52 Ancestors Week 46: Cultural Tradition

From Amy Johnson Crow:  Week 46

The theme for Week 46 is "Cultural Tradition." What is a cultural tradition in your family? It could be ethnicity-based, could also be cultural in terms of geography. You could also think of "culture" in terms of the arts. Feel free to be creative!

Oh, hi expensive Christmas tree ornaments! Beware of the cat!

    Where has the time gone? It's already November and the holidays are upon us. They defrosted Mariah Carey and her holiday song is now playing in every Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and other big box stores all over the United States. That's fine, though. The holidays are a great time to talk about the cultural traditions your family has and as someone with Italian heritage, I have my fair share of traditions. 

    In the blog, I've often talked about the amazing Christmas eve parties my family would host every year for as long as I can remember. But, what you might not know is how the parties all got their start in the first place. Follow along as I tell you all the tale of how the Feast of the Seven Fishes evolved into an annual Christmas event that was not to be missed!

My grandfather Marco and Cammy

    The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American celebration of Christmas Eve and as the name implies fish is normally served as the main meal. That's very important. As Catholics, we abstain from eating meat until the feast of Christmas Day.

    In southern Italy, the tradition is called "La Vigila" or "The Vigiil". This celebration commemorates the wait or "the Vigilia di Natale" for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus.  The tradition of eating fish on that day dates from the Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining from meat on the eve of a feast day. As a result, Catholics celebrating this event would eat fish fried in oil.  There wouldn't be any variation of poultry, cow, lamb or pig.

    It's currently unclear where the "seven fishes" part of the tradition came from. However, we normally served haddock, shrimp, mussels, fried clams and of course squid prepared in at least five different ways at our house. At least!! The thing is no one actually adhered to the "seven fish" rule. You can have as much fish as you want. It just had to be on the menu!

    There has been some serious thought about the issue. Many people feel that the "seven fishes" represents the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church or even the seven hills of Rome. It's hard to say because every Italian family has their own take on why exactly seven fishes are served. There's no real agreement and honestly you're not going to get Catholics to agree on anything....especially the Italians.  I wonder if anyone bothered to tell the cook that shrimp, squid and clams weren't technically fish, either. Uhh....yeah. I wouldn't want to tell the cook, either. I don't want to be hit by a rolling pin.

How it all started.

    When my grandfather Marco came to America, he of course brought the tradition with him. Italians in Haverhill attended midnight mass at Saint Rita's Parish in Haverhill and wouldn't leave until after midnight on Christmas Day. 

I'm not sure if my grandmother attended midnight mass. However, he and grandma Ollie would have the feast at their house with their friends and family before church.

    As you can imagine everyone was over their house for the feast. Ollie's sisters would have parties at their houses as well. I'm not sure what was served at those dinners. My mom remembered one Christmas feast where Marco brought eel to the dinner. As you can imagine, it did not go over very well.

    You know, they could have just served it on rice and wrapped seaweed around it. I'm just putting that out there. There's nothing wrong with a little unagi every now and then. Then again, would you eat the eels that were swimming around the Merrimack river? Ick. Probably not. I've seen them. There's not much meat on those little sea snakes. Though, a little wasabi and soy sauce might make them taste a little better.

    As time went by people in my parents' extended family were also invited to the parties. There was a Christmas Eve party where my great-grandmother Clara Laplante said that she didn't like squid. But, she loved calamari. That just makes me laugh because calamari IS squid! I don't think anyone was upset about the comment. It just made for a funny story and for ages the funniest stories usually happened at one of the Christmas eve parties.

    When grandpa Marco passed away in 1983, my parents took over the hosting duties and had been doing it ever since. We would pick up my grandmother and have her stay at our house over the holiday. The rest as they say is history. Family history!

Nana, my mom, two of her sisters and 
Grandpa Bob.

      So, that's how the Christmas eve parties evolved from the Feast of the Seven fishes. You take one Catholic celebration and it turns into a big dinner where everyone is invited! The tradition still continues to this day even though many people who used to attend the events are either no longer with us or have long since moved away.

    At least the memories of the parties are still there and that's what matters. Well, the memories and the pictures at least. Lord knows we have plenty of both. And that's a good thing. Some cultural traditions like this are worth having because in the end everyone can participate and nothing brings people closer together than food. 

    It just amazes me how a Christmas tradition brought over from Italy became a Christmas party. When you grow up like I did you don't really think about the traditions of your family all that much. You just roll with the punches, get hugs and hopefully get that twenty dollar bill from your grandparents. That's just how it was. I honestly had no idea it had its roots in Catholic beliefs until recently. I knew about the Feast of the Seven Fishes for sure. But, I never understood the implications. Now I do and it doesn't seem too bad now that I think about it. It's just amazing to me how a religious feast can turn into a big party at the end of the night. That's a cool tradition for sure!

