6 Ways to Find Your Ancestor's Hometown

The quest for the holy grail: your ancestor's place of birth.

You can't go back beyond your immigrant ancestor until you know where they were born. That town of birth is critical to finding documents.

I'm working on a couple who married in New York City in 1889. He was Giovanni Calleo. His naturalization papers have his exact birth date, but not his hometown. She was Cristina, and New York marriage indexes gave me her maiden name: Mastroianno. But nothing more.

I can't find Giovanni's immigration record. But he arrived in 1881. There's almost no chance his ship manifest will state his hometown. Her 1889 ship manifest has no details beyond her name and age. She arrived two weeks before her marriage. Two weeks! That makes me think they came from the same hometown. Family may have arranged the marriage and shipped her to the U.S.

Their hometown is everything. Your quest is to find your ancestor's hometown.

To go any further back, I need to know where they came from. Here are 6 different avenues to explore.

1. Ship Manifests

My first traveling ancestor was my 2nd great grandfather. He made a few trips in the 1890s.

In 1898 he went back to Italy to bring over his wife and 2 of his children. That 1898 ship manifest has the details I needed.

My great aunt said the family came from Pastene. The 1898 ship manifest lists their town as "S. Angelo." I scoured a map for a while until I figured it out. Pastene is a frazione (a hamlet) of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. With that information, I was able to learn so much.

A well-timed ship manifest is a great way to find your ancestor's hometown.

2. Naturalization Papers

United States naturalization papers have 3 varieties. A person first filed their Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. This form may include your ancestor's:

• place and date of birth
• the exact date of their arrival
• the name of the ship.

Next came the Petition for Naturalization. This may also include your ancestor's place and date of birth.

A thorough naturalization form can give you a ton of places, dates, names, and facts you need.

Finally there is the actual naturalization. I have this document for Giovanni Calleo, but it confirms only his birth date.

I can't find Giovanni Calleo's declaration and petition. It may take a page-by-page search in the New York City court closest to where he lived.

3. Death Certificate

A close relative provides the facts on a death certificate. But what if they don't know the full names, proper spelling, and places of birth for their ancestors?

If you find a death certificate, keep in mind they may have Anglicized the names. What do you think the names might be in the original language? They may misspell the town of birth, if they include it.

4. Marriage Certificate

It's a bit of a rarity, but a marriage certificate may tell you where your immigrant ancestor was born. My ancestors' New York marriage certificates don't have a town; only a country. My grandparents' Ohio marriage license says she was born in Hornell, New York. But for Grandpa, it says only Italy.

A marriage certificate may be a long shot for finding an international place of birth. But it's a worthwhile search.

5. Find Others with the Name

Sometimes I'll search Ancestry for a last name only to see which towns the name generally comes from.

Searching for the name Mastroianno gives me a list of towns I can check. They include: Caiazzo, Caserta, Villa Santo Croce, Alvignano, Conflenti, Sezze, Benevento.

That's a lot to go on. Almost too much. Since Caiazzo came up a few times, I'll try there first.

I'll search the 1865 and 1869 birth records in these towns for Giovanni and Cristina.

6. Trace their Siblings

It's disappointing not to have found their hometowns yet. I have one ace left up my sleeve, and his name is Pasquale.

In the 1905 New York State census, Cristina's brother Pasquale Mastroianno is living with her. He's a 44-year-old married man who's been in the U.S. for 6 years. Did he plan to return to his wife and kids in Italy once he had enough money? Or was he going to bring them to America?

Pasquale's 1899 arrival should include his hometown. That'll be Cristina's hometown.

Here's what I found:

• An 1861 Italian birth record from the town of Falerna. The baby's parents are much too old to have had Cristina 8 years later. I looked anyway, and there is no record for her in that town.
• A 1900 ship manifest, hometown: Recale. While this is a good fit for Pasquale, I did not find Cristina born in Recale.
• An 1893 ship manifest, hometown: Nocera. There are 4 towns whose name begins with Nocera. I'll have to search all 4.
• An 1891 ship manifest, hometown: Palermo. He's heading to New York. It could be him.
• An 1890 ship manifest, hometown: Nicastro. My list of possible hometowns is getting awfully long.
• A 1902 ship manifest, hometown: Campochiaro. The 1905 census says he'd been in the U.S. for 6 years. This doesn't seem like a good fit.
• A 1905 ship manifest that's the Pasquale from the 1861 Italian birth record. He was going to Pittsburgh.

Lots more ship manifests, city directories, and naturalization indexes didn't fit this Pasquale.

Usually one of the first 3 methods would give me what I need. But this family is a tough one. Since I know Giovanni's birth date and Cristina's birth year, my best hope is that long list of towns.

I'll search for them in the birth records for each town in the list.

That hometown is the holy grail. If I find their birth records, I'll have their parents' names. I can search for their parents' marriages, and so on.

Don't give up on your search. Try every path until one leads you where you want to go.

And now for some déjà vu:

• Where Did Grandpa Come From?
• What to Do When Your Last Name Is So Common
• Walking in Your Ancestors' Footsteps

4 Ways to Handle Names in Your Family Tree

What's in a name? History, ancestry, culture…everything.

How do you record people's names in your family tree? Each time someone asks this question, I say it's a matter of personal preference. But, to be honest, some methods are better than others.

For a professional opinion, see Kimberly Powell's "8 Rules for Properly Recording Names in Genealogy" on ThoughtCo.

While I do not capitalize last names as Ms. Powell suggests, she does offer sound advice. I find the CAPITALIZATION to be distracting and unnecessary.

