52 Ancestors Week 14: Language

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14: Language

The theme for Week 14 is "Language." Have you researched an ancestor who spoke a different language than you or dealt with records in another language? What about an ancestor who was known for their use of language? This is a good week to write about them!

Just think. Google Translate is the Universal translator from
Star Trek. It beats putting a small fish in your ear.

    As readers of this blog know I am half Italian and as an Italian-American I've been exposed to the language of my grandfather's homeland for as long as I can remember. Even though Marco passed away when I was four, my father still spoke Italian on occasion. However, there's one catch. The Italian he spoke isn't exactly like the language spoken by Italians living in Italy. Words and even peoples' names have been transformed once an immigrant settled into a new area and they begin to adapt to their new surroundings. So, imagine my surprise when I found out the Italian I was hearing at home was very different from the language spoken by my cousins in Italy.

La famiglia di Ferraiolo

    To understand how this happened, we're going to have to go back in time. We're going to have to go back to when the immigrants first landed in America and tried to assimilate into life in a strange country. One of my earliest blogs was about how my great-grandfather Vincenzo's name became James in America. Check it out here.

    It's generally agreed that the nickname for Vincenzo, "Cenz", was quickly transformed into James. It didn't just happen for my great-grandfather, by the way. Virtually every man named "Vincenzo" that I've come cross that has immigrated to America has become James.  Think that's wild? Buckle up because there's more!

    When you sound out the name "Cenz" with a thick Italian accent like the one Vincenzo supposedly had, people not in the know are going to think they hear the name "James". That name gets put down on records like censuses and naturalization papers and suddenly Vincenzo is known as James for the rest of his life. Granted, he could be called "Vinny" but most of the time Vincenzo became James in America. Now that's wild.

   Of course that was just one example of a name being changed to suit the new land the immigrant lived in. What about the words? Well, several words have changed and if you've seen movies like "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas" and even television shows like "The Sopranos", you'll know what I'm getting at. It isn't just Hollywood making things up. Let's give Tinseltown some credit. They're very careful about how they portray Italians on screen. Thank you, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

La Famiglia di Carrabs

    So, how are some Italian words changed in America, then? Here's an example. My father reminded me that his grandmother Clementina would ask him to go into the garden and pick something called "vuzinagaul". I'm not sure if that's the right spelling. Please don't Google it! The results might be unpleasant. 

    The word was used in "The Sopranos" and even a few cooking videos on YouTube. He asked me to look it up and eventually I gave up and just watched the video with my dad to see what the lady was talking about. It turns out she was sprinkling a little basil on the dish. Apparently "vuzinagaul" is actually basil! HOW?! I went to Google Translate and basil in Italian is "basilico".

    How.....How did THAT happen?! I mean I totally understand if an Italian word was just flat out converted to English. But, basil?! Hmm. As near as I can tell the "b" sound and the "v" sound both sound very similar to each other if you speak with an Italian accent. But, the rest of it just sounds completely different to me. It's almost like an alien language and if you were to say it in Italy no one is going to understand what you're saying!

    I think the word like other words just changed over time as Italians adapted to life in America. There's no real mystery here. That word and other words that I know to be slangs were picked up by Hollywood and used in various media. That's why you might hear your nonna say something a mob boss says on television. If that ever happens, there's one thing you can do. RUN!

Grandma Ollie!

    Speaking of grandmothers, my grandmother Ollie often taught me a bit of Italian. She may have been born in Haverhill like my father, but, she learned quite a bit of Italian herself from her parents Giuseppe and Clementina

    Granted it was never anything elaborate. It was more basic words like "ciao" and "arrivederci". She never gave me lessons or anything. She encouraged me to learn Italian as I learned Spanish in high school. Both languages are similar thanks to being rooted in Latin. Thank you, Roman Empire. 

    I never really had the chance to learn Italian because Merrimack College didn't offer it during the time I was there. It's a shame because as time goes on the generations that grew up hearing those Italian words and speak in Italian are fading away. All we have left are classes and apps we can learn foreign languages on.

    All isn't lost! I'm actually learning the language of my ancestors through trial and error! That means I just use Google translate when I talk to relatives in Europe or when I need to translate a document on Antenati. Your mileage on that may vary as other apps may be more reliable. I'm actually getting decent at translating various documents. It just depends on the quality of the handwriting. You never know what clerk you're going to get and just how well their handwriting is. In that case, another set of eyes is always welcome!

     Either way, I'm sure grandma Ollie, her sisters and my four Italian great-grandparents would be pleased that I'm trying my best with the language of their homeland. It's just so weird how certain words transform into words that make little or no sense if you're an Italian from Europe listening to those words. I've never come across them in an Italian document or heard them spoken by an Italian relative. Words change over time and like I said the number of Italian speakers in America is declining despite immigrants still coming to America.

