The Method to My Genealogy Madness

On Saturday morning I mentioned to my husband that my family tree had reached exactly 60,500 people. That afternoon I had 60,854. In May I had a mere 57,238 people. "What changed?" my husband asked.

It's just my usual project. I'm piecing together every family from my Grandpa Leone's hometown of Baselice. That town in southern Italy is where I began this journey more than 15 years ago. Back then, I ordered microfilmed vital records through the Family History Center. I soon realized I needed to document everyone, and fit all the families together. Otherwise, how would I know each Leone and Iammucci's relationship to me?

The available microfilmed records at the time ended with 1860. Now the rest of the records are online on the Italian Antenati website. I have access to the 1861–1915 birth records (with a few years missing) and the 1931–1942 marriage and death records.

I've had all the 1809–1860 people and facts in my family tree for years. But I haven't yet scoured the newer documents for relationships. That's what I'm doing now. And I've only gotten through 1861–1866 so far. (Note: Many of my recent tree additions come from another town that I'm harvesting at the same time.)

Immerse yourself in your ancestor's hometown vital records to unlock all the details they hold.

How to Identify Every Family in Town

When I began, I knew my grandfather's parents' names, and that's it! I found my great grandfather's birth record to learn his parents' names. Then I searched the surrounding years' birth records for any siblings. I did the same for my great grandmother's family.

I kept going back in time, finding the parents' marriage records to learn their parents' names, and looking for siblings. Then I came forward in time, seeing who all the siblings married and finding their children. Next, I built out the families of everyone who married into my bloodline. It was clear that 99% of the people in town had a relationship through blood or marriage. Those who didn't usually came from another town.

My method with the 1860s birth records is this:

• I check each birth record in a given year one at a time to see if:
  • I have the child in my family tree already, or
  • I have the parents.
• After adding the baby to my tree, I find every other baby born to the same couple throughout the years and add them. (I use a Windows program called Everything to instantly search all the records on my computer.)
  
• If a birth record mentions a marriage date and spouse, I add the spouse, look for the couple's children, and find the spouse's parents and siblings.
• When I've exhausted all paths, or my head is swimming and I've lost my place, I go on to the next birth record in the given year.

As I move on to the next year, I'll find that I've recently added many of the children because of the process above. (Of course I'm tracking all my finds in a spreadsheet.)

You can build out an entire family easily once you have all the basic facts.

I can do all that pretty easily because of the preparation I did in the past. I downloaded all the document images for the town to my computer. (Today you have to download document images one at a time. Here's how.) Then I reviewed each one and renamed it. For a birth or death record, I include the name of the father. That way, I can search my computer for every Iammucci born to Antonio, for example.

Renaming the files is a great way to get familiar with all the names in a town. That helps you overcome bad handwriting.

If I hadn't downloaded and renamed all the document images, I wouldn't be able to move back and forth in time so easily. And that's how it was when I was viewing microfilm in a Family History Center. What I did then was add the main facts from each document to a text file. For each birth, I recorded:

• the baby's name, birth and baptism dates
• parents' names, ages, and occupations
• any other family names or addresses mentioned.

When I got home from the Family History Center, I began entering everything into Family Tree Maker to show all the connections. That's when I saw how the whole town was related.

Can't download all the records? You can still document your entire ancestral hometown by taking simple notes about each document you view.

How to Get Around Missing Document Years

Since there are no available marriage records for my town from 1861–1930, things can get a bit tougher. How can I be sure who is a baby's father when so many people in town have the same name?

But I know the ins and outs of the available documents. I know, for instance, that from 1866–1873, birth records often have the name of the baby's two grandfathers. That helps me identify the right mother and father. And I know that the death records from 1931–1942 tend to be very accurate with the decedent's age. I can't say that for most records.

That means if I can't be sure which of many Maria Cece's had this baby in 1865, I have to first look for all her other babies. Finding a record that includes Maria's father's name can set her apart from the others. And if I'm lucky enough to find a death record for someone I wasn't quite sure of, the names of their parents and spouse can seal the deal.

