52 Ancestors Week 19: A Question the Records Can't Answer

From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 19 is “A Question the Records Can’t Answer.” Outside of letters and diaries, most of the records we use in genealogy don’t tell us the “why” and “how” of our ancestors’ lives. We can read the records of what happened, but how did our ancestors feel? What was it like? This week, think about a question that goes beyond the names and dates. What would you ask that ancestor? 

Riddle me this, Batman....

    I think we can all agree that documents can only tell researchers so much about an ancestor. Birth records can only tell you who the parents were and where someone was born. Unless you lucked out and have Italian ancestors like I do and they'll give you the birth records. baptismal records and sometimes even the marriage record depending on the era someone was born. Italian records can sometimes be considered one-stop shopping in many cases. Sometimes grandparents are listed! All that's missing at that point is the father's favorite brand of vino.  Even Italian records don't tell you everything about someone. It sure would be nice if they did. However, you have to make do with what you can find. 

   There are so many questions I would ask various ancestors that records would never be able to answer. If I could, I'd talk to my grandfather Marco about everything he missed since he passed away in 1983. I'd ask my third great-grandfather Jeremiah Felker why his grandfather was listed on his death certificate instead of his father Elias. The list goes on and on. Since I've been trying to break down the Coppola brick walls I think it'd be a good idea to talk to my second great-grandmother Caterina Coppola and ask her a few simple questions.

Marco, Caterina and
Adriana

    While records in San Pietro a Maida would definitely have her vital statistics like her birth, marriage and death records. Those records wouldn't necessarily answer where the Coppolas came from. I know for a fact that no Coppola was born in San Pietro a Maida until 1860 when Caterina's cousin Francesco was born. There are no other Coppolas in San Pietro prior to that date so they all had to have come from somewhere in Italy.

    Records naturally may provide clues as to where the family came from but they wouldn't necessarily tell me why her father Paolo, her uncle Giovanni and her aunt Caterina left that town for San Pietro a Maida.  I'm sure it'd be an interesting story because three siblings just don't breeze into town, marry three locals and have families with them. Life isn't a Hallmark movie!

    I would definitely ask her about that and of course I'd have to have the universal translator on. Never go to another country without it. I would totally have to break the language barrier when talking to a few ancestors of mine. I'm not THAT fluent in Italian, you know!

        I think that would be a good start to my conversation with Caterina. I would totally rip the band-aid off and get to the point. Still, there are some other pointed questions I'd ask her. For example, I'd ask her how it felt to have several members of her family scattered around the globe. She would definitely have a lot to say about that, I'm sure. The family was everywhere and while my great-grandfather would write to his mother from time to time, I'm sure she thought about everyone quite often.

Vincenzo in black and white.

    Just to recap. Caterina's siblings Paolo and Concetta were in Haverhill with their families. Her cousins Giovanni, Marianna and Rosa Maria were there too along with her son Vincenzo and her grandchildren Marco and Nicolina. Her daughter Caterina moved to Buenos Aires with her husband and everyone else was in Italy.

    To say that's a big family is a bit of an understatement. Records can tell me where they lived and when they left. But they can't very well tell me how she and her husband Marco felt about having her family spread out like that. Somehow I don't think that'd be mentioned on their passports. 

    Little things like that can definitely add to a family's story and make them seem more real. Plus, you can bet that they'd have more color to the story than some random fact you find online. As a writer, I always want to try to fill the narrative with interesting bits of information. It's questions like these that add a human element to the family story.

    Finally, I think I would ask her more about Nicola and what he was like.  Nicola was a child of Marco and Caterina's who tragically died trying to save Caterina's boyfriend who was drowning. I'm not sure if it'd be a sore subject. I would have to tread lightly with that question. While San Pietro can certainly tell me when he was born and when he died, I don't think the records could tell me what possessed him to dive into currents like that and face certain death. He was pretty heroic. There's no denying that. There just has to be more to the story than what a cousin told me. Sure my great-aunt was named after him. There just has to be more  to the story like I said.

    Records always tell you one thing but a relative can often tell you more about their story. You'll never hear the context behind someone's trip to America by looking at a ship manifest. Oh, sure you can guess all you want. You could even imagine what the journey must have been like. In the end, hearing a story from someone's own words would mean more than any document you might have in your archive. That's why it's important to talk to the oldest generation you can because they can tell you stories that vital statistics and scans can't!