See ya next time!

Just tucked into the corner. Send help!

52 Ancestors Week 45: Colorful

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 45

The theme for Week 45 is "Colorful." Colorful as in an artist or colorful as in an interesting personality? You decide!

Taste the fractal rainbow

    In my family tree I have no shortage of people who had interesting personalities. These range from my grandfather Marco Ferraiolo (who also painted by the way) to my second great-grandfather, Joseph Laplante. Just think some of their personality traits were passed down through the generations. I know that's not how DNA works. But, it's fun to think about the reason why you like to write or draw something. Direct ancestors aren't the only colorful people hanging around the tree, though. My grandmother Ollie's sisters were colorful and one great-aunt in particular was like the Energizer Bunny. She just kept going and going and going!

Auntie Louise!

    My great-aunt Louise Carrabs was definitely a colorful person. I hinted at her personality many times before in this blog. I think I've told everyone the story of how we all went to Foxwoods Casino shortly after the death of my grandmother, Ollie. That was a fun trip and it only skimmed the surface of the kind of person she was.

    To recap, we all went to the casino and on the way to the building she noticed that I was feeling a bit down. I mean my grandmother had passed away and my other grandmother Natalie wasn't doing so well at that point herself. The early 2000s are honestly a blur to me.

    Anyway, she told me that if anyone asked any questions about why I was hanging around her at the slot machines she said "Tell them you're my grandson and today's your birthday." I laughed so hard at that the people walking by must have thought we were crazy. Eh....maybe we were! That was when I knew we were going to have an amazing time!

    One of the funniest moments about that trip was when we lost her in Foxwoods for a little bit. I had gone to the restroom and when I came back she was nowhere to be found. I quickly found my parents and we looked all over for her. There were a ton of little old ladies and it was hard to find her in the crowd. Eventually, we did find her playing slots in another part of the casino we hadn't checked. Her reaction was priceless. She said "What? I was here the whole time!". We had a good laugh!

    That was only a little preview of what Aunt Louise was like. Like my grandma Ollie she lived in Haverhill and out of all the five Carrabs sisters she was clearly the funniest. Ollie was the caring hostess. Josie was the cook. Ellie was the smart one. I wish I could remember their oldest sister, Jennie. She was pretty cool from what I've been told! 

The little old Italian ladies!

     We're not here to talk about Jennie, though. No. Auntie Louise was definitely more than just a surrogate grandmother to me after my grandmother passed away. 

    She was a great cook and would often start cooking for get-togethers very early. I remember she used to make these little mini cakes with chocolate frosting on them that was covered with shaved coconuts. She called them "icicles" for some reason and they were just so good. But, I think she trolled me when she said how they were made. After I had one I asked her how they were made and she just smirked at me and said the chocolate frosting was just Hershey's syrup. I laughed so hard.

    I couldn't be upset with her. She was brutally honest about how she made the food she prepared. I kind of suspected the chocolate came from a tube. But, I never wanted to outright ask her "Hey, Auntie Louise. This is just Hershey's syrup isn't it?". Yeah. You don't say that to an Italian woman unless you want to get smacked upside the head or with a rolling pin. Rolling pins were reserved for problematic cases, I'm sure. At least she made original Italian cookies to make up for the times she used Hershey's chocolate syrup. That more than made up for everything!

    

Louise and her son, Joe

    In short, Louise was probably the funniest little old Italian lady you'd ever meet in your life. Sure Ollie had a few zingers in her time. But, Louise always seemed to take it to the next level with her funny remarks. I don't know if that ever got her in trouble with her parents. But, I'm sure they appreciated her sense of humor. It's something that was also passed down to her sons, Joe and Dennis.

    Louise was a fixture at the Christmas eve parties and was always smiling, cracking jokes and telling stories. But, here's the thing. Her jokes were never mean spirited. Like my grandmother, she'd have gladly given you the shirt off of her back....and then tell you how much she paid for it. Kidding! Maybe....

   She was also similar to Ollie in that she'd host parties in her backyard and would often hold court with anyone who wanted to hear her stories. She'd have family from Everett and Melrose over from time to time and it got to the point where even her uncle Rocco's grandchildren would visit her! I think one of them drove around with her more than a few times. They never did say where they went, though. I think she just took her shopping.

    So, while Aunt Louise was very colorful she was also incredibly kind. All of my grandmother's sisters were like that. But, there was just something really special about Louise. It might have just been her sense of humor and her positive outlook on life. Whenever something bad happens, I often think about how she'd react and tell people what to do in those bad times. She'd find a positive spin on things and tell people that tomorrow always had sunny blue skies. I think we need to remember that whenever we face the darkness.

