, so I got straight to work.

My ace in the hole is my amazing database of Italian vital records. I've got all available records from my grandfather's hometown sitting on my computer. Plus, I renamed each image to include the name of the document's subject. Now I can search my computer for any name from the town.

Once I located John's grandmother Maria's birth record, I began working on her parents. Over and over I found death records for ancestors that gave me their parents' names. It was working so well that I identified all 8 of Maria's great grandparents. Only 1 of the 8 was a dead end.

Leave No Stone Unturned

As I found new ancestors, I used the Relationship Calculator in Family Tree Maker. Each new person was still related to me only through my Great Aunt's husband's family. No blood relation.

At this point I worried that my day off had been a bust. It was still fun, but I didn't get what I wanted. So, of course, I kept searching.

Again and again I went back to John and climbed each of his branches till I found a dead end. For each dead end, I searched for a death record that would tell me the names of the next generation.

Late in the day, I was looking at an ancestor named Vincenzo Mascia. I needed his parents' names, but he was too old for his marriage record to be available. (Records begin in 1809.) But Vincenzo's 1st wife died. He remarried within the range of my collection of marriage records.

In his marriage documents I found his birth record with his parents' names, Giorgio and Giulia. And there was his father Giorgio's 1812 death record. That had his parents' names, Domenico and Caterina.

Before typing Giorgio's parents' names into my tree, I did what I always do. Check to see if they're in my tree already. I held my breath because these parents were born in the late 1600s. I was way up there. And I did have a Domenico Mascia who was about the right age. Before I hovered over his name to see who he married, my heart skipped a beat. He had a yellow circle next to his name in the person index. That means he is my direct ancestor. Yellow means he's a direct ancestor of my father's father.

When I hovered over Domenico's name I gasped. His wife was the Caterina Paolucci I was hoping for. Domenico and Caterina are my 7th great grandparents, and I had climbed John's family tree to find them. They are his 5th great grandparents.

Consult the Charts

So I whipped out my relationship chart. I'd found something similar online once, but decided to make my own, which is much easier to use. Since Domenico and Caterina are my 7th great grandparents and John's 5th great grandparents, he and I are 6th cousins twice removed. John and my dad are 6th cousins once removed.

Download your own: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksvp08b99pzk9hl/relationship-calculator.xlsx?dl=0

Ancestry DNA estimated that John and I (and John and my dad) were 4th–6th cousins. Well, there you go!

This finding was a long time coming. I've been collaborating with John's daughter-in-law since 2017 trying to figure this out. Ironically, while John is my 6th cousin twice removed, his wife is my 5th cousin twice removed. I was working on her ancestors this past Sunday.

I've got a ton of work yet to do on this branch. I was so excited with my progress that I entered all the facts, but I have to go back and add the documents and source citations to my tree.

I hope I've inspired you to keep at it when you can't find the connection to your DNA match. Use all your resources and keep pushing forward. You never know which path will help you solve the puzzle.

How Many Genealogy Gems Are You Sitting On?

Are you guilty of ignoring the tips and leads you stashed away? I am.

Years ago I put a folder on my computer desktop called "gen docs". It was a handy place to stash anything that:

• I hadn't added to my family tree yet, or
• belonged to someone who wasn't in my tree yet.

I even took the time to organize this stash with sub-folders for the different document types.

Then I moved the folder to another folder that's automatically backed up to cloud storage. That's keeping it safe. (See "How to Back Up Your Family Tree Files Automatically".) But since it's not staring me in the face anymore, it's been out-of-sight, out-of-mind for a long time.

I'm sure there are a ton of genealogy gems in that folder. Things like:

• photos of relatives I found online
• draft cards for men who weren't connected to me, but may be connected now
• vital records I photographed from microfilm (badly)
• the flight record for my Uncle Johnny who crashed and died in World War II

There's so much in that folder that past-me thought would be important to future-me. And I'm sure she was right.

This is what happens when you have a "deal with it later" folder.

Aside from this jam-packed folder (I'll bet that phrase doesn't translate well), I also have my earliest genealogy research. It's a school notebook I filled with facts taken from ship manifests I saw on the Ellis Island website 16 years ago. It's hard to believe I ever did something so non-digital. I wish now it was a Notepad file. And I have the college paper my brother wrote about our family history in the 1970s. That paper has some stories that came straight from our grandparents. I need to capture all those gems!

What about you? What gems have you been tucking away to deal with later? Do you have death certificates you never scanned? An audio interview you never transcribed? (Guilty!) Photos you meant to digitize?

I know we like to forge ahead in our genealogy hobby. We're eager to search through the newest database. We want to try another software package that shows a lot of promise. We want to focus our energy on that brick wall.

But past-you has already laid the foundation of your family tree. What if the clue you need to break through your brick wall has been sitting in your collection all this time?

I challenge you today to a project I'm beginning right now. Go through your old notes, files, and collections. You know more about your family now than you did back then. Take a close look at each scrap of information past-you set aside and make a decision.

These documents should have gone straight into my family tree. No more procrastinating.

Does it belong in your family tree?

• If yes, scan it, crop it, type it, and get it in your family tree. Now.
• If no, put it in another folder and make note of why you kept it and why it isn't in your family tree.

I'm starting this project by dealing with one sub-folder at a time. The "legal docs" folder has things like the sale of my grandfather's house in 1990. The "funeral cards" folder has pictures of these mementos I need to enhance in Photoshop. The "Missing Flight" folder has Uncle Johnny's flight record that I keep forgetting to put into my family tree.

There's no telling what I'll find in my stash that may:

• answer age-old questions
• establish unknown connections, or
• add a missing piece to one relative's life story.

So, yes, I challenge you and me both. Stop forging ahead for a couple of days and clean up the trail of evidence past-you created. Then tell me what genealogy gems you've discovered.

And speaking of discoveries:

• My 5th Great Grandfather: A Random Act of Kindness?
• Finding the Story Behind an Intriguing Family Photo
• POW: My Grandfather's World War I Experience