    I'm lucky that Caterina told me a lot about her grandmother. She's told me a lot about my second great-grandmother and I wonder if she has some of the answers to the questions I've asked. You never know....

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 18: Tradition

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 18:

The theme for Week 18 is “Tradition.” Traditions can be an important part of family history, bringing context and connection between generations. What is an important tradition in your family, and who worked to keep that tradition going? 

Having pipe cleaner guys hold on to the 
Christmas tree for dear life is a tradition.

    There are so many traditions I've covered in this blog and sometimes I don't know where to start. For Christmas we have huge Christmas Eve parties. On Thanksgiving we have lasagna with turkey and all the trimmings. Mother's day is just around the corner and this week I thought it'd be a great idea to talk about how Mother's Day meals eventually evolved into something we like to call "Cousin's Day". I know it's not a real holiday but it is in our family! 

    Rather than just take my mother out to dinner every Mother's Day, we would take all the mothers in the family out at once. The results were amazing. Imagine a table full of Italians all talking to each other and over each other at a fancy restaurant. That was basically our Mother's Day every May for as long as I can remember.

Grandma Ollie, her sisters, my Grandma Natalie
and one of my grandma's friends.

    Like the Christmas Eve parties, I'm not 100% sure who started it.  Basically, it was a way for my grandmother to see all of her sisters at once on Mother's Day. It was odd considering everyone was close by anyway. All I can tell you is that every May we would dress up, go to Haverhill to pick up my grandma Ollie and then go to a random restaurant here in the Merrimack Valley for lunch. The restaurant was usually chosen after much deliberation. It usually depended on what everyone was in the mood for that week. Though, some places were honestly better than others. Looking back, I really wished Chef Gordon Ramsay visited the "Pond View". The food was positively ghastly!

    Sometimes we didn't go for the food. We went for the company. The five of us would arrive at the venue and we'd be greeted by all of Ollie's sisters, their spouses, my dad's cousins and their spouses. At its height there were well over a dozen people at the gatherings. To say the restaurants made a lot of money that day is an understatement.

 I shouldn't complain about the food too much. We once went to a place that had been open since 1686 and it was pretty good. The place was conveniently named "The 1686 House" and it's located in historic Kingston, New Hampshire. It's a typical surf and turf place and naturally I enjoyed it immensely. I haven't been there in ages and I'm glad that it's still open. I think if the quality of the food remains constantly good, a place should remain open to the public. If a place goes downhill thanks to a new chef, the food will of course suffer.

    After we had dinner, we would go to one of the cousins' houses for dessert or one of the sisters' houses and it was usually there that I got an earful of family history facts and figures. Normally this was because those restaurants were noisy and since I have hearing aids I wasn't able to hear what my dad and his cousins were talking about at the table. Once we got out of there I was able to hear myself think and that allowed me to interact with the cousins more.

    If we went to my great-aunt Louise's house in Haverhill, I got to see plenty of pictures of my great-grandparents Giuseppe and Clementina and thus asked questions about them and their siblings. Without the noise of the restaurants, I got to hear everyone better and was able take in the information I was told a lot more easily. Pro tip: Never ask for family history stuff in a crowded restaurant on Mother's Day!

    The desserts were always good, too. My great-aunts all made cookies and all kinds of goodies. So, I got to listen to some fun stories while eating Italian desserts in relative peace and quiet. You honestly can't beat that.

     I will admit going to those places now would probably make me miss my grandmother and her sisters more than the places we went for "Cousins Day"  because they were often hilarious. For example, Louise would take rolls from the table and put them in her oversized purse along with pads of butter. Why? Why not! "It's free bread!",  she would say. My grandmother, naturally, helped her pack the bread and kept an eye out for any wait staff that might be watching them. Just picture four little old Italian ladies in a classy joint and you'd get my grandma and her sisters. There was never a dull moment with that crew!

    Over time, the sisters passed away and my dad's cousins all agreed that everyone should still visit each other even though the mothers were all no longer around. It was a great idea and we would still go out to dinner at random places and usually they were at more local than the places we went with the little old Italian ladies.

Cousin Carol

    The evolution of Mother's Day meals to "Cousins Day" was pretty seamless and a natural progression since my dad and his maternal cousins were all close.  At the end of the meals we ended up going to his cousin Carol's house in Nashua and be treated to desserts she and her daughter made. Going to Carol's house was pretty fun as I got to talk to second cousins I didn't see too often. Plus, I got a chance to enjoy some of my great-aunt Josie's recipes that had been passed down to her.