Here's my take on recording names in a family tree.

1. Maiden Names vs. Married Names

A woman's maiden name is the holy grail. You can't find her ancestors without learning her maiden name. That's why I always use a woman's maiden name. You may say, "But her married name makes it easy to see who she married." Actually, your family tree makes it easy to see who she married. And if she married 2 or more times, you're not accounting for at least one husband's last name.

This became a non-starter for me when I learned that Italian women keep their maiden name for life. The vast majority of women in my family tree lived their lives in Italy. I've told my husband that if I die first, he'd better damn well put my maiden name on my marker.

2. Given Names, Known As Names, and Nicknames

I prefer to record each person's name as it appears on their birth record, if available. A person may not "go by" their given name throughout their life. My great grandmother was born Marianna but often used her late sister's name Mariangela.

You can record multiple names for a person, but I make their given name the preferred name.

You can use a person's given name as their primary NAME fact. Add a 2nd NAME fact to record their preferred name. Add a 3rd NAME fact to record a nickname. Many of my parents' family members had nicknames like Baldy or Blondie. It's a great idea to capture those nicknames, too. You can always use a person's Notes section to explain how, where, and why people used a nickname.

No one knew my grandmother by her birth name of Maria Carmina. That's how I've recorded her in my family tree because it was a major discovery. I can record Mary as a 2nd NAME fact.

3. Spelling Changes

Speaking of Grandma, as soon as I began this wonderful hobby, I discovered a name change. At birth, Grandma and her 4 siblings had the family name Sarracino, with 2 Rs. That spelling is on all 5 marriage records. After that, the family went by Saracino with 1 R. My 2 Sarracino great uncles produced 2 Saracino kids. The male is legally a Saracino with 1 R. So is his son and his son's wife and children.

I recorded Grandma's generation as Sarracino, but her brothers' descendants as Saracino.

Things get confusing when a name is changed, but I honor the at-birth legal name.

Things are trickier with a family that came from Italy. Their original surname was diPaola. In America, different parts of the family adopted different spellings. There's diPoalo, DePoalo, DePaul, DePaulo. It gets harder to see who's related and how.

While searching for my connection to a DNA match, I didn't know which spelling was hers. Her family tree gave me 1 married couple's names as help. But that worked, and I have placed her in my tree. She gets the same spelling variation as her father.

4. Unknown Names

I used to record "Unknown" wherever I had a missing first name or last name in my family tree. It surprised me when a cousin looked at a tree printout and said, "Oh, I'm sure they knew her name."

That left me open to suggestions for a better way to record someone with a missing name. Along came Ancestry's chief genealogist, Crista Cowan. She mentioned it in one of her "Barefoot Genealogist" lessons on YouTube. She uses a blank (_____), consisting of 5 underscore characters, to show that a name is missing.

A blank line is something anyone who's ever taken a test can understand.

I do all my work in Family Tree Maker. The people with _____ for a last name appear at the top of the alphabetical index. On Ancestry.com, they're at the end, after last names beginning with Z. The blanks show me I need to keep trying to find that missing name.

My family tree is all about origins and roots. (Isn't yours?) I cherish all the family names and all the given names. I pay homage to my roots by recording and displaying the original names. Their names are everything.

And speaking of names:

• This Genealogy Policy Takes the Guesswork Out of Names
• Same Name; Which Ancestor is Which?
• 5 Ways to Find Your Female Relative's Married or Maiden Name

How to Diagram a Mystery DNA Match

This is what I'll do when a DNA match is too abstract to make sense.

One of Mom's DNA matches is driving me crazy. Mary and Mom share 250 centiMorgans. That's a lot for someone I can't identify. Ancestry DNA says there's a 67% chance they are:

• 2nd cousins
• 1st cousins twice removed
• half 1st cousins once removed, or
• half 2nd great aunt/niece.

Mary learned from her DNA test that her father was not her biological father. A mutual DNA match led to the name of her father. I recognized the last name from my ancestors' hometown.

It looks like Mary's biological father's grandmother is my blood relative. Her name was Maria Grazia Sarracino. Sarracino is my maternal grandmother's maiden name. Everyone named Sarracino in their little hamlet in Italy is family. But the town has very limited vital records available.

I looked at Mary and Mom's shared matches. Two people have the last name of Mary's birth father, 1 has the name Saracino, and 1 has a Sarracino grandmother.

I decided to research Maria Grazia Sarracino—the grandmother of Mary's birth father. Her daughter was Angela Coviello—Mary's biological grandmother. She was born in 1895 to Angelo Coviello and Maria Grazia Sarracino. Angela's birth record does not say Maria Grazia Sarracino's age. I searched for more of her children, hoping for more details.

It was obvious Maria Grazia was Angelo's 2nd wife. They kept having babies until he was at least 62 years old. And there were no children born before 1893. Maria Grazia probably married Angelo in 1892. The last child I found was born in 1904. The 1905–1909 records are missing, but Angelo was getting quite old. None of their children's birth records include Maria Grazia's age or the name of her father.

Maria Grazia Sarracino was most likely born between 1860 and 1875. But without the records, I can't look for her marriage to Angelo Coviello. I can't look for her death. And I didn't find her birth.

Would a diagram of all Mary and Mom's possible relationships help solve this DNA mystery?

This turned out to be incredibly helpful. I started with my Relationship Calculator spreadsheet. (Download the file for free. Can't open an Excel file? Here's the Google Sheets version.) The calculator tells you your exact relationship to a cousin.