See ya next time!

52Ancestors Week 44: Challenging

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 44

The theme for Week 44 is "Challenging." Some ancestors are easy to research. Others, not so much. Who has been challenging to research? Another way you could approach the prompt is an ancestor who challenged something in their life.    

I don't think any mountain is more challenging than Mount Everest.

    It goes without saying that if you work on anything genealogical, you're going to find challenges along the way. Shows like "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Finding Your Roots" make everything seem easy since the guest of the week is handed everything on a silver platter once genealogists have done the work for them. If only it was that easy! I've learned a long time ago that there are challenges that come with looking up someone. Records may not be available or there's some other issue. When you find a challenge on your genealogical adventure, you must find a way to overcome it.

    Lately, I've been trying to find out more information about my fourth great-grandfather, Francesco Coppola and his unknown wife. It's proven to be a bit more challenging than looking up information on the Gullos for a variety of reasons. The first being that "Coppola" is one of the most common last names in all of Italy. It narrowly beats out "Tedesco" in terms of how common it is. And lucky me I've got both common Italian names in my family tree!! 

    I think we need to talk about how we got to this point in the first place before we can move forward. That way people can get a clearer understanding of what's going on. Plus, it'll help clear my head and possibly even help me gain some perspective.

    I first found out about Francesco when my friend Tricia went through the birth records in San Pietro a Maida from 1809 to 1861. She was helping me locate Coppolas since I knew my 2nd great-grandmother Caterina and her siblings were born there.

    She ended up finding a birth document for a Francesco Coppola who was born November 10th, 1860 to Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato. The gears in my head started turning so fast that smoke was coming out of my ears!

    By the late 1850s, it sort of became a custom in Italy to mention the grandfather of the child on birth records. For example, you might see something like "Giovanni Ferraiolo, figlio di Giuseppe" on some records. In this case, it was "Giovanni Coppola figlio di Francesco". And that's how I got the name "Francesco".

    Naturally, I heard the name "Giovanni Coppola" before. He was the man who ran a grocery store on High Street in Haverhill and was instrumental in bringing many people to Haverhill from San Pietro a Maida. Because of Italian naming conventions, I wondered if the Giovanni and Angela who had Francesco could have been Giovanni's parents. I went to Haverhill City Hall and got his death certificate and.....

La famiglia di Coppola

    His parents were indeed Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato! I was surprised more than anything. All this time I thought Giovanni was a brother to Caterina and the others. Whoops. I made changes to the tree as quick as possible! I do not like errors on the tree. Call me a perfectionist if you want. I don't care!

    Because of this discovery I was able to DNA confirm my great-aunt Nicolina all the way up to Francesco and his unknown wife.

    Now, you might be wondering "Chris! Aren't you making a wild assumption here? You said it yourself! "Coppola" is a very common last name!" Simmer down, guys. I know it sounds wild. But, here me out. Like the Astorinos and a few other Italian families, there was only one Coppola family in San Pietro a Maida. All of the Coppolas I've encountered seem to all connect to Francesco in the end. This conclusion was made through careful reasoning, DNA evidence and basic information given to me by various sources. There is no way around it. All of the Coppolas who were in San Pietro after a certain point in time descended from Francesco and his unknown wife.

Pallarias

    The most recent evidence is the fact that my cousin Caterina told me that our cousin Melina's 2nd great-grandmother Maria Coppola was a double cousin of her grandmother, Caterina. This meant that Maria was Giovanni's sister as evidenced by a ship manifest. This meant that her parents were also Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato.

    Whew. I really hope I am right. There is a lot of genealogical gymnastics going on in this week's blog. At least it seems plausible. I could be wrong. But, I doubt it. Not with the mountain of evidence I have. Having Mount Everest in this week's banner takes on a whole new meaning here.

  

    There was only one Coppola family in San Pietro like I said and Francesco seemed to have three known children who'd go on to have large families. Their names were Giovanni, Caterina and Paolo and I have DNA matches who descend from all three of them. Who knows if there's more? Well, I'd have to check the records in San Pietro to find out for sure. 

    Okay. The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It's now time to see if I can dance. I have all of this evidence pointing to Francesco including stuff I didn't even talk about. How could I possibly get information about him? Well, there are a few ways I could go about cracking the case.

Who are you, lady?!

    The first and most obvious way to go about it is to ask the good folks at the San Pietro commune office if they could lend me a hand. That's all well and good. But, they typically handle records from 1861 onwards. I wouldn't be able to ask them directly about my 4th great-grandparents. 

    So, what could I do? Well, I could ask about the following marriages:

1. The marriage of Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato.

2. The marriage of Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato.

3. The marriage of Caterina Coppola and Pasquale Stella.

Paolo's parents would have to be mentioned on the marriage document. The only problem is I have no idea when they were married. It had to have been before 1870 as that was when my 2nd great-grandmother was born.