       Carol was the oldest of the cousins and so she had a lot of photos to share along with the recipes. On one of the "Cousins Days", I told her I was working on the family tree. She smiled and dumped a shoebox full of pictures on me. Literally. One of the photos fluttered in my lap and it was a picture of Giuseppe, Clementina and all of the sisters looking like they were waiting for the bus or something.

    That was pretty cool, I'll admit. Naturally, I took a pic of the picture before we left. Why not? 

    These days Cousins Day has been more about the cousins visiting each other. We would still go out to dinner at a random restaurant and while we would still have a great time, I again found myself remembering the Mothers' Day meals of years past. I can't help it! My grandmother and her sisters were just too funny and they often had everyone at the table laughing. Just try to picture them as like the "Golden Girls" but all of them were Sophia. That was pretty much them in a nutshell!

    My father and his cousins all worked to keep the tradition going because it was very important to them. They grew up together in Haverhill and naturally it made sense for all of the cousins to get together every once in a while. I would love to do that with my own cousins, honestly. But, it depends on time and all of that. Perhaps one day we will have our own "Cousins Day". It wouldn't be a bad thing! The Mothers Day/Cousins Day parties were always a great time to learn family history and hear stories of years gone by and it's great that the tradition still continues. Who knows what shape it may take in the future. Perhaps I will make a similar tradition with my cousins. Time will tell.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 17: Working for a Living

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 17:

The theme for Week 17 is “Working for a Living.” Our ancestors’ occupations can give real insight into their lives. This week, choose an ancestor and focus on how he or she made their livelihood. What did you discover about that person’s life?

BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!

    The jobs our ancestors had can really tell you a lot about them and you can unfortunately learn a lot about their jobs when you read through their medical journals at the tender age of eight. I can't tell you what an eye-opening experience that was. Let's just say I was brushing my teeth MORE than the recommended two times a day for like a month after reading my father's copy of the New England Journal of Medicine! Nine out of  ten dentists say you should stay away from medical journals. The tenth is being sued for malpractice.

    I've talked about my father the dentist in the blog before. He had his own practice in Salem for a little over fifty years and was very good at what he did. Of course I'll never forget the weird looks he gave me when I pulled out my own teeth in his operatory chair just moments before he was going to work on my teeth. They were loose! One good tongue flick popped it right out!

   While my father was working on peoples' teeth and making sure they flossed, my mother was also a medical professional. She too had her own medical journals and yes they were also just as gory as my father's books. There's a reason why I never went into medicine. My mother was a lab supervisor at Merrimack Medical Labs in nearby Andover, Mass and the environment there was quite different from than the one at my dad's office.

    Long before Diane Hamel worked at that lab she was first a graduate of Suffolk University where she studied laboratory medicine. She also interned in Hartford, Connecticut in 1970. She later worked as a Lab supervisor in Bayonne, New Jersey before she and my father moved back to New Hampshire.

    Once she and my father were back in the Granite State, she worked in the hospital and at Lawrence Medical and testing. 

    I think it's pretty clear by now that my mother was every bit a medical juggernaut as my father. What's interesting is that out of all of her siblings, she was the only one who went into medical school to pursue medicine as a profession. She has three sisters and two brothers and none of them every really followed in their father's footsteps and he was okay with that as long as they were happy.

    By the time I was born she was already working in a private laboratory in Lawrence and Salem, New Hampshire.  As a lab supervisor she counted blood cells and checked for various coagulation factors for patients and helped to diagnose medical conditions for doctors at area hospitals. Say a patient might have sickle cell anemia or any other blood-related illness. Her job was to examine blood cells for any irregularities and conduct other tests.

Goriest image in the blog ever.

    Every once in a blue moon I would join my mother at her office and it was a little bit more relaxed than my dad's place from time to time. It might have been because my mother's boss, Phil, was a very nice guy. He would often set me up with a microscope and I would check out blood cells for myself. I also got to see bacteria, paramecia and all kinds of microscopic organisms long before I ever learned about them in biology class. 

    Talk about getting a head start, right? Alas, medicine was never my thing. I understood it of course but I still had to turn my head whenever my mother took my blood at the dining room table. Yes, she did that! Not everyone is cut out to be a medical professional. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. 

    All in all, I would say that my mother's job complimented my father's work as a dentist quite nicely if you think about it. As a dentist, my father made sure that peoples' oral health was in tip top shape. After all, poor oral health can lead to very unfortunate medical conditions. My mother and her fellow lab rats worked to make sure people were healthy all throughout the Merrimack valley. There was even a time when Merrimack Medical's services were definitely needed.