You can also use this relationship calculator to narrow down your connection to a DNA match. Here's how I did it:

• Duplicate the worksheet onto a new tab, leaving the original untouched.
• Highlight the cells that match your estimated relationship to your DNA match. (Note: The estimated relationships come from AncestryDNA. If you're not a subscriber, enter the shared amount of centiMorgans in this tool: https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4.)
• I highlighted full relationships in yellow: 2nd cousin, and in 2 locations, 1st cousin 2 times removed.
• I highlighted half relationships in orange: 1st cousin, 1st cousin 1 time removed (in 2 locations), and 2nd Great Grand niece/nephew (in 2 locations).
• Delete or empty all the rows, columns, and cells you haven't highlighted.
• Add names to make things clearer. If Mom is the child of the common ancestor, then the common ancestor is Grandma. Put the appropriate name in each highlighted cell.
• Think through each relationship. You'll know that some are impossible, so you can cross them out.
• The remaining cells are your strongest possibilities.

This simple diagram showed me the most likely relationship between Mom and Mary.

I started with the easiest one: both locations of 2nd Great Grand niece/nephew. For one to be true, Mary would have to be the 3rd great grandchild of my grandmother. Mary's older than me, and a stranger, so that's impossible.

For the other to be true, Mary would have to be the child of my mother's 3rd great grandfather who died in the early 1800s. Also impossible. I crossed out both cells.

Next I looked at Mom's Grandchild column. These cells all have my great grandfather Giovanni's name in them. I know all Giovanni's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. So I know Mary can't be his grandchild, great grandchild, or 2nd great grandchild. I crossed out all 3 cells.

Then I skipped a column and looked at Mom's 2nd great grandfather, Antonio. He couldn't be Mary's grandfather because he lived too long ago. I crossed out his cell.

That left 2 possible relationships for Mom's great grandfather, Giuseppe. Could Mary be his grandchild or great grandchild? For Mary to be Mom's full 2nd cousin, she'd have to be Giuseppe's great grandchild. I can't rule this out, so I'll leave the cell alone.

That leaves me with 1 more cell: half 1st cousin 1 time removed, with a common ancestor of Giuseppe Sarracino. But Giuseppe can't be Mary's grandfather because of the enormous age difference. I crossed out this cell.

I've eliminated all but the full 2nd cousin relationship. How would this relationship work? I took a look at my 2nd great grandfather, Giuseppe Sarracino. Giuseppe Sarracino married my 2nd great grandmother in December 1864. I can name 5 of their sons, born between 1865 and 1879. But I can't guarantee there were no other children.

Giuseppe had a habit of not reporting his childrens' births. By law, Italian citizens had to report births and deaths promptly.

But my great grandfather's 1876 birth went unreported until 1898. I found it completely by chance. They didn't report my 2nd great uncle Angelo's 1865 birth until 1894. And I've never found my 2nd great uncle Domenico's approximately 1866 birth record.

There's a gap from 1869–1875 during which Giuseppe could have had a daughter named Maria Grazia.

I wish I could add Maria Grazia Sarracino as a child of my 3rd great grandparents with a dotted line. I may never be able to prove she belongs there. But thanks to DNA probabilities, at least I have good reason to believe she is my 2nd great aunt.

I'm eager to try this method on more mystery DNA matches. I'll add a new spreadsheet tab for each person I want to put to the test. If figuring out potential relationships leaves your head spinning, give this a try.

And speaking of DNA:

• Let a DNA Match Guide Your Research for a While
• Help Your DNA Match Expand their Family Tree
• Is This the End of DNA Matches?

How to Tie Up Loose Ends in Your Family Tree

Here's how my combo of genealogy tools is tying up a long list of loose ends.

I'm ready to place almost every 19th century inhabitant of Grandpa's town into my family tree. Then it's on to each of my other ancestral hometowns.

Here's how I'm bringing all my obsessive processes together in one genealogical symphony.

Get yourself armed with knowledge and ready to find the documents you're missing.

Instrument 1: Vital Records

I've downloaded vast collections of Italian vital records from my ancestors' hometowns. They're arranged on my computer by province, then by town. For each town I have individual folders for:

• each year's birth records
• each year's death records, and
• each year's marriage records.

This simplifies searching.

Instrument 2: File Naming

It didn't take as long as you'd think to rename each image file, adding the subject's name. This is a birth record image containing 2 facing pages: 101577262_00006.jpg. I want to keep that number because it identifies the URL of the original file online. But I want to add the names of the 2 babies shown in the image. So I renamed the file 101577262_00006 Donato Petoscello & Maria Carmela Basile.jpg.

When the last name is important in my family, I include the subject's father's name. That helps me locate the right document faster. For example, 101577262_00020.jpg became 101577262_00020 Maria Teresa Pozzuto di Francesco & Giuseppantonio Zeolla di Giovanni.jpg. The "di" is Italian for "child of" and a handy shorthand.

Instrument 3: Document Tracker

As my family tree grew, I wanted an easy way to see which documents I had and didn't have for any given person. I made a document tracker spreadsheet. It's part of my process to record each document I find in the spreadsheet.

I labelled the last column "Need to find." That's where I keep list which documents I'm missing for each person in the list. It doesn't include everyone in my tree—only those with a document I found.

Instrument 4: Everything

This PC program is my new genealogy secret weapon. (Mac users may want to try NeoFinder.) It gives me Everything I need to locate any re-named document image on my computer.

Conducting the Orchestra

My process is this:

• Go through my document tracker, focusing on names from my grandfather's town.
• Find people who are missing a vital record: birth, marriage, or death.
• Search for the missing document with the Everything program.
• If found, add the document to the family tree and mark it as complete in the document tracker.
• If not found, mark it as "out of range" in the document tracker.