    I could also ask for Giovanni Coppola's marriage to Angela as well. The thing is that with both of these marriages I might be better off asking the church for information rather than the city hall. I just wish I had an exact date. I would also need an exact date for Pasquale Stella and Caterina Coppola's marriage as well.

    There are a bunch of other questions I could ask and if anyone has any suggestions, please sound off in the comments below. I'd be more than happy to hear what everyone has to say about this challenging situation. The birthdates for Francesco and his children are all hypothetical of course. I just really don't have a lot to go on. However, do know this:

    Three Italian siblings from who knows where came to San Pietro (Likely from a town nearby) and had large families. Those families ensured that the "Coppola" name existed in San Pietro a Maida to this very day. Several of those families had children and grandchildren who went to the Americas. It would be nice if I could connect all of those families together by not just DNA but with names, dates and places. Who knows who this unknown lady and Francesco Coppola are and I intend to find out. The truth is out there. It's just a matter of asking the right questions. I just have to figure out what they are and who to ask. Any help would greatly be appreciated!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 43: Lost Contact

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 43

The theme for Week 43 is "Lost Contact." Many families have someone with whom they've lost contact, either by choice or by chance. Who is that person in your family tree?

Stars in the same galaxy, but light-years between us.

        Genealogy and the Internet often go hand-in-hand. With the Internet, you can make friends with people all around the globe and if you're a genealogist like I am you could find cousins by simply doing a DNA test at your favorite DNA testing site or create a family tree on a website like WikiTree, which has a world tree connecting you with millions of people. The possibilities are endless and I'm proud to say that with the Internet I've been able to make contact with family members from virtually every branch in my family tree save for a few lines here and there.

   Not too long ago I would have talked about the Astorino family and how no one had heard from them since the 1990s. The Astorinos descended from my great-granfather Vincenzo Ferraiolo's sister, Caterina. Caterina married a man by the name of Lorenzo Astorino and they moved to Argentina. The family stayed in touch for many years via letters, phone calls and visits. Then came the summer of 2024 when my third cousin Melina Astorino found me on WikiTree. The rest, as they say, is history.

Giuseppe and Clementina.

    I'm glad we made that connection and I still talk to Melina every chance I get. However, now that she reconnected with me, I find myself wondering about someone else on the Italian side of my family tree.

    I've mentioned my great-grandfather, Giuseppe Carrabs many times. He had two brothers who went to America and their names were Rocco and Pasquale.  Did you know he had a sister named Rosina?

    Like her brothers she was born in the Campanian town of Gesualdo to Vincenzo Carrabis and Maria Giovanna Capobianco. She was born there in 1892 and she also immigrated to America. And that's where things took an odd turn. I know for a fact she's a sister to the guys. You can see her birth record on Antenati!

      Growing up, I've only heard bits and pieces about Rosina from my grandma Ollie and other members of my family. She lived near Pasquale in Everett, Mass and married a man named Vincenzo d'Avino in 1923. Shockingly enough, that was it. To date I've never seen her picture and any information I do have is a bit fragmented. It really didn't help that even the extended family like my DNA matches never heard of her.  As you can imagine, I was more than a little frustrated about the prospect of there being a lost Carrabs cousin out there.

    I never really understood why no one talked about her. Was there some sort of rift or something? Did she go against the family? Did her husband not want her talking to her Carrabs relatives? I honestly have no idea. The more I think about it, the more I keep coming up with crazy ideas and scenarios. It's best to keep those under my hat because the truth can be stranger than fiction.  I should also note that Vincenzo was the brother of Caterina d'Avino and Caterina was Rocco's wife. The families were well connected and yet no one ever talked about Rosina.

Rocco on the far left and Pasquale on the 
far right.

    Anyway, frustration can turn into determination pretty quickly as far as I'm concerned. I may not know why Rosina seemingly fell off the face of the Earth. But, I can definitely find out what happened to her through some fancy genealogical jiggery-pokery!

     Rosina married a man named Antonio Pascucci in 1913 at the age of 21. They had one child in 1919 who unfortunately passed away the following year. The two remained together until sometime before the 1930 census. By then Rosina had two more children with her second husband Vincenzo d'Avino and their names were Melinda and Frederick. 

    The children did pretty well for themselves. Frederick married Jennie May Coppola (No clue if she's related to the Coppolas in my tree. The odds are astronomical.). Fred and Jennie had three children together and two may still be around at the time of this blog's posting.  Melinda and her husband John Nichiniello had five children and three of them are still living!