    Language will always be a part of my heritage whether it's Italian or French and even the French they speak in Quebec is a little different from the French they speak in France! That's a topic for another day. However, I think the same logic applies. If you're going to move to a new land, you need to adapt to life there and unfortunately that means changing your language in order to lift that language barrier. And the French in Quebec has had hundred and hundreds of years worth of changes. Still, it's a good idea to learn the language of your ancestors wherever they come from. It will help you understand the culture, allow you to talk to people living in those countries and gain an appreciation for what they had to go through when they learned the language of the area you're living in these days. That way your ancestral language won't have to go out with a bang.

Ci vediamo la prossima volta!

P.S. Grandma Ollie also taught me the word "Mangia!" This is the Italian word for "Eat!". This was probably a bad idea on her part.

52 Ancestors Week 13: Home Sweet Home

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13:

The theme for Week 13 is “Home Sweet Home.” What ancestor makes you think of home or when you picture them, you think of their home? Or maybe you had an ancestor who homesteaded? This is a good week to write about them.

While I was taking this pic, a small dog who thought
he was a big dog was barking at me....

    There are sadly not many houses I can associate with an ancestor. My maternal grandparents spent most of their time in Florida and at their house in Raymond, New Hampshire. Naturally, I  can also picture the house I grew up in and one day I might write about the place when the prompt comes up again. Whenever I look at my grandma Ollie's picture, I picture her house on Washington Street in Haverhill, Mass. The house now looks like a bachelor pad. I'm not joking. They have a swimming pool in the backyard and everything! Thankfully, I wrote about her house last year and many memories came back to me during the writing process. Check it out here.

    This time around, I decided to go one step above grandma Ollie and talk about her parents' house on nearby Bartlett Street. Whenever I see their picture, I think of that house. The home of Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione was a hub of activity up until the death of my great-aunt Louise in 2010. That's quite a long history and I was fortunate to have been to the house many, many times growing up.

Be it ever so humble....

    I'm not sure if I've talked about the house before. I might have and that's okay because it bears repeating! It's a great house to talk about and I have a lot of memories going there. When I was a kid, I was told that Giuseppe and Clementina's house was spot to be for the Carrabs clan. Giuseppe's brothers, Rocco and Pasquale always went there with their families.

    I'm not exactly sure about the origins of the house to tell you the truth. The answer must lie in Haverhill City Hall. A quick look at Whitepages reveals that the house was built in 1910. This makes a lot of sense because at the time of the 1920 census Giuseppe and his family was living there!

    Sometime between 1910 and 1920, my great-grandfather bought the house and it's been in the family ever since. The house has three apartments and at one point in time Giuseppe and Clementina lived on one floor while two of the daughters lived on another floor. That's a pretty tidy arrangement, isn't it? And it is remarkable how the family stayed in that house for almost a century!

    When I came around, it was just Aunt Louise and her husband Arnold Villanucci living there.  Grandma Ollie had long since moved to Washington Street and the other sisters were nearby. The distance didn't seem to matter because no matter where they were, they all ended up at either Ollie's house or Louise's house. I remember my parents and I going to grandma's house only to find she wasn't there. This was before cellphones so we had no way to contact her if we were on the road. We went over to Louise's and she was there chatting with her sisters. It was a 50/50 shot where grandma would be most of the time. Sometimes she'd be at her house and sometimes she was at Auntie Louise's.

    Aunt Louise's house was not really much different from my grandmother's if I'm going to be honest. Like my grandmother, she had a big round table in the kitchen. The only difference was that it was against the wall and not in the center of the room. The hall to the left led to her bedroom and bathroom and straight ahead was the living room.

    It was there that I first saw a picture of my great-grandparents. Louise had many pictures around the house and many of them were in the living room. There was a nice picture of Rocco by the television as well and I remember asking all kinds of questions about him.

    Naturally, my great-aunt was a lot like my grandmother in that she also liked to tell stories. Though, sometimes they had a humorous flair to them.

    I remember one time we were at the house at they were talking about the family who lived upstairs around the time of the 1950 census. The family of Alessio Schena lived upstairs and for a long time the sisters wondered if they were related to him because a Schena married one of their Penta relatives. A woman named Antoinetta Penta married a man named Rocco Schena. Sadly, I haven't found any connection to that Schena since Rocco and Antonetta had four children together and none of them were named Alessio. Still, Alessio could've been a brother to Rocco. I'll have to dig into this one once they've found a way to create more hours in a day!