Here's an example:

Prepare for your search by gathering the necessary clues.

• Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile was born in Colle Sannita on 1 Oct 1876. I have his birth record. He married twice. A clerk wrote the marriage dates and his wives' names on his birth record. Both marriage records (1896 and 1919) are out of the range of available records. It's his death record I want to find.
• Experience tells me his death record will not have his full name: Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile. I need to know which name he used. I have the 1933 marriage record for his daughter. It says her father is Angelo Basile, and he's still alive. So I need a death record for an Angelo Basile who died in 1933 or later. (The death records in the collection end in 1942.)
• I use my new favorite program, Everything, to search for "Angelo Basile". I sort the results by the Path column so I can look only for a death record between 1933 and 1942.
• There are 3 choices. The first one is no good because his father is Donato. I'm looking for the son of Giovannantonio.
• The next death record, from 1940, is Angelo Basile, the son of Luigi. That's the wrong man.
• The final death record, from 1941, is Angelo Basile, the son of Giovanni (gasp!). His mother was Maria Franza. And his 2nd wife was Angelamaria Basile. This is, in fact, the death record I needed for Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile.
• Now I can:
  
  • add the facts to my family tree
  • crop the image
  • annotate the image
  • add it to my tree, and
  • create a source citation
• Then I can update Angelo in my document tracker. His final note is "out of range: marriages" because they are not available. I hope they will be in the future. If this were his last missing document, I would put "n/a" in his "Need to find" column.

This victory inspires me to continue down the list. Combining (1) renamed vital record files, (2) the Everything program, and (3) my document tracker, I'll close the book on everyone from this town. Eventually.

If you aren't as obsessive about your entire ancestral town as I am, read on.

If you decide to use a document tracker, you'll know what you have and what you're missing for everyone in your family tree. In 2019 I searched for missing census records for all the Americans in my family tree. That focus helped me close the book on many families.

Go through your people alphabetically or by document type. Search for every missing census sheet or ship manifest or draft registration card. Take the time to do another search, and you'll have several successes.

I'm obsessed with my Italian towns, so I'm focusing on one town at a time. I will document all my towns, given enough time. And that, my friends, is my symphony of genealogy tools reaching its crescendo.

Add Value to Your Family Tree Documents

Prove to everyone that you've done your genealogy homework.

My husband gave me Family Tree Maker software and an Ancestry subscription as a birthday gift in 2002. It was a big step forward from scribbling my family history in notebooks.

Years later Ancestry.com introduced tree synchronization. It was great for people like me who worked on their desktop and wanted their online tree to show their progress.

Because I work in the desktop software, I never used my online family tree the way so many people do. I never accept hints, and I never add online documents to my online tree. That means you can't click a document in my online tree and go see the original for yourself.

I don't want my family tree to give the impression that I'm not doing quality genealogy research. So, when you visit my family tree on Ancestry.com, you'll see my document images offer a ton of information. I give each image (vital record, census sheet, ship manifest, etc.) detailed facts.

The images themselves offer everything you need to view the original and cite the source. If you've ever taken a close look at a potential cousin's tree, I'll bet you wished they gave you more proof.

Let's say you're looking on any genealogy website at someone's family tree. The tree includes a possible member of your family in the 1930 U.S. census, but you need proof. Is it your relative? You'd know for sure if he's your relative if you could read the street address. But it isn't on the page. Maybe it's on the next page.

That's why adding value to your documents is so important. I like to make sure anyone finding one of my documents can see:

• what the document is
• who the document shows
• when the event happened
• where the document came from
• how to cite the document
• how to view the original document

Vital Record Example

Carefully planned document annotations make your online tree highly valuable.

Most of the people in my family tree lived in Italy between the late 1600s and the early 1900s. I find their documents in an online collection of Italian vital records. My Italian vital records use a simple fact format. For example:

• Caption: 1876 birth record for Giovanni Sarracino, recorded in 1898—that tells you what the document is (an 1876 birth record) and who the document shows (Giovanni Sarracino)
• Date: 22 Oct 1876—that tells you when the event (the birth) happened
• Description: From the Benevento State Archives: http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+italiano/SantAngelo+a+Cupolo/Nati/1898/8287/101687791_00079.jpg.html—that tells you where the document came from (the Benevento State Archives, also known as the Archivio di Stato di Benevento), how to cite the document, and how to view the original document (follow the link)

My more recent relatives have the typical U.S. documents:

• census records
• draft registration cards
• ship manifests, etc.

Each type of document has basic facts I add to the image.

Census Record Example

The image file's data carries over to Family Tree Maker. Additional facts carry over to Ancestry.com.

Here is the 1910 census for my great grandfather.

• Caption: 1910 census for Giovanni Sarracino and family, p1 (the family is spread across 2 pages)
• Date: 26 Apr 1910
• Categories: Census
• Description: This is where you'll find a lot of information. I try to follow a format:
  
  • lines 96-100 (where to look on the page for this family)
  • 1910 United States Federal Census (the title of the document collection)
  • New York / New York / Bronx Assembly District 33 / District 1514 (where to find this page in the larger collection)
  • supervisor's district 1, enumeration district 1514, sheet 26B (specific, identifying facts located on the page)
  • image 52 of 74 (the exact location of this page in the collection online)
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/4449901_00057?pid=18419163 (the URL of the image)
  • Source Citation: Year: 1910; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 33, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1000; Page: 26B; Enumeration District: 1514; FHL microfilm: 1375013 (the source citation provided by the website where I found this document)
  • Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006 (more information provided by the website where I found this document)

Ship Manifest Example

Filling in all the details means someone finding your saved genealogy documents has hit paydirt.