Last week I did some research for a woman with ancestors from northern Italy. World War I must have destroyed a ton of records up north. These towns are challenging, with huge chunks of years missing from the documentation.

But I managed to push the family lines back another generation. How? I searched death records to find all the relatives' whose birth and marriage records were destroyed. How thrilling it was to find the death record of the eldest-known relative with the family name. Now I had his parents' names. I got very lucky when I found his 1811 birth record as confirmation of the names. And learned the name of his grandfather, taking the tree back to about 1746.

Get familiar with your town's records and exhaust all possibilities. Then there's no limit to how far you can expand your family tree.

And speaking of vital records:

• Following the Documents from Marriage to Marriage
• Solve Genealogy Mysteries Step-by-Step
• Why My Family Tree is Exploding in Size

What Good Are Distant DNA Matches?

I've recently added more than a thousand people to my family tree from one town—Pesco Sannita, Italy. And I've barely begun to harvest the vital records. I'm eager to use the new families in my tree to connect to my unsolved DNA matches.

That's the exercise for today. I went to my DNA match list on Ancestry and searched for people with the name Pennucci in their trees. I chose that name because it's common in the town and my 3rd great grandmother was a Pennucci. I selected the first match who wasn't my father or someone from his 1st cousin's family.

I've looked at this match's tree before. It's a good one—46,234 people. But checking how his ethnicity compares to mine, I see that he's only a quarter Italian. That means a big chunk of his family tree has no connection to me.

My jumping-in point in his family tree is his great grandmother Immacolata. I recognize my match's last name (it's also his great grandfather's name), but it doesn't come from my target town. His grandmother falls into the sweet spot. Her 1902 Pesco Sannita birth record is available on the Italian ancestry website, Antenati. (See "How to Make the Best of the New Antenati Website.")

I pulled up Immacolata's birth record and discovered she's in my tree already. She and I don't have a blood relationship. Immacolata (who's mother was a Pennucci) is the 1st great grand niece of the wife of my 4th great uncle. I've already built Immacolata's family tree back 5 or 6 generations. What more can I do to establish a true relationship to this DNA match?

I realized Immacolata is in my tree because of a previous attempt to connect to this DNA match. Now I need to search the vital records for her siblings, aunts, and uncles to see where it takes me.

I get the impression some people think the only way to use the Antenati website is to search for a name. Not true. Not every record is searchable. You need to navigate to your town and to each year's index pages to scour them for the name you want.

But I'm the lunatic who downloaded entire towns when it was possible. Then I renamed each document image on my computer to make them truly searchable. For me, it's easy to search the vital records for someone's siblings, and their parents' siblings.

Swimming in the Same Gene Pool

I built out several families related directly to Immacolata with no breakthrough. Then I looked at our original relationship: 1st great grand niece of the wife of my 4th great uncle. Immacolata's 2nd great aunt Agnese married my 4th great uncle Giuseppe. That's something like "crossing the streams" in the Ghostbuster movies. Their marriage created people who carry DNA like mine and like my match's.

What I haven't mentioned yet is that this DNA match, the great grandson of Immacolata, is in my 5th–8th cousin range. We share only one segment of 17 cM. Our shared roots are in a remote town where families intermarried for centuries. There's a very good chance that instead of a pair of shared ancestors, we have DNA from the same community pool.

I've been thinking about this notion for a long time. I haven't put it out there because it seems evasive and hard to put into words. It started taking shape when tests showed that my parents share DNA—37 cM across 4 segments. They could be 3rd to 5th cousins. But they aren't. I can name their ancestors and they're all different. (See "When DNA Says You're Related, You Determine How.")

Here's what I think. My documented ancestors, going back to the late 1600s, lived in neighboring towns, laid out like links in a chain. Each town is small, and even with modern roads, it can be hard to get from one to the next. (I know from personal experience.) That led to centuries of intermarriage within the towns or between close towns.