I wish I knew where this
pic came from.

    Anyway, the house is special to me because Ollie and her sisters told me about what it was like growing up there with their parents. They told me about Giuseppe's garden in the back which was very much like the garden we have at our house today. He also grew tomatoes, peppers and just like any other Italian he had his own wine. The stuff was strong. But, not as strong as Rocco's, apparently. I heard it could be used to peel paint off of wood.

    Yes, we've actually had debates over which brother's wine was the strongest. After much deliberation it was agreed that Rocco's was the strongest. Who knows what he put in the stuff to make it that way!

    I digress. The house on Bartlett street was the place where I learned all about my great-grandparents and being there made them seem more real than just photos standing on a mantle. It was easy to see Louise and her sisters growing up there as the place seemed so inviting like the house on Washington street.

  Things may have changed since the days my great-grandparents lived there. However, the stories of the house and the people who lived there endure to this day and I had a great time visiting the house every time we went there. 

    Out of all the houses I've been to in Haverhill, it's the second one I associate with an ancestor. The first, of course, would be my grandmother's house. Though, that house was my great-grandfather Vincenzo's house first.  For the story on that one, check out the other house tour! I am immensely grateful that I got to see grandma's house and the house on Bartlett street. Both places have a place in my heart and I'll always think of my ancestors whenever we go by there. Just....no one better turn them into swinging bachelor pads. That's all I ask.

See ya next time!

Pic of 26 Bartlett Street is courtesy of Google Earth.

52 Ancestors Week 12: Historic Event

    

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 12:

The theme for Week 12 is "Historic Event." Historic events aren’t always world or national events. Technically, any event that happened in the past is a historic event 😉 How was an ancestor affected by an event, either large or local? (One that pops into my mind is my grandmother, her parents, and siblings barely escaping their house during the Great Flood of 1913.)

.

    Every generation has had to live through an historic event. Like the song goes: We didn't start the fire. It was always burning as the world was turning. People remember where they were during the attacks on September 11th, 2001. We witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. We watched as the Boston Red Sox finally broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004. I remember all of those events as if it was yesterday since I obviously lived through those times. But, there's one event that's forever etched into the memory of my generation. I am of course talking about the Challenger Disaster.

    Ask anyone born prior to 1986 and they can tell you exactly where they were on January 28th, 1986 when seven astronauts lost their lives in an explosion that rocked a nation. Aboard the shuttle was a teacher named Christa McAuliffe, who just so happened to be from the Granite State.

   Due to New Hampshire being her home, everyone from my state was glued to television up to that day. We were so excited to see someone from our state making a name for themselves because how often do you hear of someone famous coming from New Hampshire?  News programs leading up to the launch focused on her and her life and it served to hype New Hampshirites more than all you can eat shrimp night in Portsmouth.

    I had just turned seven the month before the disaster and all these years later I remember everything so vividly. I was in the first grade and our teacher, Mrs. Lynch, had all of the first grade classes sit in her room. I sat next to several of my friends and listened to the teachers as they all talked about how important the launch was. McAuliffe wasn't a teacher at North Salem Elementary. However, you could tell that our teachers had a profound respect for their colleague even if I didn't quite understand it at the time.

    The teachers rolled in one of those big television sets and turned off the lights. We sat as patiently as any six to seven year-olds could as the reporters and everyone on television was talking about how important the launch was. We waited and then we saw the shuttle itself on the screen. It was so massive and we watched in awe it finally lifted off.

    Sadly, the shuttle exploded shortly after launch and I remember Mrs. Lynch quickly turning off the television as she wiped tears from her face. All the kids were too shocked to really say anything. Some kids were crying. The principal shortly announced that school was cancelled and that they were working to notify everyone's parents. I got up from my chair and I was like "I gotta find my brother." He was in third grade and he was watching the event on his class's television one floor above the first and second grade classrooms. I was told to wait for him in the principal's office.

Christmas 1986, 11 months later.

    Jim came running in when he saw me and gave me a hug. We waited for our parents in silence as we didn't know what was going on. I remember seeing teachers running around and staff frantically trying to contact parents. Someone even had news on in their office and hearing the talking heads explain everything somehow didn't comfort anyone. 

   Our parents picked us up and I broke the silence by asking about the shuttle. They didn't really want to talk about it right then and there. Looking back, it's understandable. They likely saw the launch themselves or heard about it on the radio and didn't really know what to tell us.

    I thought we were heading home and to the amazement of my brother and I we drove past our house and headed toward our Aunt Mimi and Uncle Pete's house since they were taking care of us at the time. They dropped us off and I can remember Aunt Mimi making stuffed grape leaves for lunch.  Since that day it sort of became a comfort food for me. It's not a bad one, too!