Here's the 1898 ship manifest showing my great grandparents' arrival in America:

• Caption: 1899 immigration record for Giovanni Sarracino and Maria Rosa Saviano
• Date: 24 Jul 1899
• Categories: Immigration/Travel
• Description:
  
  • lines 6 and 7 (Maria Rosa was pregnant with Maria Carmina)
  • New York, Passenger Lists, Roll / T715, 1897-1957 / 0001-1000 / Roll 0075
  • image 719 of 1062
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7488/NYT715_75-0719
  • Source citation: Year: 1899; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0075; Lines: 6-7; Page Number: 222

If you find one of my genealogy documents in an online search, I want you to have every last bit of information you need. You can take it as is, or go to the original location, and cite that source.

Yes, it's a lot of work. I have 6,647 media items in my family tree, and it grows nearly every day. But you've got to keep the long-game in mind. Your family tree is your legacy. You don't want your legacy to be half-baked, incomplete, or unsubstantiated.

My suggestion is to develop your format and stick to it going forward. Then, when you add a new document to someone in your family tree, revisit their previous documents. Give them a facelift while you're there. You'll be constantly polishing your genealogy work, making it better and better. Now that's a legacy.

And speaking of document images:

• 7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement
• 10-Minute Genealogy Tasks You Can Do
• 3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree

My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives

Attention dead ends in my family tree: I'm coming after you with my new secret weapon. You cannot hide.

A few days ago I felt disappointed with my system for finding vital records. I've got Grandpa's hometown's vital records on my computer, downloaded from the Italian Antenati website. I spent a lot of time renaming each file to include the name of the person who was born, died, or got married on that date. That makes the files searchable with Window File Explorer.

I felt disappointed for a few reasons:

• Windows File Explorer can't do a restricted search. If I search for Pietro Iamarino (Grandpa), the results include files with both Pietro and Iamarino. They're not necessarily together. I can get too many useless results. Adding quotes, "Pietro Iamarino", doesn't help.
• When there are a lot of results, I can't tell them apart. I may be looking for a death record from the 1840s, but many of the results are birth and marriage records. I wish I could tell which is which without opening them all.
• The search term ("Pietro Iamarino") isn't highlighted in the results when I view them as a list.

I needed a better way to search my document collection.

Then I remembered a program called Everything. A couple of years ago, I wanted to search my computer for files to add to my weekly computer backup. I needed to know which files were new or updated since my last backup. Computer professionals recommended a program called Everything. In the end, I developed another system for my backups instead of using Everything. (NOTE: This is a PC-only program, as so many are. Maybe Finder already does what you need.)

Because I knew how I would have names these images, my secret weapon found the photos instantly.

Could I use Everything to search for names in my document collection? I went to the CNET website to download Everything again. My first test worked like a charm. My cousin has been texting me old family photos, and a couple of them looked familiar. I wondered, did she give me these already? There was a photo of my Uncle Al leaning on a car, and a pigeon coop on the rooftop of my mom's old building. I searched Everything for "SarracinoAlfredo" (that's how I would have named it). I found SarracinoAlfredoLeaningOnCar.jpg. That was it! I searched for "pigeon" and found "PigeonCoop260E151stStreetBronxNY." That was it, too!

Then came my Aha moment. Could Everything give me the search features that were missing from File Explorer? Yes, it could!

If I put an exact name in quotes, Everything gives me only that exact name, highlighted in bold. Better yet, I can see the full file path of each document. I can click the Path column to sort by the file location. Then I can pick out, say, the death records between 1815 and 1830. What a time saver!

This PC program solves the problem, giving me precise search results.

I'm still working hard on the family tree of my latest DNA match. I found that both her parents are my 6th cousins on my dad's side, and she is a DNA match to both my parents. I desperately want to find one of her ancestors with some connection to my mom's family.

Now I can focus on each dead-end branch in her tree. I can use Everything, my secret weapon, to find every document for a particular person. I've been looking at one family name, hoping it may lead to my mom. It's an uncommon name in the town. I can quickly generate a list of every document with that name and track them down.

I can search across all my genealogy documents and find exactly who I need.

There's no need to use quotation marks when searching for a single name. And sometimes I'm not sure the name on a death record will match the name on a birth record. If she's Maria Iamarino on her death record, she may be Maria Teresa Iamarino on her birth record. A search for "Maria Iamarino" (with quotes) won't show Maria Teresa Iamarino, but a search for Maria Iamarino (without quotes) will.

In a couple of days I used Everything to find tons of documents that were missing from my family tree. I'm breaking down brick walls left and right. I'm inspired to keep renaming the files from my other towns, not just Grandpa Iamarino's town.

I know you don't all have Italian ancestors. And you may not have huge collections of vital records available to you. But I'll bet you have photos and genealogy records scattered across your computer. Every time my mom asks me for a specific family photo, I struggle to find it. Now it's so much easier.

I've just scratched the surface with Everything. I'm sure there's much more it can do for me and you. Meanwhile, I've got so many loose ends I can tie up!

Focus on Goals for a Better Family Tree

Your reasons for dabbling in genealogy can change over time.

My family tree has almost 24,000 people. You may think I'm swallowing up other people's family trees. Nope. Never ever would I do that.