    In the early 2000s, I was a student at Merrimack College and there was unfortunately a small pandemic spreading among the student body. People were getting sick in their dorms. People were spreading whatever the illness was all over campus. If you're thinking this was a precursor to the Covid times, you would be right on the money.

    Her lab was called in to help diagnose the problem and come up with a solution as quickly as possible. I remember being tested when I got home. I commuted to college since it wasn't that far away. Thankfully. I never had the bug that went around campus. I did have to drink lots of water for days and we couldn't drink the water that was on campus. To this day we still don't know what caused the outbreak. Needless to say my mother was channeling her inner Doctor Crusher when she saw me and I was thankful that I didn't get sick.

    And that was how my mother earned a living. After the lab closed she went to work with my father at the office. She was already sort of working there whenever he needed help with a patient or if one of his staff members couldn't make it into work.

    I would say that she liked doing what she did for a living. She met some interesting people and maybe helped to save a life or two. Diagnosing a person's medical condition is never easy and to this day she still helps people whenever a problem arises. She was very good at what she did and let's not forget she did it while raising two boys. 

    I have to give my mother credit for that. It's not easy looking at microscopic organisms and seeing what damage they're doing to a human. You have to have a strong stomach to work with blood and sadly I do not have that talent. At least I've learned from both medical professionals. I may not be a doctor but I do play one on tv. 

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 16: A Quiet Life

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 16 is “A Quiet Life.” Not every ancestor was a swashbuckler living a life of adventure. Who in your family tree had a quiet life? What have you found to make their story more detailed?

Peace in the valley.....for like five minutes.

    A quiet life? Uhhh.....No one in my family tree has ever had anything remotely resembling a quiet life. On one side I have loud Italians who would call your name from one side of the house and sit you down to Sunday dinner with your cousins where you'd discuss various stories that frankly should stay internal. On the other side, I have French men and French women who have adopted that same New England flair for being loud and boisterous. The same applies to the tiny portion of my tree that has colonial American roots. No one has or ever had what you might call a "quiet life". They lived in New England. We don't do quiet here contrary to what movies, television shows and post cards have told you. A quiet life only exists if you essentially move off of the grid like an uncle of mine did. Though, I don't think even that could be considered "quiet" since he is in constant contact with his large family. Let me explain.

    While it is certainly true that not every ancestor I had was an adventure seeker, it is true that all of them had interesting stories to share about their childhood, their families and everything in between. By and large no one really lived in the countryside and lived a quiet life. This even includes the Italian ancestors who lived in Gesualdo and San Pietro a Maida believe it or not. Life got loud and life got complicated. It's how life is and that's why today I'm going to write about how no one was ever truly living a quiet life.

Vincenzo and Nicolina

    You would think that small Italian communities would be the ideal place to have a quiet life. I used to think that was true until I learned more and more about San Pietro a Maida and Gesualdo. The lives people live there before immigrating to America are anything but quiet.

       Take my great-grandfather Vincenzo and his family for example. Long before his sister Caterina married Lorenzo Astorino she had a boyfriend who was drowning in a nearby river. Vincenzo and Caterina's brother Nicola rushed to saved the young man's life and sadly the pair ended up drowning in the river As a result, Vincenzo named his firstborn child after his brother when she was born in 1923. Her name was Nicolina Ferraiolo.

    That story was told to me by my cousin Caterina and confirmed by my great-aunt herself who had heard the story all of her life and I consider it proof that even in small towns in Italy life may not be as quiet as it seems.  Accidents happen and even in a small town life doesn't always slow to a crawl.

    Even after immigrating to America Vincenzo and his family made it a point to travel to Italy every chance he got. After all, they all went to Switzerland to attend his niece's wedding in 1969. He constantly traveled and constantly stayed in touch with family back in San Pietro. 

     Nicolina herself visited San Pietro and stayed with her mother's family, the Tedescos and back in the United States she never really lived a quiet life. She lived in Memphis, Tennessee with her daughter and life was never quiet....especially since she had a little yappy dog who thought she was a big dog. Dogs tend to make life interesting and every day was an adventure. 