Doesn't it make sense that deep roots in a small geographical area result in shared DNA?

All those neighboring towns produced generation after generation of people with shared DNA. You know how the big DNA companies compare your DNA sample to a reference panel? The panel consists of DNA from people with roots in one place for several hundred years. Well, that's me! Until my recent ancestors came to America, my people were tied to one spot for centuries.

Studies show that the characteristics of a place exist in its people's teeth and bones. Is that why you can "feel it in your bones" when you arrive at the place your ancestors came from? I believe my parents and I, and many of our distant DNA matches, share the characteristics of the place we come from. That's why we carry some identical DNA.

We've been simmering in the same pot for centuries!

My DNA match, great grandson of Immacolata, has DNA from a mixture of Pesco Sannita and a town 9 miles away—Molinara. I get all my DNA from a mixture of at least 7 towns in the same area. We have the very soil in common.

Adding Up Your Ancestral Roots

I took a tally of the birth places of my 1st through 3rd great grandparents—all 42 of them. Here's my percentage of roots in each town. (The 7th town, Circello, doesn't appear until a pair of my 4th great grandparents.)

• Colle Sannita 40.48%
• Baselice 23.81%
• Pastene 21.43%
• Pesco Sannita 7.14%
• Santa Paolina 4.76%
• Apice 2.38%

Seeing this list in order justifies the extensive research I've done. I've completely harvested the vital records of Colle Sannita and Baselice. I've worked everyone possible into my family tree. I've harvested Pastene's limited records, too. Now I'm working my way through Pesco Sannita. Obviously Santa Paolina and Apice will be next, then Circello.

This type of relationship to my distant DNA matches changes how I view them. I don't expect to find a common ancestor with most of them. But I do search their family trees for marriages without documentation. Immacolata and her family are in my tree, but there's no documentation of her marriage to a man from Molinara. It's my match's tree that holds that detail.

If your family tree has no non-parental events and few missing ancestors, you may ignore your DNA matches. I encourage you to review matches with decent-sized family trees. What are they good for? They may contain the marriage that brought your great aunt to a new country. They may help explain a great uncle who seemed to disappear from his hometown. They can extend your tree's dead ends.

Do Your DNA Ethnicity Results Make No Sense?

Two people contacted me lately about an odd ethnicity in their DNA results. The three of us share ancestry in my grandfather's hometown, so they wondered if I'm seeing what they're seeing. I'm not, but I have a few curious results, too.

That's why I was excited to join another Diahan Southard webinar titled "DNA Ethnicity Estimates: How to Actually Use Them!" One of the most important things I learned was, basically:

If your results show less than 5% of an unexpected ethnicity, it's probably not reliable.

Here's how to get a better idea of its reliability. I'll use AncestryDNA as an example, but most DNA websites have similar tools.

• Click on the unexpected ethnicity in your results. I chose my mother's unexpected 2% Portugal.
• This opens a panel that tells you a bit more, such as "Primarily located in Portugal; Also found in Spain." Their map tells me this ethnicity may cover Spain's whole west side.
• Now look at your percentage. In this case, it says 2% Portugal, but beneath that it says it "can range from 0% to 5%." That's right. It's as low as 0%.

I've documented my mother's ancestors in a small area of Southern Italy going back to the very early 1700s. Could someone have come from Spain or Portugal before that? Sure. And since FamilytreeDNA tells me I have 6% Iberian Peninsula, there probably is some ancient connection.

But that doesn't matter to my family tree, does it? I'll never make a documented connection to a centuries-old ancestor from Spain or Portugal.

My father's results have a laughable result of less than 1% Norway. Less than 1%! When I click it I see that his estimate is 0%, but it can range from 0% to 1%. That sounds like we can disregard it, don't you think? He has no Norway on MyHeritage.