Two years ago I wrote about how and when to cut a branch off your family tree. I cut my sister-in-law's entire family out of my tree because:

• I didn't intend to work on them anymore.
• People kept asking me about them—and they're not mine.
• I had a new focus for my family tree.

Trimming that big branch off my family tree let me sharpen my genealogy focus.

Having a clear reason for doing genealogy makes it more rewarding.

You see, all my ancestors came from a 10-mile radius in Italy. They came from small towns with windy roads leading in and out. I soon found that the families intermarried. Almost everyone in these little towns had a connection to me.

I discovered this by reading the vital records from my grandfather's hometown. (They ranged from 1809 to 1860). When I began my research, I knew almost nothing about his family. His parents were Giovanni Leone and Mariangela Iammucci, and he had a brother Noah and a sister Eve. (That's pretty funny since his name was Adam.)

The only way to tell which Leone and Iammucci families were mine was to document everyone. In the end, I identified some of my grandfather's 4th great grandparents. And I had added 10,000 people to my family tree.

I spent 5 years researching the town (2007–2012). The whole time, I was thinking, "I can't wait to do my other grandfather's town!"

Fast-forward to 2017. The vital records I documented by viewing terrible-quality microfilm were online. Their quality was fantastic. And the documents went way beyond the 1860 limit of the microfilm I saw. My other ancestral towns were available, too. It's all free and downloadable. (See "How to Use the Online Italian Genealogy Archives.")

The availability of these records sharpened my focus. My mission is to document all the connections among the people in my ancestral hometowns. My paternal grandparents were 3rd cousins. Now I have the vital records to back up that fact. My parents share DNA. Right now I'm exploring every branch of a DNA match's family tree because she matches both my parents. Each of her parents is my 6th cousin. Most of them come from my Iamarino hometown—my dad's side. Can I find a marriage in her family tree that draws in someone from my mom's ancestral hometowns? That's the goal.

Much like the little tree my husband pruned 2 years ago, my family tree is thriving. Cutting out the excess and putting energy into my priorities is key.

Trimming my family tree sharpened my focus and my goals.

Here are some focus-finding ideas to consider.

Goals Can Drive Your Research

Do you have specific goals for your genealogy research? One of my goals is to learn the names of all the families from my ancestral hometowns. These towns are my heart and soul. Learning their names, and finding their life events, gives me a joy I can't describe.

You Have More Cousins Than You Know

Are you interested in finding your ancestors' descendants? My 2nd great grandfather, Antonio Saviano, was my first ancestor to come to America. He had 4 children who lived to adulthood. Those 4 children had 21 children who lived to adulthood. That makes a ton of cousins, many of whom I've never met.

Imagine tracing the descendants of your 3rd or 4th great grandparents. Where will their descendants lead you?

DNA Unlocks Unknown Relationships

Do you want to figure out your relationship to your DNA matches? I've gotten in touch with cousins I never knew—or whose names I knew but I'd never met.

You need to make your tree as wide as possible to find the connection. Don't add your great grandparents to your tree and move on. Find their siblings. Who did they marry? What were the names of their children? Those families will tie you to your DNA matches.

I mentioned that both my DNA match's parents are my 6th cousins. That means we share 5th great grandparents. I needed to work all the 5th great aunts and uncles into my family tree. A wider tree will give you far more connections.

If you focus on your reasons for building your family tree, that focus will guide your process.

My focus is to connect everyone I can by using available Italian vital records. When it comes to my family in America, I have an in-law rule to keep me on track. Let's say my second cousin's husband is in my family tree. I'm not going to document him (the in-law) beyond his birth and marriage dates and the names of his parents. I'm not putting his siblings or his grandparents in my tree—even if I know their names. Unless my cousin asks me to research their spouse, they get cut off at their parents.

That's why I cut out my sister-in-law's 600-person branch. (I made them a separate tree.) It's why I removed the siblings and grandparents from more distant cousins' spouses. Focus.

Genealogy is a never-ending puzzle. An interesting, entertaining, educational hobby. Find your focus—your purpose—and you'll have a stronger family tree.

Why Our Ancestors Marched Hours-Old Babies into Town

Were government regulations the reason so many infants died?

It was a surprise to see where my grandfather and 2 great grandfathers were born. The address is right on their birth records. I knew the Iamarino family had land and several houses well outside of the center of town. Why were they born right near the church?

If they were modern-day Americans, they might move to a bigger, better house. But this was the late 1800s–early 1900s. They didn't move.

The solution to this mystery came from my cousin in Italy. Her sister still lives on the old Iamarino land, far from the center of town. My cousin told me that in the old days, when a woman knew she was going to give birth soon, she would go to a house closer to town. It may have been a house that the family kept for this purpose.

If you have to walk a newborn infant into town, the baby may as well be born close to town hall.

The woman needed to be close to a midwife when her time came. She couldn't wait hours and hours while someone rode a mule into town to fetch the midwife. This is why my ancestors were both born at Via Casale, 36, but their families lived a very, very long ride away.

The idea of a convenient place to give birth helped solve another mystery. I always wondered how new fathers in the old days could take a newborn baby to the town hall to record their birth. And then trot them over to the church to for baptism. When I had babies, they weren't supposed to go outside for at least a week. You took them home from the hospital and stayed put.

But what if the babies were born in a convenient house, close to the town hall and the church? The newborn's journey would be much easier. And less likely to lead to their death.

A father, midwife, or close relative had to report a birth to the mayor's office right away. My ancestors didn't report my great grandfather Giovanni's 1876 birth until 1898! They had to report it then so Giovanni could get married. This involved extra paperwork and probably a fine. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon his birth record in the year of his marriage.

