8 Tips for Researching Your Immigrant Ancestor

When my son's fiancé lost her father in 2021, I offered to research her family tree. It's become something of a tradition for me. I did the same for my brother's wife, my 1st cousins, and last week for my 2nd cousins when their father died.

For my son's fiancé, you have to go back to generation 12 in her ancestors report to learn that her last name is French. In generation 13, we see she's a descendant of the Dutch/German family Rittenhouse. That's a very famous family in Philadelphia. My sister-in-law's German/Jewish origin shows up in her 2nd great grandfather, born in 1853.

But for my all-Italian cousins, the immigrant experience is much closer:

• My 1st cousins' father immigrated as an infant in 1929.
• My 2nd cousins' grandfather immigrated in 1920.
• My grandfathers immigrated in 1914 and 1920.

An immigrant ancestor may be the key to your family tree. These 8 tips help you find them.

While researching your immigrant ancestors, it's important to:

1. Understand the local immigration laws when your ancestor arrived. If your ancestors came to America, take a look at how easy it was, as long as you weren't Chinese. See "How Did Immigration Laws Guide Your Ancestors?"
2. Pull every available fact from the ship manifest. I love the Ellis Island ship manifests because they contain a ton of details. To make sure you don't overlook any, see "6 Key Genealogy Facts on a Ship Manifest." If your ancestors came earlier than 1892, you'll find far fewer details.
3. Read about the immigrant processing experience. At Ellis Island, doctors spent an average of 6 seconds inspecting each immigrant. They deported only 2% of immigrants back to their country of origin. Two percent! These people were ill, likely to become a public charge, or had stowed away aboard the ship. To find out more about the experience, see "5 Ellis Island Videos Dispel Immigration Myths."
4. Learn about the history of your ancestor's country at the time they left. Something was going on at home that compelled your ancestor to leave. No one leaves home when conditions are fine. Read "Why Did Your Ancestor Leave Home?"
5. Look for more than one voyage. My maternal 2nd great grandfather Antonio was my first immigrant ancestor. He came to New York in 1890, 1892, and 1895 before going back to Italy to retrieve his family in 1898. My paternal great grandfather Francesco came to America in 1903, 1909, 1913, and 1929. He never stayed long. He earned some money and went back home to his family in Italy. His immigration records showed me that his final trip was to visit my grandfather and aunt in Ohio. Read "Great Grandpa Was a Bird of Passage" for a look at serial immigrants like Francesco.
6. Check for more than a ship manifest. When my mom's 1st cousin's husband died, I researched his family. His naturalization papers provided a wealth of information. If you can't find their ship manifest, look for naturalization papers. They can tell you the name of the ship and date of its arrival, and tons more about the family. Find out what you can learn by reading "Here's Why Genealogists Love Immigrants." And don't forget passport applications. It's amazing when you get your first look at a photograph of your relative on their application.
   
7. See who sailed with your relatives. I discovered a "lost" branch of my family when I looked into the people sailing with my family. One had my family name of Saviano, and the other had a name I knew was from the same town. See how I used clues to finally explain our relationship to our cousin Rita. Read "Why You Should Track Down the Extra Cousin."
8. Take a look at other countries. Immigration restrictions may have led your ancestor's brother to sail to another country. I have cousins who went to Canada when they couldn't get into America. Others went to Brazil and Argentina. To find those who went to South America, see:
   • "Overlooked Website Finds Immigrant Ancestors" and
   • "Finding Relatives Who Sailed to South America."

Ship manifests and naturalization papers are priceless to your family history research. Your immigrant ancestor connects you to your ancestral homeland. For some people, like my son's fianc
é, finding that immigrant is their first clue to their origins. She had no idea she was French, German, and Dutch. My brother's wife didn't know her ancestors were Jewish because her father wasn't.

Remember these 8 tips for researching your immigrant ancestor. Don't leave any facts on the table!

5 Ways to Find Loose Ends in Your Family Tree

After fitting 95% of the people from 3 of my ancestral hometowns into my family tree, I was eager for more. Now I'm working on a town I expected to be a problem. This town was part of the Papal State, owned by the church itself. They didn't keep civil records before 1861. (See "Becoming Italian Was a Long, Hard Journey.") I figured I'd never get very far since there are no vital records for my 3rd great grandparents and above.

But I found a couple of entry points. Two spouses of my closest relatives had families I could search for in the documents. Before I knew it, I was adding between 100 and 300 people a day to my family tree. For each of those spouses:

• I found their birth record and recorded the facts.
• Added their parents.
• Found all their siblings.
• Documented the families of the siblings' spouses.

It adds up fast.

Things got so hectic that I worried about dropping the ball. Did I follow up on all the marriages I discovered? Did I forget to find someone's father's birth record? Did I miss anyone because of a name variation?

That's when I started thinking about these 5 ways to find the loose ends in your family tree. You can use these methods to find the avenues you left unexplored.