Rosina on WikiTree

      Wow. That's some fancy genealogical footwork, huh? Now that I know that Rosina's descendants are out there, what do I do now? Well, the smart thing would be to play the waiting game and see if anyone from that family takes an AncestryDNA test. Another option is to see if they're on Facebook and try contacting them that way. 

    You might ask yourself if that's stalking. There's a fine line between genealogy and stalking. And besides I just want to see if they're out there. No one has to take a DNA test if they don't want to. I just want to offer up some cousin bait. The first thing I should probably do is beef up Rosina's profile, huh? Maybe add the children and hopefully that will encourage people to contact me. Fingers crossed.

    I've been having a run of good luck contacting "long lost" relatives. They find me on WikiTree and most of the time they've been very receptive to my questions. I suppose the first thing I'd ask Rosina's grandchildren would be if they heard about Giuseppe, Rocco and Pasquale. Like I said. No one ever talked about Rosina and when they did it was just basic information here and there. Here's hoping that someone contacts me either via this blog or the work I do on WikiTree. Fingers crossed!

    It's just really unfortunate that I had so little information on Rosina to begin with. I had to dig through a lot of information to find her, her descendants and fill in the gaps. The reason why she got lost in the shuffle is probably really simple. Italian families are big and sometimes people fall through the cracks for one reason or another. At least we now have a means to contact Rosina's descendants. Will they do DNA tests? Perhaps. For now the hailing frequencies are open on all channels and a general message has gone out to the d'Avinos and Nichiniellos. Here's hoping they take the "cousin bait" and here's hoping they have a picture of Rosina, too!

See ya next time! 

52 Ancestors Week 42: Full House

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 42

The theme for Week 42 is "Full House." Builders, homemakers, card players, parents with lots of children... who in your tree does this this theme make you think of? (Remember: There's no wrong way to interpret the theme!)

Cue the shmaltzy sitcom intro.... 

     If you thought the family I talked about in last week's blog was large, well, it was. There's no getting around it. The Coppola family in Haverhill was a large family and getting everyone all sorted is a lot like herding cats. It's easy to get confused when dealing with a family that big. Information can be easily lost and it takes a plucky genealogist with  a caffeine fueled drive to put the pieces back together again. Was it worth it? You bet it was! The trick now is trying to explain everything to everyone without sounding like a lunatic.

  The Coppolas weren't the only large family with a full house in Haverhill, by the way. Not by a longshot. French-Canadian families rivaled Italian families in terms of sheer size and scale. The only difference between the two is honestly the language they spoke within those walls. Families were huge back in the day for a number of reasons and one particular house was just as full as the Coppolas.

Full House: 1880 edition

        A decade before my great-grandmother Henrietta Legault was born, her parents Antione and Lucie were living with Lucie's parents, Pierre Cadran and Marie Eulalie Bibeau on Water Street and they were not alone.

    Living with them were Pierre and Marie's children, Josephine, Clara, Marie, Pierre and Zoe. To make things even more interesting, Antoine and Lucie had their own children with them in the same house!

    Henrietta's three oldest sisters, Lucy, Melvina and Delphine were also living there according to the 1880 US census! If this isn't the making of a 1980s to 1990s ABC sitcom, I don't know what is. You got the young married couple with three young daughters. You've got her parents and five of her siblings with them all living under one roof. When I first saw this I immediately thought of the TGIF sitcom block from when I was a kid. Sometimes reality can be stranger than fiction. Though, I get the feeling they didn't have a nerdy neighbor who always invented stuff or even a wise neighbor who always kept his face hidden.

Noah Robidoux and Josephine 
Cadran.

    Life must have been pretty tough for the families. Let's not kid ourselves. Living with the in-laws might have caused problems that weren't easily solved in thirty minutes. And there was probably no laugh track, either. Like many immigrants, Antoine worked at a nearby shoe factory in order to help pay the rent on the house and the conditions were likely very rough.

    If you try to find the house on Google Earth, you won't be able to find it. They all lived on 177 Water Street in Haverhill and these days it's a parking lot. They literally paved paradise and put up a parking lot.  I guess that's to be expected when you're dealing with city and town officials looking to expand their property. It's a shame because I would have loved to have seen the place.

    Though, I kind of wonder if the house Noah and Josephine are standing in front of in the picture is the house she grew up in. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. The picture was taken sometime around 1919 and the Legaults were still living on Water Street then. I like to think it was the Legault house from 1880 just because I'm an optimist.

    I'm honestly not sure how long they lived on Water Street before the 1880 census. From what I've been able to piece together Antoine and Lucie were married in early 1874 and by November of that year their daughter Lucy was born in Quebec. Melvina was born in Albany, New York in 1876 and Delphine was born two years later in Montréal. Could they have gone down to Haverhill some time in 1877 and put down roots there? Hmm....