I created an online map a while ago to plot many of my Bronx, New York, relatives based on their U.S. census records. It was interesting to see, and fun to imagine, so many relatives living within a few square blocks.

Now I'm wondering how many of my relatives were born in the same convenient birth houses. I can click through street addresses I've recorded in Family Tree Maker. I want to find houses where lots of babies were born.

I focused on the streets I knew were close to the center of town. One address, viewed in Google Street View, has its front door cemented shut. The nearby houses range from lovely to under renovation to flat-out ruins.

Family Tree Maker tells me I have recorded births and deaths of 24 people at this address. The dates range from 1877 to 1902, and they all have one thing in common. All 24 people have the last name Pozzuto.

I have a ton of people named Pozzuto in my family tree because I sought them out. This is a last name that has some connection to both of my parents. I located all the Pozzuto vital records in my downloaded Italian records collection. I worked most of them into my family tree. These 24 are not from the same nuclear family. Maybe this house was the preferred birthing place for an extended Pozzuto family.

Were all of your rural ancestors born at home, or did they have a special place in town?

What were the legal requirements for reporting a birth in your ancestral home? To find out, go to the Family Search Wiki. In the search field, enter "civil registration" along with your ancestors' country.

The wiki page for your country should begin with some historical background. Look for the year when the country began enforcing civil birth registration. Italy began civil record keeping in 1809 on Napoleon's order. (He was busy taking over the country at that time.) England began civil record keeping in July 1837. Before these dates, they may have recorded your ancestor's birth at the church. Being French is a good deal because their civil records start in 1792. If your ancestors are German, the beginning of record keeping depends on their exact area. But it was mandatory in all German states beginning in 1876.

I don't think you'll read anything about midwives' practices in the wiki. But as you discover birth records for your family members, check the document for an address. You may find that many members of an extended family have their very first address in common.

Who Is This Man Who Isn't My Uncle?

Sometimes a rabbit hole is well worth the tumble.

I let a mistake guide my research this past Sunday. I must have been enjoying myself because I managed to forget it was my wedding anniversary. Again.

Here's what happened. I was randomly choosing people in my family tree and checking if they had good source citations. I want to bring all my source citations up to my new standards. I was working on my 2nd great uncle, Giuseppantonio Iamarino, who has a bunch of U.S. documents.

Then I noticed an error. He had arrived in America in 1903 and I had his 1920 census. But I'd also attached an immigration record from 1920—a few months after the census. That couldn't be him, could it?

I checked the facts on the ship manifest. The name and age were a match, and it mentioned his wife Libera back in his hometown. Aside from the date, the only fact that didn't fit my uncle was his destination: Girard, Ohio. My 2nd great uncle never left New York City.

If the document facts don't fit your person, what do you do?

Who was the Giuseppantonio Iamarino on this ship manifest? Was it a coincidence that Girard, Ohio, is where my great grandfather lived? And where my father was born?

I turned to my collection vital records from Colle Sannita, Italy. I needed to find a Giuseppantonio Iamarino, born around 1876, who married a woman named Libera. There was only one good candidate, and he was not in my family tree.

Giuseppe Antonio Iamarino, born on 10 Jan 1876, was the son of Salvatore Iamarino and Costanza Nigro. Giuseppe's father was 30 years old at the time, so I jumped to the 1846 birth records.

I found Salvatore Iamarino's birth record. When I saw the names of his parents, I found they were already in my tree. His father, Giovannantonio Iamarino, is my 2nd cousin 5 times removed.

Anyone with that name definitely gets a spot in my family tree.

The man from the wrongly attached 1920 ship manifest was my 4th cousin 3 times removed. The ship manifest says Giuseppantonio was going to Girard, Ohio, to join his cousin with the last name Piccirillo. I eventually found out Piccirillo is the last name of Giuseppantonio's mother-in-law.

What else could I find? Which other documents and names could I add to firm up this branch of my family tree? Giuseppantonio's 1876 birth record had 2 big clues for me:

• He married Liberantonia Nigro (the Libera from the ship manifest) on 12 Oct 1899 in Colle Sannita.
• He married Maria Teresa Mutino on 8 August 1935 in Colle Sannita.

I'm very familiar with my Italian document collections. I knew that the 1899 marriage record would not be available. But, since Liberantonio died between 1920 and 1935, I could find her death record. It would tell me her age and her parents' names. Then I could find her birth record and her parents' marriage record.

I could find the 1935 marriage record for Giuseppantonio and Maria Teresa Mutino. That would tell me her parents' names so I could climb her family tree.

And then there were Giuseppantonio's parents, Salvatore and Concetta Nigro. Their marriage would not be in the document collection. But I found Concetta's 1937 death record. That gave me her age and parents' names. I discovered her full name was Maria Concetta Pasqualina Nigro. Her parents weren't in my tree yet, but her grandparents were.

I kept going. I searched for records for Concetta's grandparents, and I started seeing familiar names. Something strange was happening. Concetta (Salvatore Iamarino's wife) and Liberantonia (Giuseppantonio Iamarino's wife) were 1st cousins. Their fathers were brothers.

But wait. There's more! The father of these 2 brothers was Giuseppantonio Nigro. When his 1st wife died, he married Margherita Callara. They were in-laws. Giuseppantonio's daughter-in-law's mother was Margherita. And Margherita's son-in-law's father was Giuseppantonio.

This family tree branch just turned into a pretzel!

Just when I thought I'd make a terrible mistake, I realized what was going on in this family.