    Meanwhile, Vincenzo's relatives stayed in the Haverhill area and life for them was not quiet. Haverhill may not be as big as Boston but there was a sizeable Italian district in the city as I've discussed and things were never

Giuseppe and Clementina

    For the Carrabs life was always an adventure. Giuseppe and Clementina had five daughters and their siblings were always nearby in Haverhill, Everett and Melrose. Their extended families were big. VERY big. To date I have dozens of DNA matches who descend from Giuseppe or Clementina's brothers and the best part is that my parents knew who belong to who for the most part!

    If there's one thing Italians are known for aside from great food it's that they have large families and with large families there's no such thing as "quiet". "Quiet" does not exist when you're sitting around the kitchen table talking about the love life if your second cousin. Keep that in mind when I talk about my mother's side of the tree in a minute. She also comes from a very large family. 

    Large families tend to prevent anything remotely resembling a quiet life from ever happening. Life in the city was very seldom like "Little House on the Prairie".  When you gather around the table in an Italian house, you will be told stories and you will learn right away that peoples' lives were seldom quiet and while people did do quiet things like fish and all that other stuff they were still a loud bunch of Italians who loved to travel, fish, hunt and tell stories about their past that were anything but quiet.

Austin and Henrietta

    My mother's side is very much like my father's side. Less vino and still very adventurous, though. I think that's why my parents clicked so well. They both came from very large families and even though my father is an only child he still had his cousins to hang around with while he was growing up.

    Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault also had many children and many of them lived very adventurous lives. My grandmother Natalie married a soldier in the Air Force. Her brother Austin moved around a LOT and was definitely someone who was adventurous. The same could be said for any member of the Felker clan.

    Family get-togethers with the Felkers were honestly like Italian get-togethers. The parties were loud and I had that one great-aunt who was louder than everyone else. You would swear she was Italian when she wasn't. I blame the fact that she grew up in Haverhill. If you grew up in the Merrimack valley, chances are you are going to be loud and have had a very adventurous life. Life is very seldom dull in the valley. 

    While the Felkers did live far from the Italian quarter in Haverhill, they still were a stone's throw away from the excitement in the city. Excitement eventually followed them to Plum Island where they had a boat and had many adventures out on the Merrimack river and even the Atlantic.

And that takes is right to Newburyport, home of the Hamels and adventure on the high seas. I've already talked about how my great-grandfather  Alfred Hamel  had a Fix-it shop and may have repaired ships for bootleggers during the Prohibition era. He was a man with a million stories and he passed them down to his children. One of whom became a fireman and another who basically became Captain America.

    Once again the families were loud and boisterous. Newburyport, like Haverhill, is a very cosmopolitan city home to people of all stripes. It's going to get loud there and the people have to adapt in order to survive. 

    There's a theme here with all these little vignettes. If you're from a large family like I am, life is very seldom dull or quiet. There's always something going on or some party you have to attend and you meet a relative you hadn't seen since you were in diapers. In my family, it happens a lot and I sometimes find myself reminding my nephews who is who and everything. My extended family is big. Very big. There's a reason why my tree sits at over 20,000 people at the time of this blog's posting. By the end of the year I could have more people added. 

    As you can see a quiet life simply doesn't exist in my family at all. I come from generations of adventure seekers, loud people and epic storytellers. Both major ethnicities in my tree tend to be loud and adventurous. It happens! Sure some people have led quiet lives for one reason or another but in the end it's not something that really happens in my family. Everyone wants to know what's going on with their second cousin or something. Some people manage to escape. Me? I'm used to it. In life there has to be a balance between living life to its fullest and settling down. There's a happy medium in there somewhere and I think that despite having a ton of stories my ancestors have found some elements of a quiet life out there despite the drama and millions of relatives coming over for dinner every Sunday!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 15: Unexpected

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 15:

The theme for Week 15 is “Unexpected.” What have you found that you didn’t expect? Have you ever found something in an unexpected place? Or maybe you were surprised to find out a family story was actually true! 

    I've said it before and I'll say it again. When you're on your genealogical adventure, you need to expect the unexpected. This is especially true if you've taken a DNA test because you're likely going to find long-lost relatives who you've never met before in your life. You may even find out that your great-grandfather isn't the person everyone in your family thought he was. It's sad but true. 

    Then again, sometimes good things can often be unexpected. You might find a relative in Switzerland who confirmed a story you heard multiple times while you were growing up. You might find a cousin in Argentna who messaged you right when the Boston Celtics win the NBA finals! Yes, I know these are oddly specific examples. I've written about many of my unexpected surprises. A lot of them have been good. Some of them have been a little on the weird side. All in all I can't really complain. Whoever said life had to be perfect? With that said let's talk about one my most recent unexpected surprises.