Aunt Mimi and Jim circa 1996

    Aunt Mimi and Uncle Pete did all they could to keep the two of us entertained. They wisely kept the television off until it was time for her "stories". Re: Daytime's finest soap operas.  We tried to talk to them about what we saw and she told us that everything would work out and that sometimes tragedies happen. She told us that all we can do is talk about what happened and be there for other people when tragedies occur.

    That was a great lesson to learn. It was probably the most important lesson I ever learned that school year. Forget the basics. Empathy is an important life lesson. Aunt Mimi likely was talking about her own family experiences as well. I didn't learn about what her family went through until decades after she passed away. Was she talking about her life or empathy in general? I like to think it was both, to be honest.

    Eventually, our parents picked us up and my mother was ready to talk about what happened. She pretty much echoed what Aunt Mimi told us. Sometimes tragedies happen and the only then we can do is stick with those we love and try to focus on good times with them. You never really know what will happen tomorrow. 

    That night I went into my room to play and took a long look at the toys in my room. I had a LOT of space-related toys from Legos to He-Man figures and Transformers. As a kid, I was heavily into space-related toys. You name it, I likely played with it. Though, things seemed different the day of the accident, I remember pausing a bit looking at them since it was space that killed a teacher. My mom took one of the Transformers and put it in my hand telling me that everything was going to be okay.  My brother came into my room with his Transformers and we started to play together. Yup. Nothing says unity and compassion like playing with two warring factions of transforming sentient alien robots. ;)

 

It's been a long road....

 I know that wasn't the point. The point is to move on despite tragedy and not to dwell on them because you'll drive yourself crazy. Space shuttles were relatively new at the time and sometimes tragedies happen as my mother told me. 

    I took that to heart and smiled as my mother gave me a big hug. The Challenger explosion was the first historic event everyone in my generation can remember. In the weeks that followed, we talked about what happened in class and once again the lessons Aunt Mimi and my mom taught me were passed down to us kids. In this case, it was good to hear the adults repeat what the other adults in our lives said over and over again. Still, while the adults in the room remained unchanged, the kids were forever changed.

    Today, friends on Facebook post on the anniversary of the explosion and ask where people were that day. They talk about the event with shockingly good clarity despite the lot of us being in our forties. Whenever someone asks me what the first event I remember hearing about on the news was, it's always that day because I was there. The day's events are forever etched into the brains of an entire generation. You never forget where you were or who you were with whenever tragedies or moments of great triumph occur.

    Tragedies happen. But, that doesn't mean we can't stop living. Did the event change my parents? No. Not really.  I still played with my space-related toys and watched science fiction movies and television shows with my dad despite what happened. I remember Star Trek IV: Save the Whales...er....The Voyage Home even was dedicated to the Challenger crew when it premiered that November. Monuments honoring McAuliffe were put up all around the state and every once in a while WMUR or other stations would talk about her and her legacy.

    Looking back, you could say it changed my generation in a way other events changed other generations before and after us. Do we wish it was a positive one? Yeah. But, sometimes events are negative and you have to deal with it as best you can. That's the only way we can stay sane. The Challenger explosion changed a lot of lives and forever changed how we handled traveling to the final frontier. You learn from the mistakes and try to make a better tomorrow while paying respect to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

See ya next time!

Pictures of the Enterprise and the Challenger crew is courtesy of Wikipedia.

52 Ancestors Week 11: Brick Wall

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11:

The theme for Week 11 is "Brick Wall." What ancestor is giving you fits in your research? What ancestor had been a brick wall, but you’ve broken through? Or, how about an ancestor who built brick walls for a living?

Welcome to Atop the Brick Wall....

    With apologies to my friend and fellow comic nerd, Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug, I welcome you all to another edition of "Atop the Brick Wall". The name of that genealogy show would rock so hard. But, it's too much like my friend Lewis's show, "Atop the 4th Wall". If you're interested in his reviews and retrospectives, I highly suggest checking him out here: http://atopthefourthwall.com/

    That said brick walls are truly one of the most annoying aspects of genealogy. Imagine chugging away adding ancestors and suddenly you hit the wall like Wil E Coyote. It's not pleasant. Earlier this year I talked about one such brick wall in the form of Moses Goodwin. Three months later and the wall still hasn't been broken. That's okay. There are other brick walls out there and many of them are on my mother's side of the tree.

What's this? Wikitree has a new look? Yup!