In fact, all Mom and Dad's ethnicities but Southern Italy and Northern Italy could be as low as 0%. The same is true for me, with one exception. Even my Northern Italy could be as low as 0%.

Dig deeper into tiny, unexpected ethnicity results.

AncestryDNA says the DNA samples they test you against "divide the world into 84 overlapping regions and groups." I can see that what they're calling Southern Italy and Northern Italy overlap close to the area we come from. Taken together, this makes me confident we are Southern Italy, going back at least as far as the paper records go.

But, if you *don't* know where all your people came from for the last 300+ years, pay attention to your unexpected results. They may be the clue you need.

A Range of Ethnicity Results

Why would AncestryDNA tell me my Northern Italy is 8% but it may range from 0 to 39%? This is from their website:

"We compare your DNA to a reference panel made up of DNA from groups of people who have deep roots in one region. We look at 1,001 sections of your DNA and assign each section to the ethnicity region it looks most like."

They look at 1,001 different sections of your DNA! Your DNA isn't one homogeneous strand. Each section can show a different percentage of an ethnicity. That means that my 1,001 test results for Northern Italian DNA ranged from none to a high of 39%. The average of all the tests was 8%.

Where the Action Is

For a long time my AncestryDNA results didn't show any of what they call Communities. Now I have three that either touch or overlap one another. And they are 100% true to my documented, massive family tree.

From Mom's side:

• Avellino & Southwest Foggia Provinces
• South Benevento & North Avellino Provinces

From Dad's side:

• Campobasso & East Isernia Provinces

I can prove that our documented ancestors are from the Benevento & Avellino Provinces. AncestryDNA bases these communities on the family trees of DNA matches. And they're very accurate, according to DNA expert Diahan Southard.

My husband's AncestryDNA test has a disappointingly low number of DNA matches. But I love his community! It fits everything we know about his ancestors: "Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Olta & Kumamoto." Here's what Ancestry says about how they determined this as his community:

"You, and all the members of this community, are linked through shared ancestors. You probably have family who lived in this area for years—and maybe still do."

I'll leave you with another great tip from Southard. Say you're trying to trace a close ancestor—a 2nd great grandparent or closer. And you have no idea where on earth they came from.

Do you have a DNA ethnicity that doesn't match what you know about your ancestry? Check your mystery DNA matches' ethnicities. (On AncestryDNA, Ethnicity is a tab, like Shared Matches.) Do any of these matches have a decent amount of that one unexpected ethnicity? Check their family tree and Shared Matches to see if their information that can help you.

Also, take a look at which ethnicities you actually share with your decent DNA matches. If they don't have small amounts of something you have, then that ethnicity has no bearing on your connection.

What's the bottom line with all these ethnicities?

• Be sure to check out the range of percentages. If it says it's as low as zero, it's may be too little to matter.
• If the average is below 5%, don't expect to find a documented ancestor from that part of the world.
• Check to see how your DNA matches' ethnic percentages compare to yours.

If some of your DNA ethnicity results simply don't make sense, give them a closer look. If you can see they're not worth pursuing, don't worry about them.

Here's a good way to look at it in mathematical terms:

• Each of your parents gave you 50% of your DNA.
• Each of your grandparents gave you 25% of your DNA.
• Each of your great grandparents gave you 12½% of your DNA.
• Each of your 2nd great grandparents gave you 6¼% of your DNA.

A tiny percentage is either a statistical error or a very distant ancestor.

I know exactly where all my 3rd great grandparents came from, as well as 55 of my 64 4th great grandparents. It's crazy to imagine that one of my nine missing 4th great grandparents walked to Southern Italy from Norway or Portugal! That gives me the confidence to ignore those trace ethnicities.

How about you?

Don't lose any sleep over tiny, unexpected DNA ethnicities.

And speaking of DNA:

• Making Sense of Your DNA Results
• Delving Deep into Your Genealogy with DNA
• The DNA Problem We Aren't Talking About