Maria has seen things.....

    My second great-grandmother Maria Giovanna Capobianco isn't really discussed much in the blog. She was born in Frigento in 1856 and according to genealogists who have actually been to Frigento she passed away a century later. She was the wife of Vincenzo Carrabs and mother of ten children including my great-grandfather Giuseppe.

    To make a long story short I have several DNA matches who descended from Vincenzo and Maria. Sufficed it to say her progeny is well documented!

    Her parents' trees are also well documented. With a little help, I fleshed out the trees for Angelo Maria Capobianco and his wives Rosaria di Pomponio and Carmina Martone. I found out that Angelo and Carmina had seven children together after they got married in 1852. For a while that was all I had for the Capobiancos. Everyone was DNA confirmed on WikiTree except for her branch and I was actually getting used to the idea that I wasn't going to be able to DNA confirm Angelo and Carmina.....until fate stepped in.

   A few weeks ago I was checking out my match list on Ancestry and I saw that a woman in Argentina matched my father, his maternal cousins and I. Not only that. There was a Thruline that pointed the match at Angelo and Carmina being our most recent common ancestors! This lady, let's call her Angela, seemed to descend from Angelo and Carmina's son Antonio who was born in 1866 in Frigento.

Antonio and Maria

    Naturally, I already had Antonio in my tree from when I was researching Frigento. He married Maria Saveria Genua in the 1880s and they had eight children together. This wasn't at all unexpected. I knew they had a large family and the odds were pretty good that I'd have a DNA match from that branch of the family. It just depended on who was around and who could test. After researching the Capobiancos, I just put them on the backburner as I assumed Maria's brothers and sisters lived all of their lives in Italy.

    What I didn't know was that Antonio and Maria's son Gennaro moved to Argentina, got married and had a family there! I had my friend Jenn check out Angela's tree on Ancestry and she found something that could definitely be considered unexpected.

    Back in the day, I found that Gennaro married a woman named Vincenza Graziosi in 1924. Gennaro's wife in Angela's tree was not  Vincenza Graziosi. It was a woman named Esther Paulina Yrruti.

 When I saw that name I let out an audible "WHAT?!" What happened to Vincenza?!

    Jenn wasn't sure what to tell me. In fact, I'm pretty sure she was surprised by my reaction. I have chat logs of her telling me to calm down.  I couldn't help it! Gennaro's birth record clearly stated he married Vincenza in 1924. The notes in the margins on Italian birth records are just as ironclad as the actual marriage banns.  Something had to have happened to Vincenza. Something bad. I took a deep breath and set off to do the only thing I could think of. I messaged Angela to see if she knew anything about Gennaro.

Gennaro Capobianco

    I wrote to Angela and after a few days of waiting I got a reply back! She sadly didn't have long to talk. However, she confirmed that Maria and Antonio were brother and sister. This meant that Angela was my third cousin once removed and a third cousin to my father and his cousins.

    Angela was working on her tree and found our connection. Apparently, I was just as big a surprise to her as she was to me because she asked me where I was from and my own family story, 

    I replied right away and told her all about Giuseppe and his siblings and how they all lived in Massachusetts. I told her about a few DNA matches and basically everything I learned about the Capobianco family. I just hope it didn't overwhelm her. She DID ask!  I wasn't sure how to go about asking about Vincenza, though. What can I say? "So...Your tree has someone named Esther as Gennaro's wife. My tree has a lady named Vincenza. What happened?"

I may have an idea what happened. Check it out.

    Gennaro and Vincenza had a happy life together until she fell ill and passed away unexpectedly. It happened a lot in small Italian towns. After losing his wife, Gennaro decided to pack his things and moved to Argentina. There, he married Esther and they lived happily ever after.. That's just my idea. I have no clue if it's true. Wouldn't that be the best explanation for everything? I'll have to wait until I hear back from Angela and she can confirm the story. I think what I have is the best case scenario. The truth remains to be seen and I'll see what Angela has to say in due time.

    That was my most recent unexpected surprise. I found a Capobianco cousin in Argentina! Like I said earlier, I knew Capobianco cousins had to have been out there somewhere. I had no idea that once again I'd find family in Argentina. Your genealogical adventure can take you to every corner of the globe and sometimes you may end up revisiting a few places. It's no secret that Italians migrated to Argentina as well as the United States. What is a mystery is what happened to Gennaro's first wife. Let's hope Angela replies and I can fill everyone here in on the gory details.