    Let me pitch a scenario and you guys can tell me if it sounds crazy. Antoine and Lucie got married and eventually ended up in Haverhill. Could Pierre and Marie have asked the newlyweds to come to America? It seems likely. Jobs were opening up in the Merrimack valley and factory bosses loved having immigrants do all the grunt work. Pierre and Marie apparently arrived in America in the 1850s and would regularly make trips to and from Haverhill. So, it stands to reason that Pierre asked his son-in-law to put down roots in Haverhill.

Antione's brother, Felix, granddaughter Evelyn 
and Felix's wife Matilde

       Many of Antoine's brothers and sisters were also living in the valley so I would imagine that played a huge role in settling in Haverhill. However, I still have a few questions. Who was the first Legault to arrive in the city? 

    That's a question for another time. Sure the censuses state the year someone came and everything. But, those can be a bit vague. Plus. you have to consider the fact that not all border crossings were put into records in the 1870s. For this reason I haven't even been able to find when the other French-Canadians in my tree came to America. I just have rough dates.

 

    Anyway, The Legaults and the Cadrans all lived together in that house for many years and by the time of the 1900 census the two families were in different houses. The Legaults, along with myvery young great-grandmother, were living at 211 Water Street. No pic here. It's a Sunoco station these days. Sigh...Gotta love Haverhill. 

    The interesting thing about Water Street is that while many of the city's Italian immigrants lived on High, Washington and other major roads, the French-Canadians mostly lived on Water Street. I think that might have been because it was closer to the factories and as the name implies Water Street runs parallel with the Merrimack. 

I can't say if my great-grandmother ever had memories about Water Street and the houses there. I  can say that  the children who lived in the original house all grew up and had amazing lives with full houses of their own.

    Even my great-grandmother had a full house on her hands after she married my great-grandfather Austin Felker. My grandmother was one of six and now my mother has over fifty first cousins on just the Felker and Legault side of the tree. Remember what I said about herding cats? I have to do it on both sides of my family tree!!

    I definitely have no shortage of full houses in my family tree. Each house was likely full of laughter, love and loud talking. Let's not mince words here. French-Canadians can be just as passionate as Italians. And the wine would still flow. Still, I can't help but wonder what the first Legault house was like with the two families living in it. It's hard to say without a time machine. I do think that the two families somehow made it work in what was undoubtedly a tough situation. They made the most of it and if I could go back in time, I would so make a sitcom out of that scenario! Coming to TGIF: Too Many Legaults!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 41: Most

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 41

The theme for Week 41 is "Most." Like last week, this theme can go countless directions! Most number of marriages, most children, "most likely to succeed." Let your imagination run wild!

Look at all those stock image people!

    When you work on Italian family trees there's one thing that's absolutely a sure thing and that's the fact that many Italian families have a lot of people in them. This isn't hyperbole or a stereotype you see in movies and television shows. I've lived it all of my life and I can tell you with absolute certainly that it's a fact! Granted some Italian families are larger than others and large get-togethers will often involve people who haven't seen you since you were in diapers and you have to ask your parents "Who is this guy pinching my cheeks?". It's a simple fact of life. Italian families have a lot of people in them and unfortunately names get lost in the shuffle.

Paolo and his first wife, Lena.

    Take my second great-grandmother Caterina Coppola's brother Paolo for example. Out of all the people in the first thirty or so people in my family tree he had the most children as he had a whopping sixteen children with two wives. Keeping track of who's who in that family is a full-time job and the sad thing is that when I see his tree on others' trees on Ancestry.com it's a little fragmented because not everyone has their facts straight.

     It's understandable. You're looking at a man who had several children and while some didn't survive to adulthood, many of them lived long and happy lives. However, families will drift apart due to one reason or another and sometimes information about who belongs to who gets lost in the shuffle.

    I think this week I'll try to do the Coppola clan a solid and explain who's who. After all they are connected to me, right? I've got a long list of kids here. I should probably get this party started! Keep in mind I don't think I'll be able to get to everyone today! There are just so many children and not enough time to go through them all.

    Paolo married his first wife, Lena King on January 16th, 1909 and together they had the following eight children: Paul, Rosie May, Joseph, Rose, Mark, Mary Rose, Catherine and an unnamed infant who died at birth. In fact, Rosie May and Rose also died very young. Catherine died young as well and not long after her birth Lena passed away. It's important to remember medicine back then wasn't as advanced as it is these days.

Antonia Iellamo, Paolo's second wife.

    At least many of the children did survive! After Lena passed away, the family found themselves living with Paolo's sister Concetta and the Papatola family as seen in the 1920 census in Haverhill. Two families living under one roof is definitely a challenge and it's a topic I'll be discussing next week in the "Full House" blog. Stay tuned for that one! I'll try not to make many TGIF jokes. 

