How to Find Distant Cousins on Facebook

I belong to a Facebook group devoted to my Grandpa's hometown of Colle Sannita, Italy. Once in a while someone will post an old photo of their ancestor. With a little bit of information, I can work that ancestor into my extended family tree.

I also belong to a Facebook group devoted to my parents' childhood neighborhood in the Bronx, New York. Some people in the group have last names I recognize as being from my Grandpa's hometown. Three of these group members have each led me on day-long research quests. Each one of them is now in my family tree and excited by their newfound family trees.

This is my favorite hobby right now! In one case, the person from my parents' old neighborhood turned out to be my 7th cousin. In other cases, the relationship was more distant, but added more depth to my family tree.

With your genealogy skills, Facebook can expand your family tree.

Find Some Groups

If you know your ancestors' hometown in the "old country," search Facebook for the town name. Search for the old neighborhoods, or your family's old church or synagogue.

With our ability to dig up the past, we genealogists need to tread lightly. Don't announce that you want to investigate everyone's family. Be subtle and let things evolve.

Last week a person in the Bronx Facebook group posted a photo. I mentioned that his family must be from Colle Sannita because of his last name. He responded, yes, you're right! He offered a few more of the last names in his family. I knew they were all from that same town.

When he asked me how I knew his family was from there, I told him about my Grandpa and posted his 1927 wedding photo. Then the man with the Colle Sannita last name told me something very surprising. My grandparents were his godparents! He said he visited them often.

This started a conversation in the group. A couple more people said their parents came from Colle Sannita. I offered to build a tree for one, which I did. The conversation continued, and I learned enough to identify the first man's ancestors. I didn't pry. I let it evolve.

Love it or hate it, Facebook has a lot to offer your family tree.

Pay Attention to Your Cousins

If you can't find a group for the old neighborhood or the old towns, keep your eyes open. I spotted a response to a photo from my distant cousin (we're friends who interact a lot). I gathered that the man who posted the photo is her cousin. I picked up clues and fit my cousin's cousin into my family tree. He turned out to be my 7th cousin once removed.

Since I don't know this man, I'll reach out to the cousin I know and tell her what I've found. She can introduce me to him so I don't come off as a crazy stranger.

Where to Start

When the 1950 U.S. Federal Census is released in April 2022, we won't need to reach quite as far back to begin this type of search. But for now, we can start by finding the right family in the 1940 census.

Let's take the case of the man with the Colle Sannita last name. He mentioned his parents' names, and I knew he lived near my parents. That helped me find him as a little boy in the census.

When you've identified the family, keep climbing. If the parents are immigrants, look for a ship manifest or naturalization papers. World War I and II draft registration cards are a great help. They give you a reliable birth date, and sometimes a town of birth.

With a bit of work, I found the man's parents' birth dates in U.S. naturalization papers and a draft registration card. Then I found birth records for his grandparents in Italy. Next, I worked to fit everyone into my large family tree.

In the end, I found 11 different relationships to this man. All 11 are weird, like "nephew of wife of 3rd cousin 3x removed." But I'd guess my Grandpa knew this man's parents back in the old country.

I have an ace-in-the-hole that makes this hobby more fun. I've put in the time to make all available Colle Sannita vital records searchable on my computer. Because I have this awesome database—something no one else has—I'm eager to put it to good use. You can still tackle a project like this without such a database. It'll just take longer.

What's in it for you? Well, I found out a lot of Grandpa's neighbors from Italy lived in his neighborhood in the Bronx. Without these U.S. people I found on Facebook, I wouldn't know their ancestors ever left Italy. They would be dead ends in my database.

Facebook is a great place for genealogy clues. Look around for good groups and keep your eyes open for people reminiscing about family.

Provide the Proof and Change Their Minds

It's funny when a family tree on Ancestry uses my cropped Italian birth record as a person's profile image. I didn't get that idea from anyone. I did it for myself so I'd know I have a proof document for the person.