    Unexpected things are always going to happen out there. When you do family history, you need to expect the unexpected. Life is very seldom boring. 

See ya next time!

    

52 Ancestors Week 14: A Brick Wall Revisited

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14:

The theme for Week 14 is “A Brick Wall Revisited.” Sometimes it takes a set of fresh eyes to solve a problem. Has that happened with you in your genealogy? (Of course, there are other ways to interpret this theme. Any bricklayers in the family? 😉 )

Welcome to Atop the Brick Wall where bad gedcoms burn.

    According to my archives, this is the third time I've gone atop the brick wall. At this point I should make a webseries with that name! I won't, though. I don't want to step on my friend Lewis's toes. I already parodied him once years ago and I don't need to do it again! Even though that was fun....

    It's all good. When you're on a genealogical adventure, you're bound to run into brick walls that are made out of pure titanium. This is due to a lack of records, record availability and a bunch of other issues. You're going to find some trouble spots that you need to put on the backburner. Some brick walls do end up getting smashed. Remember my second great-grandmother Domenica Gullo? My second great-grandmother was a brick wall for years until that wall came crumbling down. It takes patience and hard work to deal with a brick wall. Some end up getting solved with ease and some need to be poked at with a hammer every once in a while.

     This week, we're going to revisit a blog from 2023 where I talked about my fourth great-grandfather Francesco Coppola and how I managed to discover him and his unknown wife. We'll see how things stand three years later and hopefully break the wall a little bit more.

    To sum up, I found out about Francesco via the birth record of his grandson Francesco in 1860. Francesco was the brother of Giovanni Coppola and several of Giovanni's descendants are DNA matches of my great-aunt Nicolina, my father and myself. 

    Other Coppola DNA matches link to Francesco as well via his daughter Caterina. My line comes from his son Paolo. The matches were all pretty solid and there's no question that every one of them descend from Francesco.

    It also helps that there was only one Coppola family in San Pietro a Maida. Coppola may be a very common last name. However, just because a name might be common in all of Italy it doesn't mean that it's very common in one tiny Calabrian town.

    Despite finding the connection to Francesco, I still have a few problems I need to deal with. The records never listed who Francesco's wife was. She could be anyone and I still haven't been able to learn her name! That's one question I would really want answered because I really don't like having her name be "Unknown Unknown" on WikiTree. That's just weak. Very weak. Thankfully, I think I might have a way to break that brick wall down!

    The answer I'm looking for lay in the marriage records of her and Francesco's children, Paolo and Giovanni. The brothers married to sisters from the Suverato family, Rosa and Angela. In Italian genealogy, you're going to find a lot of brothers from one family marrying sisters in another family. It's a thing and it happens in other parts of the world!

    Italian women also tend to get married in the town in which they were born and the sisters had to have married the Coppola brothers some time before their oldest children were born. I don't have an exact date for their marriages. However, I do know that Giovanni's son Francesco was born in November 1860 when  his parents were thirty and twenty years old.  

    Francesco had to have been Angela's first child. So, it stands to reason that she and Giovanni were married in either 1858 or 1859. Unfortunately, those records are not online. I would have to ask the commune office for the marriage and since I don't have an exact date, it may be hard to find.  Of course the birth years are conjecture. It's a wild guess when you're dealing with someone's age on a birth record.

    Marriage records might not be the only record I need to verify the parents' identity. Death records would work just as well. I might not know when the Coppolas or the Suveratos passed away. But I do know when Maria Coppola passed away.

    She was a daughter of Giovanni and Angela and passed away in 1962. Her death record would obviously list her parents and it might list her grandparents as well. If I were to ask for that exact record, it might give me the information I need to finally break down that wall.

    That's where the brick wall stands today and that's how I plan to break it down. When I wrote the blog I didn't really have an exact means to break down the wall on my own. All I could do was chisel at it a bit at a time and hope for the best. I would work on it, come back later and try to plan another way to attack the wall. Can it be broken? Oh, yeah. Totally!

    I now have a friend in Italy who might be able to help me figure this mess out and she likely also descends from Francesco and his wife. Of course that's to be determined. I'm sure my cousin Flavia would be more than happy to help me out. Perhaps San Pietro will even have the records online some day. It's hard to say. I do know I can break this brick wall and reveal my 4th great-grandmother's identity. The brick wall may still be there. But it's wobbling ever so slightly. I just need the ACME Jackhammer 9000.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 13: A Family Pattern

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13:

The theme for Week 13 is “A Family Pattern.” There are so many ways this theme could go! Naming patterns, behavior, migration, following an occupation for several generations, even sewing! What family pattern will you write about?