    Anyway, the Coppola clan lived with Concetta and her family for a few years until Paolo married fellow San Pietro a Maida native Antonia Iellamo via a justice of the peace some time in the 1920s. Antonia was married to a man named Antonio Fruci. With Antonio she had three children: Romeo, Barbara and Joseph.

    Antonia was already friends with Paolo and according to the book my cousin Jean gave me he would tell Antonia that he'd love to be a chauffeur at her wedding. I'm honestly not sure how to take that from the perspective of a guy living in the twenty-first century. But, I guess the line worked because he did end up marrying the lady.

    The Fruci children were eventually all adopted by Paolo since Antonio passed away quite unexpectedly. It seems he died of smoke inhalation in 1924 when the building he was living in caught on fire. Yikes!

    Paolo and Antonia also ended up having eight children together and their names were Francis,  Mary Rose, Daniel John, Catherine, Beatrice, Concetta, Lena and James. That's quite the bunch, huh? Just imagine all of these children living under one roof and that's just what many of them did! In fact, both Mary Roses lived together for a number of years! I wonder if that ever got confusing since the two half-sisters had the same name. I like to think that one of them called herself Mary and the other one called herself Rose every other week just to keep things interesting. Note: Concetta is still living and that's why I didn't link her profile on WikiTree.

Mark Coppola in
the navy!

    The children all eventually grew up and some got married and many of them had large families of their own.  According to Jean there were family reunions held every once in a while and like every Italian gathering there would be laughter, love and very loud conversations.

   Naturally, keeping everyone straight is a bit of a challenge. My tree on Ancestry has everyone I've mentioned here and their children and grandchildren. It's a big family and I try to explain it as best I can to cousins in the Americas and in Europe.

    My third cousin Melina was a bit surprised when I told her about the Coppola clan. I laid out the information as best I could for her. Other cousins, like my cousin Karen, supplemented the information I had gathered with even more stories and you know how much I like a good story.

    This is a good one! Get the popcorn ready for this one!

    Karen descends from Concetta Coppola's daughter, Angelina Papatola.  (My second great-grandmother's sister Concetta, I mean. Not Paolo's daughter!) She remembers Paolo's children quite well and her family would be over his son James's house quite frequently. She recalled having a great relationship with her cousins James, Paula and Anthony. When I got in touch with Karen, she asked me if I had heard from them since they hadn't spoken in years. I told her I didn't know what happened to Paula and Anthony. However, James was on Ancestry and he and his daughter are both DNA matches with me, my father and my great-aunt. 

    To make a long story short, she had me contact Jim's daughter and eventually Karen talked with her and her father.. The cousins got back in touch and as far as I know they still talk with each other every now and then.

Lena Coppola-Dionne (1932-2020)

    I'm glad that the families are getting back in touch with each other after so many years of being apart. Several descendants of Paolo's are DNA matches with me and I make it a point to try and explain the Coppola family to everyone as best I can. Sometimes that involves linking people to WikiTree because that site allows you to see how everyone's connected and the best part is that it's free!

   Of course Paolo's branch is just a small part of the bigger picture since all the families here descend from Francesco Coppola, my fourth great-grandfather. If you look at his descendants on WikiTree, you'll see that you'd definitely need a scorecard to keep everyone straight. It's a lot to take in and like I said I try my best to explain who's who in the best way I can. 

    I'm just grateful for cousins like Karen, Jean and others who have added onto the information I collected about everyone by sharing their stories with me. Those stories help me share the information with the cousins who live in Europe and in South America. I never want to stick to just the facts when there are just so many great stories to tell.

    Once all the stories are put together, you really get a sense of how huge the family really is. Paolo may have had a large family himself.  However, he was part of a much bigger family and I'm sure he knew all about it. He had a sister in Haverhill with her own large family, another sister and several cousins back home in San Pietro a Maida, and a cousin or two living in the same city as him. Can you imagine how many Christmas cards he had to buy?!

    At any rate, Paolo clearly wins the title for having the largest family in my family tree by a mile. It's sad that a few of his children didn't survive to adulthood. But, that was an unfortunate fact of life in those days. He still managed to provide for his family and his work as a detective made him quite a bit of a legend in the Coppola family circle. That's not a bad legacy to have in my opinion. 

    I just wish that the information here in the US wasn't so fragmented. With so many kids there are just so many interpretations of the facts. Thankfully, facts don't lie. People remember bits and pieces about the past and if you combine those pieces with the facts, you truly get a picture of what a family was like. At least I'm here to make sense of it all and I'll gladly share information and stories with anyone in the family who wants to hear about them!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 40: Least

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 40

The theme for Week 40 is "Least." This is theme that can go countless directions. Least number of records found. Least number of descendants. You could also do a play on words with "leased." Remember: There is no wrong way to interpret the prompt!