My little mission to find the man on a ship manifest added dozens of people to my family tree. They each opened more avenues to explore. Giuseppantonio's (from the ship manifest) 2nd wife had 2 husbands before him. Remember that this pre-1970s Italy. You remarried only after your spouse died.

She buried her 1906 husband and her 1909 husband before marrying Giuseppantonio Iamarino. She and her 2 previous husbands open up many more exploration routes. It's time to get all "Lewis and Clark" on them.

I believe I can take nearly anyone from these old vital records and find them a place in my family tree. I want to keep exploring these new avenues. Which personal milestone or national holiday will I forget this time?

Step-by-Step Source Citations for Your Family Tree

Any genealogy task is less daunting when you break down the steps.

You know more about genealogy research now than when you started. If you were finding your first census records today, you'd handle them better than you did way back when.

Why not double back and improve your early source citations? If that seems overwhelming, break it into logical chunks. Divide up the work by:

• Document type. Handle all your census records a year at a time. Or your ship manifests, a decade at a time.
• Family group. Who is your first-born immigrant ancestor? Work your way down their direct-line descendants.
• Direct lineage. Forget all the cousins for the moment. Climb your tree one direct ancestor at a time, improving their source citations as you go.

I used to recommend a very simple source citation method. But when my Family Tree Maker file got corrupted, it was an opportunity to do a much better job with my sources. I learned about a feature I hadn't understood before, and I wanted to use it.

My favorite source citations to do are for my thousands of Italian vital records. It's an easy process, and I can complete a lot of them in one sitting.

Develop and stick to a thorough routine when you add a new document image to your family tree.

Document-Handling Process

To make citing your source easier, stick to a multi-step process each time you find a new document. Here's my process:

1. Download the document to your computer and name it according to your style. My style is LastnameFirstnameTypeYear.jpg. My great grandfather's birth record is IamarinoFrancescoBirth1878.jpg. For a marriage record, I include both names: IamarinoFrancescoPillaLiberaMarriage1901.jpg.
2. Crop and enhance the image. If there is more than one document in the image, crop out the ones that aren't your family member. And I'll bet the document could use more contrast. I leave census sheets and ship manifests as is. But I enhanced and crop every vital record.
3. Add a title and comments to the image's file properties. This step is the key to making your source citations easy to create. If the title begins with a year, all document images appear in chronological order in your tree. "1878 birth record for Francesco Iamarino." The comments field includes the source of the image and its URL. My format is "From the [Italian Province] State Archives: [URL]."
4. Place the processed document image in your family tree, attached to the person(s) in the document.
5. File the image in the proper folder. I file documents by their type. Some of you may file by family name.
6. Make note of the image in a document tracker. This gives you a quick view of what you have and what you need for any given person.

When it comes to U.S. census sheets or ship manifests, I add quite a bit more to the image file's comments field. Most of my U.S. records come from Ancestry.com. I click the title of the document in the search results so I can copy the source citation and details from that page. Then I continue to the image for more details to record.

The source citation details you need are available when you find that document online.

Here's the comments field from my grandfather's 1920 ship manifest:

line 10; New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957; Roll - T715, 1897-1957 - 2001-3000 - Roll 2883; S.S. Lapland; image 308 of 627

https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7488/NYT715_2883-0308?pid=4016695711

Source Citation:
Year: 1920; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 2883; Line: 10; Page Number: 161

Source Information:
Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

And here's Grandpa's 1930 census:

lines 88-90; 1930 United States Federal Census; Ohio - Trumbull - Girard - District 0045; supervisor's district 8, enumeration district 78-45, ward of city 3, sheet 16B; image 32 of 36

https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6224/4661200_00206?pid=68966506

Source Citation:
Year: 1930; Census Place: Girard, Trumbull, Ohio; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0045; FHL microfilm: 2341618

Source Information:
Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

Source Citation Creation

Since my images have all this wonderful info attached to them, it's easy to build the source citation. Let's take Grandpa's 1920 ship manifest as an example. I'm using Family Tree Maker as my software.

1. Copy the document image's entire comments field to a temporary text file.
2. Click to add a new source citation for the immigration fact.
3. Select the document collection title from your list of existing sources. This one is "New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957." (If it isn't in your list, you'll need to create it now.)
4. Remember that temporary text file you created? Paste the Source Citation and Source Information text into the appropriate fields in the source template. Paste the URL in the Web address field.
5. Before saving your citation, you can add the document image to the citation itself. This was the feature I learned only recently that I like so much. Click the Media tab in the source template. Link to the document image you've already placed in your family tree.
6. Save and close your source template.

Did you record more than one fact from the same document? I have the date Grandpa's ship left Naples and the date it arrived in New York City as 2 facts. You can copy the source citation you created and paste it as a source for all the related facts.

Your family tree software does all it can to simplify the creation of source citations.

It's a big job, I know. A really big job. But here's how I see it. I do some genealogy work every single day. Sometimes I'm not in the mood for that whole process of finding and processing a document. That's when I'll choose an easier task. Like renaming the files in my huge collection of Italian vital records. Or improving some sub-set of source citations. I like having tasks to choose from that need different levels of effort.

Choose how you'd like to divide and conquer this big task: by family group, by document type, by direct lineage. Then do it, because the benefits are worth it. Your well-sourced family tree is far more reliable than an unsourced tree. People "borrowing" relatives from other trees will choose your sourced facts every time. DNA matches who view your tree will see that your family tree is correct, and has the receipts to prove it.

I'll bet your well-crafted source citations will inspire you to push on and get the job done.