I honestly don't think I can work a kilt. 

    You're bound to find family patterns on your genealogical adventure. Names will be passed down through generations and unfortunately certain types of behavior will be passed down as well. However, there's one thing in Amy's prompt this week that she didn't mention. Physical characteristics could also be a pattern. Sometimes these can be as plain as the nose on your face that you inherited from your great-grandmother and sometimes it can be subtle like the ability to curl your tongue.  In my family's case, eye color could definitely be considered a family pattern. This week we'll be covering the generations of people who had the bluest blue eyes ever. It's time to break out the Sinatra records because "Old Blue Eyes" is back!

Austin and Henrietta 

    The Felker family always had blue eyes and my great-grandfather Austin was no exception. My mother always told me that he had the bluest blue eyes ever. His eyes were apparently so blue that it was like looking at the ocean. When MyHeritage came out with their photo colorization tech, I put it to the test and sadly his eyes never turned blue. They were always this gross grainy black color. I guess I'll have to take my mother's word for it because I don't have color photos of him. Good thing his records confirmed that his eyes were indeed blue. Though, I don't think they'll be as descriptive as "blue as the ocean at dawn". They weren't that descriptive on draft cards. Fortunately. I have plenty of other pictures that show off the famous Felker blue eyes.

    Of course Austin wasn't the only one in the family who had amazing blue eyes. Several of his and Henrietta's children had them as well including my grandmother Natalie and her brother Austin.  Several relatives of mine also have blue eyes. Every family on the Felker side seemed to have one or two children with blue eyes. It's like that old saying. If it happens once, it's a coincidence. If the same thing happens again. a pattern forms. There's no denying the fact that having blue eyes is a common thread.

    Sometimes the trait even skips a generation like in the case of my cousin Kristyn. Her mother doesn't have blue eyes and yet my cousin does. Then again her father is Scottish/English. So, it could have come from that side of her family. Blue eye color either runs in the family or everyone got really fancy contact lenses. As I gather more pictures of the Felker clan I begin to wonder something. Where did the beautiful blue eyes come from? Who started it all? Unfortunately, I don't think I have an answer to that question. Or do I?

    It's wildly known that blue eyes are predominant in people from northern and eastern Europe. However, there have been some instances of it occurring in southern Europe. My grandmother Ollie had greenish-blue eyes and she was all Italian all the time! In fact, that actually led people to think she had Spanish heritage. She does not. I've looked! 

Jeremiah and Elizabeth

    I think the answer to that question lies with the origin of the Felker family. I traced the family line back to Germany in the 1700s. Could they have had blue eyes? It's hard to say. I have one picture of my third great-grandfather Jeremiah Felker and I can't tell if he has blue eyes or not. The picture's not in color and no amount of colorization is ever going to make that picture look great. For all I know the blue eye gene came from his wife Elizabeth!

    Could the Felker blue eye have been from Germany? Most likely. Without evidence it's hard to say. I was told that Jeremiah's children including Wilfred all had blue eyes for the most part. Unfortunately, I had to take my cousin's word for it. Without color pictures and other documents like draft cards it's hard to say who had blue eyes back then! And I definitely don't trust colorization tool as far as I can throw it. MyHeritage gave my great-grandfather Vincenzo blond hair and light skin even though he was from southern Italy! Colorization doesn't always work. I could write a long blog about why and why you shouldn't trust that gimmick!

    Back to the blue eye discussion. I'm of the belief that the blue eyes all came from northern Europe. The Felker side of the tree eventually goes to colonial Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The Felkers themselves actually came from Germany like I said earlier.  A lot of those colonists had British, German and Scottish roots. It's safe to say that the blue eyes I see in cousins like Kristyn and other members of my family came from that part of the world. There's no doubt about that. Who started it? I think we'd have to go back to Paleolithic times to answer that question.

Nana and her blue eyes!

     With so many people in my family having blue eyes, it's clear that there's a pattern here. The amazing thing is that most of the people who have blue eyes tend to have that piercing look that Austin had. His trait was clearly passed down and I doubt it'd be going away any time soon.

    It's just one of those neat family patterns that makes everyone stand out in the crowd. Though, I don't think a few of my blue-eyed relatives need help in that area! They'd stand out with or without blue eyes! They eyes really do have it!

See ya next time!