I laughed out loud when I saw a tree using a photo I took of the rare book some information came from. If I see that photo, it's a sure sign I need to investigate that family tree.

Unrelated Relatives

If you've been doing this for a while, I'll bet you've found a tree that gets part of your family all wrong. I found one when a Potential Father / Potential Mother hint appeared on Ancestry. A branch of my family comes from a tiny Italian town that wasn't documented before 1861. I even hired a pair of Italian researchers to find anything more for me. My dead ends are in that town due to lack of records.

One DNA cousin thought she found the parents and siblings of my 3rd great grandmother. That's why I had a hint. But the supposed parents and siblings came from a different province than my family. They lived 3 hours away by car on paved roads. Imagine how far that was in a mule cart on dirt paths.

The reason I found this clear mistake was because of an email. A woman who found that same DNA match's tree was lead to believe that my family was her family. She bought into the Potential Father / Potential Mother hint, too. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Genealogy takes practice.

Family tree mistakes can spread like wildfire. Track down the proof, and they'll want to fix their errors.

Setting the Record Straight

Does it bother you when people borrow your research and put it in their family tree—incorrectly? Are you unhappy they've copied your photos—especially if you recently made your photos private?

Long ago I told a new genealogist that my grandfather is not part of her family. It took a while, but she removed him from her family tree. Most of the time we aren't this lucky.

Writing a "cease and desist" message usually won't solve the problem. If you want to set things straight, there's only one way to handle it. Document their real family.

So, when a woman wrote to me with a proposed connection that made us 4th cousins, I had to do the work. I wanted to find out from actual documents who her great grandparents really were.

I began with a 1902 ship manifest for the wife, sailing to Boston with her son to meet her husband. Their names and the husband's U.S. address told me this was the right family. The manifest said the woman and child last lived in Pietrabbondante, Isernia, Italy. That's also a 3-hour car ride from my ancestral hometown.

I searched the Pietrabbondante vital records on the Antenati website. I discovered the husband, wife, and child were not born there. I thought at least one of them would be.

Since I was stuck, I looked at Pietrabbondante on Google Maps. I randomly chose the town on its eastern border. It's called Poggio Sannita now, but it used to be Caccavone. I went to the Poggio Sannita records on the Antenati website and straight to the 1897 marriages. That's the year my not-cousin believes they married.

Sure enough, I found their marriage record! Here I discovered that the husband was born one more town to the east, but he and his parents now lived in Caccavone. The wife was born in Caccavone and still lived there with her parents.

This one document was proof that the woman who wrote to me had been seriously led astray. I went on to find the birth records for her great grandparents and their first-born child. Thanks to those records, I could tell her the names of four of her 2nd great grandparents, and some of their fathers.

Finally, I told her how I would proceed to build the family tree further back. Work backwards from the year before her great grandparents were born. Search year-by-year for their parents' marriage records. Then find the 2nd great grandparents' birth records. And maybe their parents' marriage records. She was overjoyed by the news.

Prove the truth to the owner of an incorrect family tree, and they'll want to delete your people from their tree. Plus, you've helped turn their tree into a good clue for someone else.

Stay True to Your Genealogy Discipline

I dream about transcribing old Italian vital records. That's how much I love it. In fact, I don't enjoy U.S. censuses anymore. I'd much rather be working with my old Italians.

But a new project has come up. My son's girlfriend (let's call her V) lost her father. My son told her I'd want to do her family tree for her since she didn't know her ethnic background. V said she would like that.

I began with facts from her father's obituary. I had his parents' full names and his wife's maiden name.

I found V's grandparents right away. I discovered they had been in the same Pennsylvania county for many generations. This is the same county where V grew up. The same county where I raised my kids. The same county where V and my son live today.

Then I tapped into a few local histories that featured V's last name. In one document from the county's historical society, I found generations of V's family. As I dug into it, entering names into V's family tree, I found exactly what I was looking for. Her paternal immigrant ancestor!