    Meet my 6th great-grandmother, Phebe Southwick, a woman shrouded in so much mystery she reminds me of a femme fatale in a James Bond movie or something. Seriously. There's like nothing on her anywhere. I only know she existed thanks to her marriage to James Frothingham in 1784 and through the births of her children. So, she did exist! I wasn't just imagining her or anything. 

   That's always a plus, right? I'd hate to find out if someone never really existed. However, even with the marriage and births used as a source it's still not enough to break that brick wall. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked!

    Researching women is tricky. I'm not going to lie. Researching women in a specific time and place is even worse sometimes because all you get is stuff like her first name. Gender roles have thankfully changed. Though, it is interesting to note that women in predominately Catholic countries don't have this issue for the most part. Though, you do want to be careful because your Domenica Gullo or Célanise Lefebvre may actually be a lady with the same name. You still need to research even if you have all the information in front of you. Look at how long it took me to break the brick wall that was Domenica Gullo!

Phebe's son, Richard.

    Let's put all of that aside for a minute and look at how I got into this mess in the first place. As stories go, this is a good one. I was building up my second great-grandmother Gertrude Stevens's tree using Massachusetts records. You really can't go wrong with records in the Bay State for the most part. Anyway, my path to Phebe went from Gertrude to her mother Evaline Fisher to her mother Frances Miranda Frothingham to her father Richard Sprague Frothingham and them Phebe herself.

    That's where things went a little sideways. I initially found a Phebe Southwick and when I was starting out I was sure that she was Richard's mother and the wife of James Frothingtham.  I built her tree up and it was one of those family trees that goes back to the 1000s. If I remember correctly, Ancestry automatically added that branch. This was back in 2006/2007 so I didn't have any means of checking my work. I assumed things were great until I started taking genealogy up again in 2017. I started to look at my old solo research to see if there was anything I needed to clean up. After all you want to check your work every once in a while!

    I asked for help confirming a few things on geni.com because I was skeptical of what I saw. A branch as full as that should not have been automatically added to my tree. That and I don't recall there being any sources. This was why I asked for help. Another pair of eyes is more than welcome every once in a while. To make a long story short, there were two Phebe Southwicks existing at the same time. One who had a link to the distant past and the one who turned out to be Richard's mother.

    The other Phebe turned out to be a "gateway ancestor". That's a person whose lineage dates back to the signers of the Magna Carta and usually those trees can be pushed back further than 1215 AD thanks to the signers being royalty and all that. 

        Proving that James didn't marry that Phebe was relatively easy. The Phebe who descended from the Magna Carta Surety Barons died before a few of Richard's children with the other Phebe Southwick were born. If memory serves, this included Richard himself! I couldn't believe I never saw that. Ah well. We all make mistakes! Naturally, I took a chainsaw to that branch and deleted all of the profiles dating back to the 1000s.

    The story of Phebe Southwick is why pre-1600 genealogy gives me trust issues. I still don't understand how the branch was auto-added onto my tree on Ancestry in 2006.  I'll probably never have an answer to that nearly twenty year old mystery. There must have been a glitch or something because Ancestry never did anything like that again!

    When the dust settled, I still had a problem. Who was the Phebe Southwick who was clearly Richard's mother? Where did she come from? Who the heck were her parents?! I honestly don't know. The only clues I have to her identity is her marriage to James. In fact, her last name might not have been "Southwick" at all. That would be problematic! It doesn't help that she wasn't referenced in the Southwick genealogy book.

    The only thing I know for sure is that she was born around 1760 as evidenced by her marriage and the births of her seven children. The only way I know that she was connected to the Southwicks somehow is because her husband unfortunately died without a will. A man named James Southwick took care of the estate and belongings. His connection to the family is unknown. He could have been a brother or another relative.

    As of March 2025, Phebe remains one of my strongest American brick walls. She's a tough one to crack because researching women in New England during her time is tricky when there are other women around who share the same name. Brick walls like her are definitely annoying and when you hit it you have no choice but to move onto another branch on the tree. There's not much anyone can do here and my friends and I have exhausted all avenues of research. If you look at her profile on Wikitree, you'll see what I mean.

    I did learn one valuable lesson from all of this. Pre-1600 genealogy is not for the faint of heart. I still don't understand how all those people were automatically added back in 2006. It's a good thing I deleted them all. I was always a bit skeptical about them. Now I know why!

See you next time! Here's hoping the mystery of Phebe Southwick gets resolved!

52 Ancestors Week 10: Siblings

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10:

The theme for Week 10 is “Siblings.” We shouldn’t forget about the people in our family trees who we don’t descend from: the siblings of our ancestors. Who is a sibling whose story needs to be told?

Look at these two troublemakers....