Drip.....Drip....

    Being a genealogist is hard as I'm sure everyone who reads my blog knows. Sometimes you find information for one family and things end up getting a little lopsided in the old family tree. Before I managed to contact the commune office in San Pietro a Maida, my own tree was VERY lopsided and mainly focused on my mother's side of things. Sure I had a ton of information on the Carrabs family thanks to my cousin Mary. I just had a whole mountain range of sources for my mom's tree for obvious reasons. Her family was on North American soil since the 1600s and Massachusetts and Québec have amazing sources. Information on my father's paternal side dripped steadily until my parents and I did our DNA tests in 2017.

    DNA testing did help to beef up my father's side of the tree and before long I managed to fill in the gaps on his paternal line. I created groups of DNA matches who centered around each of my second great-grandparents and I noticed something very cool was happening. I was getting getting DNA matches belonging to almost every one of my second great-grandparents! 

    As time went by several groups were filled in and some of them took longer than others to get any DNA matches. However, there's still a few groups that still have few matches! If you look at the image, you'll see that the Forgione and Gullo groups don't have a lot of matches associated with them.   

    There are many reasons why that is. The most obvious answer is that people from those lines haven't tested. That's a fair point. I mean Felice Forgione and Maria Luigia Penta had four children including my great-grandmother, Clementina. Her brother Pasquale moved to Haverhill and I have several DNA matches who descend from him and his wife Giuseppina Pastore. That's where the bulk of my Forgione matches come from. Clementina's brother Giovanni and sister Maria lived their lives in Gesualdo and both passed away fairly young.

    There is a silver lining here! Giovanni married a woman named Salvatrice Caputo in 1910 and had two children with her named Felice and Angelo. I have no idea what happened to them. They may have survived to adulthood and had children themselves. The same thing happened with Maria. She married Giovanni Venuta in 1922 and that was it. There's not much information on Antenati about Clementina's other siblings.

    I'm hopeful that there are Forgione DNA matches out there somewhere. They just haven't tested and are living in Italy. You never know. 

    It shouldn't come as a surprise that I don't really seem to have DNA matches who connect to my second great-grandmother, Domenica Gullo. Like the Forgiones, Domenica's family stayed in Italy. I have no idea if Domenica had any brothers and sisters. I do know that my great-grandmother Maria had other siblings. Her brother Tommaso went to Bari and her sister Caterina had a large family with a man named Francesco Papatolo.

    Thanks to that union, I have cousins who live in San Pietro a Maida and unlike the possible Forgione cousins, I'm in contact with the Tedesco cousins. Would they be interested in doing DNA testing? It's hard to say. I'm not sure what Italy's policy regarding DNA testing is. I know several Italians on the Ferraiolo and Coppola side tested but that was because they lived in Switzerland and they used MyHeritage.

    Would my cousin Caterina or her brother test? I have no idea.  I don't really know how to ask them. It feels awkward asking people if they'd do a DNA test for you....especially when you already know the family history and everything. It remains to be seen if they or other Gullo family members test. Fingers crossed.

    Would you believe there's another silver lining here? My great-aunt Nicolina has a bunch of DNA matches who all descend from a woman named Santa Gullo. I might have talked about her in the blog before and I think I probably connect to her via the Gullo line. I mean it's a given, isn't it? This is like asking if water is wet. My father and I don't match all of the same people who descend from Santa and that's fine because you're not going to match everyone in your DNA match list. It happens.

At least I made progress here!

       Another interesting thing to note is that Nicolina has several matches who cluster together and are matches to my father and I. Could they be Gullo descendants? It's hard to say. I've messaged the matches asking for help and so far I haven't gotten any response from them. Their trees haven't been much help, either.  At this point I'm wondering if they know as much as I do. They'd have to build their trees up and see where everyone connects and hopefully they connect with me somewhere. After all DNA doesn't lie. There is a connection. It's just a matter of finding it!

    

    The Forgiones and the Gullos are really the smallest group of DNA matches I have and I hope that some day I can find more connections who could beef up the old list of matches. The match clusters I talked about are currently existing as floating trees in my tree on Ancestry and I am hoping that they are Gullo cousins. The Santa Gullo one is kind of a given. I mean....look at the last name! I could be wrong.

    I shouldn't be disheartened for having a small number of DNA matches in those groups. Not everyone tests and not everyone is in the United States. It's no big deal if the groups are small. It just means that there's more work to be done on that side. I just hope that I can make those groups grow. Will they be as big as the Legault or Coppola groups? Uhh...Probably not. In the end, the best thing to do is to research and see if connections can be made so those groups don't look so lonely on my match list.

See ya next time!