Her 9th great grandfather (NINTH!) had come to America from France in 1715. He was a French Huguenot who joined the Quaker religion that was so common in his new homeland.

Let's step back a second. In my first session, I climbed all the way up to V's 9th great grandparents born in the late 1600s.

Did I feel joy about this rapid success? No. I mean, I was happy to find the unexpected source of V's Italian-sounding last name. But I was a little angry that it was all so easy to find.

I know the names of five of my 9th great grandparents. They came after years of research, and the help of an Italian historian from my Grandpa's hometown. But after very little time, I know the names of eight of V's 9th great grandparents.

What I really felt was jealousy. Is this how easy it can be for white people with deep, deep roots in America? My direct ancestors came to America between 1899 and 1920. That missing 1890 census never bothered me because my people weren't here yet! With V's family tree, I'm seeing for myself how far back you can go with records on Ancestry.com. For the first time, I'm looking at the early censuses with no names, just tick marks.

My first day working on her tree, I racked up ancestors so fast my head was spinning. I had to stop myself from going further.

Make sure all your family tree work reflects your best genealogy practices.

Why stop? Because I want to give V a family tree that shows all I've learned. I started this blog to encourage us all to be more professional with our genealogy research.

I've spent years developing a strict and thorough genealogy discipline. I want to give V the benefit of all I've learned. I want us all to apply the same discipline to someone else's family tree as we do to our own.

That's why I went back to the beginning. In this case, the beginning is the documentation I found for her grandparents.

• I downloaded each genealogy document as I found it.
• I gave it a logical file name and added pertinent facts to its file properties.
• I placed the image in Family Tree Maker and added the date of the document.
• I assigned it to a media category.
• I entered facts from the document into the tree and created the source citation.
• I shared the document, facts, and source citation with everyone mentioned in the document.
• I verified addresses from the documents by finding them on Google Maps.

In short, I used all my family tree-building discipline on someone else's family tree.

I love helping people find their ancestors among the Italian vital records. I treat their documents and family trees with as much discipline as I do my own. When I send them a batch of files, I want each jpg's file properties to include a file name and where the image came from.

It makes perfect sense to keep up your genealogy discipline for every family tree you work on. You're creating something for the ages. You're going to want people to pass it down—and rely on it. That's why you must take the extra steps to produce high-quality work every time.

As I said, I felt anger and jealousy over how easily V's family tree is coming together. But those aren't the only emotions I felt.

I felt gratitude when the genealogy community on Twitter solved a problem for me. One of V's great grandparents was an immigrant. On one census he said he was Austrian. On two other censuses he said he was German. But his World War II draft registration card said he was born in "Kofedesh" Hungary. So now he's Hungarian? I wanted to see Kofedesh on the map, but it didn't exist. At least, not with that spelling.

I put out the call to Twitter. Does anyone know what town sounds like Kofedesh? To my delight, @sosonkyrie found it almost immediately. He sent me a Wikipedia link about Kohlfidisch, Austria, that included a spoken pronunciation. What does Kohlfidisch sound like? Kofedesh!

As for the shifting nationality of V's great grandfather, that isn't surprising. His town was in Hungary when he registered for the WWII draft. It's in Austria now. And V's great grandfather was part of its German-speaking population. (Where are you from? It depends on the year.)

I feel one more emotion as I work on V's family tree. Guilt. I do some genealogy work every single day. I'm always advancing my project to document all the relationships in my ancestral hometowns. Now I feel guilty about not working on my own family tree.

Sometimes it feels as if I'm doing something wrong. Something bad. I'm ignoring my family tree. When those feelings take over, I take a "break" by working on my Italian vital records database. When U.S. census after U.S. census for V's family got to be too tedious, I went to my happy place. I renamed more downloaded Italian vital records to make them searchable.

I know my genealogy discipline will produce a robust family tree for V. And if she ever winds up creating my grandchild, guess who will inherit my work?

Keep the future in mind as you work on any family tree. Stay true to your strong genealogy discipline knowing it will always pay off.