    Your siblings, along with your cousins, are usually your first friends. If you're lucky enough to have an older brother or sister, they can help you make sense of the craziness that happens in your family on a day-to-day basis. They can offer advice and they can play along with whatever trick you're going to pull on your parents. Not that I ever did anything like that! ;)

    Take one look at my family tree and you'll see large families and many siblings that ended up having a whole ocean separating them. A few siblings were strong enough to weather any storm that came their way. Concetta Coppola, daughter of Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato and the sister of my 2nd great-grandmother, Caterina was one such woman.

When I think of Italian grandmas...

      Like Caterina, Concetta was born in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida. She was a good twelve years younger than her sister and it makes me wonder just how many children were born to Paolo and Rosa between 1870 and 1882. I ask because their brother Paolo was born in 1886 and I only know of three children born to Paolo and Rosa. There had to have been more!

   Concetta married Vincenzo Papatola in the May of 1907 and after the birth of their son Francesco  in 1908 they left San Pietro for Haverhill, Massachusetts. My guess is that her cousin Giovanni must have told her about the job opportunities in America at the time and that must have encouraged the Papatolas to cross the Atlantic.

    I can only imagine what leaving Italy must have felt like for her as she left the only home she had ever known. But, with a new town to live in came new opportunities. After they arrived, the family began to grow and I have to assume that she kept in touch with her family back in Italy. More on that in a bit.

   Not long after arriving in America, the Papatolas welcomed five more children into their lives. Angelina was born in 1911.  Rose in 1913. Paul in 1916. James in 1918. And Concetta in 1921. Unfortunately, Concetta did not live that long and one could say it was a sad omen of things to come. But, you will see that Concetta was a strong woman and nothing could beat her resolve!

La famiglia di Papatola.

    My grandfather Marco and his sister Nicolina arrived in Haverhill in late 1929 with their mother and had many great memories of the woman they fondly referred to as "Aunt Zia". I have a feeling she took care of the two kids while their parents were out or she helped Maria from time to time as she was their great-aunt. Marco eventually had a close relationship with her daughters Angelina and Rose that lasted well into their adult years.

    I really think Concetta was a caring type. After all, she and her husband took in her brother Paolo and his children after his first wife passed away in 1918. He and his kids were seen living with her family in the 1920 US census in Haverhill. She had a big heart. What else can you say? Siblings watch out for each other when life throws a few curveballs at you.

    And unfortunately life threw a major curveball at Concetta during the 1930s that not even Babe Ruth could hit. Her husband Vincenzo passed away in early 1933 and by the end of the decade her oldest son Francesco was sent back to San Pietro leaving behind a wife and two daughters. To this day no one is quite sure about what he did. Not even his children in San Pietro knew! At this point it's all speculation.

    At least it wasn't all doom and gloom for Concetta. She stayed in touch with the family back in Italy through letters, phone calls and even the odd boat trip. Through those letters and more, my 2nd great-grandmother told her grandchildren about her brother Paolo, the detective and  sister Concetta. I'm sure Francesco even backed up some of the stories about his mother and I'm fairly certain he kept in contact with her and his siblings, too. Just because there's an ocean between you it doesn't mean you're "gone forever". You all know how much I despise that trope.

Concetta and Angelina

       Concetta remained a strong woman up until she passed away in 1967. I remember my cousin Karen telling me about the last time she saw her great-grandmother. Karen was fourteen at the time and Concetta told her that she reminded her a lot of herself at the same age. Very strong and very willful. She told her those qualities would take her far in life. I think it resonated with Karen because she remembered those words all those years later.

    Concetta had a profound impact on the lives of many people in Haverhill. I just feel bad that she never got to know the children Francesco had with his second wife, Angela. I'm sure they'd have loved to know their grandmother and they're all still living in the San Pietro area.

    Once I came into contact with them, I was sure to tell them everything I knew and sent pictures along in case they didn't have any. I'm sure that helped and they did keep in touch with the children Francesco had in America. Oh and it should be noted that one of Francesco's children in Italy was named after his mother.

    As you can see siblings make an indelible mark on a family. Somehow Concetta remained strong after losing her husband, a child and remained strong when her oldest son was sent back to Italy. Her reputation preceded her as she was a very amiable woman. She took in her brother when he was going through a rough time. She was so well loved that her sister back home sang her praises. I think that's a good legacy to have to be honest. You want to leave this world knowing that you put a lot of good into it by helping people in need and I think that's what she did. 

    I probably only scratched the surface of how great Concetta was. After all she had a whopping thirty grandchildren and I'm sure each of them had  (or have) their own stories about their grandma. I swear when I think of Italian grandmothers I think of two people. My own grandma Ollie, of course. And "Aunt Zia".