Sometimes tying up a loose end in your family tree can break down that brick wall.

Online-only trees won't give you the sorting tools you'll need. If that's your case, download a GEDCOM file of your tree and open it in desktop family tree software or in Family Tree Analyzer (see "This Genealogy Report Shows You What's Missing").

1. Sort by Birth Date

Sort the people in your family tree by birth date. Before you go any further, everyone in your tree needs at least an estimated year of birth. The bigger your tree, the more important this is. Scroll to the bottom of your list of people. If anyone has no date at all, give them an estimate. Here are my rules for choosing an estimated birth year:

• If you know their spouse's birth year, give them about the same year (e.g., Abt. 1924).
• If you know the year either of their parents was born, make them about 25 years younger than the younger parent.
• If you know the year their eldest child was born, make them about 25 years older than that child.

Now look at your list for incomplete and estimated dates. Think about the resources you might use to fill in those dates. The majority of my tree came from Italy or the Bronx. I know I can find:

• Bronx birth records for 1872–1873, 1876, 1888–1891, and 1895–1909.
• Bronx death records for 1898–1948.
• Bronx marriage records for 1898–1937.
• Italian birth records (for most of my ancestral towns) for 1809–1915 with some gaps.
• Italian death records and marriage records (for most of my ancestral towns) for 1809–1860 and 1931–1942.

If you found some of your relatives in one record collection, see which other years are available. You may have people in your tree that you can locate in that record collection.

You know the primary locations in your family tree. Check online again to see which vital records are available to you.

2. Sort by Death Date

I have tons of people in my family tree with no death date at all. They're easy to spot when you sort your list of people by death date. As I mentioned, most of my Italian towns don't have death records available for 1861–1930. But I also have lots of people who died in the United States, and for some, I have only a partial or estimated death date. It's time to pick these people out of the list and give them a fresh search. Maybe a new database has the answers we need.

3. Sort by Marriage Date

When I sorted the people in my family tree by marriage date, I saw a long list of people with "1813" as their marriage date. I double-checked the Italian website (Antenati) to make sure those records are missing. (See "How to Make the Best of the New Antenati Website.") What I found online makes me think the Antenati team doesn't know they made a mistake. They have the combined 1813–1814 birth records labeled as marriage records.

I'll focus on Americans in my tree and search for 20th- and 21st-century marriage dates. My sons have some English ancestors whose marriages I can search for, too.

4. Sort by Missing Names

Recently I mentioned that I record unknown first names and last names as a blank (_____). That's 5 underscores. This is a tip from Ancestry's chief genealogist, Crista Cowan. (See "These Tips Find Missing Maiden Names.") I can sort my list of people by first name or last name and all the blanks are at the top of the list. When I did a fresh search for everyone missing a last name, I cut the list roughly in half.

There may be record collections that are newer than the last time you searched for these people. Give them another search.

5. Keep a Running List

This is something I don't do often enough. Now I see how critical it can be.

On my 4th day of adding hundreds of people to my family tree from one Italian town, I got overwhelmed. As I'm searching for siblings or children, I leave open the record of anyone who needs more research. Usually that's a birth record with a marriage annotation in the column. I leave the document open until I research the spouse and their family from that marriage note.

Using this method, one person (like Vincenzo's wife) can keep me on the hunt for hours.

On Friday at 5 p.m., I was getting tired of the research and wanted to pack it in for the day. But I had at least a dozen documents open, each needed a lot more research. The only way to keep from losing my place was to make the following list of leads to follow next time:

• add Angelo Michele Barricelli's family (husband of Marta Maria Salerno)
• add Filomena dePierro's family (wife of Giuseppe Vinciguerra)
• add children of Nascenzio Vinciguerra and Angela Gaudino
• add Maria Carmela Santucci's family (wife of Agostino Gaudino)
• add Anniballo Iscaro's family (husband of Rosa dell'Oste)
• add Caterina Pasquarelli's family (wife of Martino dell'Oste)
• add Maria Saveria deFiore's family (wife of Michelangelo delNinno)
• get military record for Alvino Alfonso Salerno, born 1887, died in WWI
• get military record for Gennaro Repole, born 1889, died in WWI

Those two World War I deaths came to my attention because of a note on their child's birth record. I did download the 2 Italian military records (see "Free Italian Military Records for WWI and WWII"). But the other 7 lines represent a ton of people who belong in my family tree.

I can't stress the importance of this list enough.

As you work through the first 4 ways to find loose ends, keep a simple running list of what you need to do next. Let's say I'm working on "add children of Nascenzio Vinciguerra and Angela Gaudino." It looks as if they have 6 kids, and some have a marriage noted. Let's say I'm in the middle of it when my research gets interrupted. This is when it's very important to add notes to your running research list. I'll have to add the names of the kids whose in-laws are still in need of research.