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 9: Family Secrets

From Amy Johnson Crow:  Week 9:

The theme for Week 9 is “Family Secret.” Have you uncovered a family secret? (A reminder that you do not need to post anything publicly.) A secret doesn’t have to be big or negative. (Like my grandpa not telling us grandkids that he was the one playing Santa at the Christmas party.)

This is the only time I'll ever use Comic Sans.

    Family secrets, huh? To tell the truth, I've shared many secrets here in the blog over the years and many of them have to do with my great-grandfather Vincenzo. I swear he was the undisputed king of the worst kept family secrets.  Anyway, not all family secrets need to be negative like Amy said in this week's prompt. Sometimes they can be fun and sometimes they can be worth talking about once the statute of limitations ran out . Oh, I can see you all getting comfortable right now. I have a good story to share with everyone so you might as well get cozy. Would you be surprised to learn that my great-grandfather Alfred Hamel helped rum runners in Newburyport during the Prohibition? 

Now we know why he has that
swagger....

    I'm not sure if I've told everyone this story before. But, it bears repeating because it's a fun story and since Prohibition ended almost a century ago I THINK the statute of limitations ran out by now. Before I get into the gory details, let me set the stage a bit.

    Alfred was a very popular man in Newburyport, Mass because he had his own "Fix-it" shop. There he would make keys and fix various appliances. You name it, he fixed it. That was how he became known as the city's "Mr. Fix-It". I didn't quite realize just what that meant until my mother told me one night over dinner.

    My mother and I would go out to dinner whenever my father would have a dental meeting and one dinner in particular stuck out to me because we were discussing this very blog. I send her links to my blog and she talks about them with me. Sometimes we talk about stuff I can talk about in future blog posts and somehow the topic of Alfred Hamel helping rum runners came up.

    The city of Newburyport sits at the mouth of the Merrimack River and because of that the city became famous for its mills much like other cities along the river like Haverhill and Lawrence. It was a major shipping port in the 18th and 19th centuries and an important stop on the Underground Railroad. By the time of Prohibition it became known as a spot where people could get their alcohol fix.  Rum runners in the 1920s made very good use of the river as they'd use boats to ship to other boats in international waters and there people would....well....you know. Party like it was 1899.

    Naturally, rum runners needed someone to fix their boats whenever there was a problem. And who did they call on to help them? Well, Newburyport's own Mr. Fix-It of course!  He was the man to see if you wanted your boat engine fixed with no questions asked!

The stories the river could tell....

    I'm sure the rumrunners trusted Alfred with their boats and made sure he didn't rat them out to the cops. These days he would have definitely been considered an accomplice. That begs the question. How involved with the rumrunners was he? Not only that....How did my Mom find out?! It's not something you randomly tell someone over dinner, you know. Wait....

    Well, maybe she found our when Alfred or her own father told her. I mean both guys were known to tell a story or two and by the time my mother came around I'm sure it was okay to talk about rumrunning. It wouldn't have been a big deal by the 1950s is what I'm saying.

    This secret is fun to think about because it gives me a bit of an insight into the man behind the "Mr. Fix-It" name. Not only was he a simple repairman who'd fix your refrigerator or icebox as it was called in those days. Alfred would work on a rumrunner's boat and not ask any questions. You might be wondering if he really knew he was working on a rumrunner's boat. Oh, he knew. He HAD to have known. The smell of alcohol on a boat is hard to miss. Trust me.

Hanging out on the river.

    It's really no wonder that he became a popular repairman in Newburyport. I don't mean it was because he fixed boats or anything. He was just the kind of guy everyone could trust. If a rumrunner could trust you not to rat them out, you're pretty much golden.

    Did he know what he was doing was illegal? Probably. Did he care? Probably not. We have to remember that our ancestors were people like us and they had their own faults and foibles. If I could, I'd probably ask Alfred just how he got roped into that world. Like I said. The statute of limitations ran out and I'm sure he'd tell me the tale.

    Here's how I picture it. Imagine Alfred was working in his shop one day and a guy comes in wearing a long coat. He might have smelled a little off. He says to Alfred "Hey. I need some help. My boat's engine needs some work done." Alfred agrees to help and notes that the man smells like alcohol.  He obviously figures out that the man was a bootlegger and the man offers to pay him double to keep his mouth shut. He agrees to help and thus a legend was born. That's how I see the story unfolding. Whether or not there's truth to it remains to be seen. I mean the guy running the booze might have been a friend, too! You never know!

Not running booze here. Nope. No way!

    The amazing thing is that he never got caught as far as I know. If he did, I don't think the city would have looked at him quite fondly. His reputation in the city as "Mr. Fix-It" would have taken a serious hit. He definitely wouldn't have gotten a glowing obituary when he passed away in the early 1960s.

    Sadly, there's no record proving that he helped bootleggers from time to time. It's not like they kept records of who they met up with out in the open ocean. Certainly repair logs at the fix-it shop would help. But, he could have easily omitted the times he repaired a boat. Sadly, those records are lost to time and the only records I have of his repair shop are electric bills. Those are not going to help anyone.

     Records or not it's still fun to think about those days. Did he ever join them out in the open ocean? How involved with the organization was he? All I can say is I bet he was relieved once Prohibition ended in 1933. The United States had uhh.....bigger problems at that time than just bootleggers. I suppose once it was lifted, he felt a great weight was lifted from his shoulders. There was no way he'd be prosecuted! He got away with everything!

    Family secrets don't always have to include drama or something really shocking. There's more than enough of that to go around. Sometimes there are fun stories that show your ancestor was more than just a photograph and stats on your favorite genealogical platform. They were human. They made mistakes and sometimes inadvertently found themselves entangled in major historic events of the time. I like to call it the "Forrest Gump effect". Someone just finds their way into interesting times through no fault of their own and these days that curse is still going strong.

See you next time and raise a glass!

52 Ancestors Week 8: Migration

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 8:

The theme for Week 8 is “Migration.” Almost everyone has ancestors who came from somewhere else. Who is someone in your family tree who moved away from where they were born? How did they get there? How far did they move?

You can take someone out of New England....

    While Haverhill, Massachusetts is indeed the center of the universe as far as my family tree is concerned, it should be noted that many people in my family did indeed leave New England for better job opportunities or had just plain old wanderlust. I can safely say that no ever went to California because there was gold in the hills or anything like that. Though, these days a little gold might help. I'm just saying.

    Several people opted to go to places as far away as Nova Scotia, Florida and other places around North America. It's no surprise that many people pulled up stakes and moved to various places around the continent. They wanted to see what was out there. This week, I'm taking this blog out west to Vegas, baby! Okay. It's not technically Las Vegas, Nevada. It's really nearby Reno. I'm still contractually obligated to say "Vegas, Baby!". I should have read the fine print in my contract.

Vincenzo's in the middle.

    Vincenzo Carrabis, the oldest son of  Pasquale Carrabis and Raffaela D'Adamo was the undisputed king of wanderlust. He was born in Gesualdo, Italy in 1918 and settled in Everett, Mass. Once he was old enough, he left New England with his second wife, Dolores Washburn and they got married in Carson City on August 18th, 1967.

    From there they moved to Reno and spent the rest of their lives there. While in Nevada, Vincenzo aka James worked as a bus driver. James sadly passed away five years after he and Dolores got married. I can only hope that those few years were happy.

    I have to assume they were. My cousin Joanne recalls visiting her aunt DeeDee (Dolores) quite frequently until she passed away in 2000. Still, I have to wonder what brought James all the way to Nevada. He had six children with his first wife Margaret D'Aiello. They had married young and by the mid 1960s they divorced. Maybe they wanted to enjoy their retirement years by moving to a place that's sort of exotic. I'm honestly not sure. Looks like I might have some inquiries to make!

    Of course James was never really a stranger to traveling. Longtime readers might remember a blog I wrote in 2022 where I talked about James's trip to Ohio. In the blog, I said that James went to Ohio and got a woman named Edna pregnant and that he was the grandfather of a DNA match.

    Three years later and I'm still not sure what he was doing in Ohio and everything. I only know that his son Donald was born sometime before his son James was born to him and Margaret in 1950. My DNA match Wendy shares a whopping 830 cMs with him.  That's still a large number!

    Anyway, James clearly did his fair share of traveling before settling in Nevada. Several of his children ended up there and built lives of their own. Joanne suggested that I message one of them so I could get the whole story about James and why he moved all the way to Nevada. I might want to leave out the bit about Ohio. But, I have a feeling news spread fast about it as it tends to do in large families.

    James is just one of many people in the family tree who migrated elsewhere on the continent. Did he expect to find riches in the Reno area or did he and Dolores just feel like it was a great place to spent their twilight years? I'm going to go with the latter because that seems like a romantic notion and I'm in a romantic mood today. Either way, many people have many different reasons for going from one place to another. The families obviously stayed in touch but back in the day it must have been a lot harder to do. Some people traveled far. Some stayed in the same general area. In the end, it doesn't matter how far you travel and put down roots. You're all still family in the end.

See ya next time!