If your family tree is somewhat small, you can spend time on each family unit and seek out what's missing. But my tree is way beyond that. Currently boasting 76,611 people, I can't hope to make every single family complete. I can do it for my closer relatives, but not for everyone.

If you have any other methods for finding people in need of research, please let me know in the comments.

And speaking of loose ends:

• Create a Genealogy Task List to Keep Track of Loose Ends
• 2 Ways to Find the Loose Ends in Your Family Tree
• How to Tie Up Loose Ends in Your Family Tree
• Tying Up Loose Ends with Naturalization Papers
• Make November Genealogy Loose Ends Month

4 Ways to Safeguard Your Digital Family Tree

Imagine starting up your computer to add a new baby cousin to your family tree. But all you see is a File Not Found error. Nooooo! Panicked doesn't begin to describe how sick you feel.

I'm someone who curses a blue streak in the face of computer problems. I can't describe the pain in my head and stomach at these times. That's why I take extreme precautions with my digital family tree files. (And many other types of computer files, too.)

To avoid disaster, here are 4 crucial ways you can safeguard your digital family tree files. Get started before disaster strikes!

Keep your family tree safe in a virtual vault with these 4 methods.

1. Take advantage of cloud storage

Important! Your desktop family tree program should NEVER open your cloud-stored files. The cloud will try to update your file while you have it open, and corrupt your file. This happened to me.

You must open the file from a computer folder that does NOT get backed up to the cloud automatically. When you're done for the day, close your file and exit your software. Then you copy the family tree file and paste it into a folder that does get backed up automatically. Also, make sure your family tree software stores its own copy of every image you put in your tree. Don't point to their location if that location is a cloud folder; let the software make its own copy.

I use Microsoft Outlook for email, and Outlook will not let me work with a mailbox file that's on the cloud. My backup routine includes exiting Outlook and copying the file to a cloud location. This is true for other programs, too.

With that understood, you should use a cloud storage program for your non-active files. My Family Tree folder contains sub-folders for the types of documents I gather. These include:

• ship manifests
• censuses
• vital records
• naturalization papers
• draft cards
• and so much more.

These images are separate from those Family Tree Maker stores in your tree's media folder. (The media folder must not be on the cloud.)

I use Microsoft OneDrive because it comes with my subscription to Office 365. An added benefit of any cloud storage is that I can access any of my cloud files from my travel laptop.

To decide which cloud program is right for you, read "How to Back Up Your Family Tree Files Automatically."

2. Copy files to external drives often

Decades ago a client told me kept copies of his important information in 3 places. One of those places needed to be offsite in case of fire.

My cloud storage is the offsite location. My important files are on my desktop computer, of course. Plus I make a weekly backup to 2 one-terabyte external drives.

Each Sunday morning I back up my family tree, financial, and email files to these external drives. If you work on your tree a lot, a weekly backup is so important. I've had days where I added hundreds of people to my tree. I don't want to lose that much work!

To read about my backup routine, see "This 3-Step Backup Routine Protects Your Family Tree."

3. Export a GEDCOM after each session

I used to export a GEDCOM file from Family Tree Maker only when I wanted to do something in Family Tree Analyzer. Then I realized the value of always having an up-to-date GEDCOM. Now I export one at the end of each day's Family Tree Maker session. (You can export a GEDCOM from your online-only tree, too.)

When I'm done for the day, I export a GEDCOM and make 2 kinds of backup files: one with and one without all the media. My tree is so big that a backup with media is about 12 gigabytes, so I only keep 2 full backups and delete any older ones.

GEDCOM files use an industry-standard format. You can open it with any family tree software or upload it to a family tree website. It's so easy to export one, why wouldn't you do it after every session?

To see my full backup process, read "9 Steps to Really Safeguard Your Family Tree."

4. Publish your family tree in more than one place

A while ago I had a series of mishaps while trying to sync my Family Tree Maker file with Ancestry.com. Then MacKiev improved the FTM sync function dramatically. So I'm back to syncing every morning.

But when I had these problems, I stopped syncing my FTM tree with Ancestry for quite a while. I found another website, Geneanet.org, where I could overwrite my tree each day with a new GEDCOM. This now serves as a public-facing backup for my family tree. And it puts more international eyes on my research, too. The one thing I haven't been able to manage is to upload all my document images to Geneanet. The instructions don't seem to work for me, and I don't see how they make sense.

I won't put my family tree on any site that lets other people try to "collaborate" with or overwrite me. I made the mistake of putting my tree on Geni years ago. Each time someone wants me to update a person on Geni, I relinquish ownership of that person. (They're always people from a huge branch I lopped off years ago.)

To understand how and why to use Geneanet, see "A Major Family Tree Change to Fix an Ongoing Problem."

If you love genealogy, the loss of your research files would devastate you. Get busy and safeguard your digital family tree files today.