52 Ancestors Week 37: Mistakes

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Week 37:

Mistakes. We all make them. (We are human, after all.) What's a mistake that an ancestor made? What's a mistake that you've had to correct in your research? What was something that you were sure was a mistake in the records, but turned out to be right?

We're all human? Speak for yourself, Amy. tlhIngan jIH! (I am a Klingon!) Eh, maybe not a Klingon. If I could pick any race from Star Trek, I'd pick one that wasn't one derived from ancient samurai honor codes. It would be cool. But, then every time your family's honor was threatened you'd have to drop everything and go on a crusade to kill those who have dishonored your family. It's a mess and frankly a bit of a hassle even though the House of Duras really has it coming.....

She is right, though. We have all made mistakes and in the thirteen years I've been doing genealogy (off and on) I've made quite a few of them. I'd go through the laundry list of my greatest hits, but, I have a feeling that I should probably stick with one mistake which thankfully has a bit of a happy ending. At least I'd like to think it does. 

You can't tell. But, there's a tiny bit of an error in the caption.

This mistake happened when I was adding the children of my 3x great-grandparents, Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato to my tree. The book, "Italians in Haverhill" provided me with a wealth of information on my 2x great-grandmother, Caterina's, family. Her sister Concetta and her brother Giovanni were in the the book. I also had proof that they were related. It was an open and shut case!

Everything was looking good. I had confirmed the relationships via AncestryDNA and I had a ton of great sources backing me up. What's that? Didn't I talk about this family before? Yeah, I did and it turns out that I made a mistake regarding one of the siblings and it's all because of the picture above and me misreading it.

The picture's caption threw me off because of how things were worded. It made it seem like Rosa Stella was a sister of Concetta when she wasn't. See "Rose Giampa's sister; Concetta Coppola-Papatola" in the caption? That bit caused the error. I don't know if it was me or the editing of the book. But, it did cause me to have that mistake in the tree for a while. 

How I found out about the error is a bit of an interesting story. I came across profiles on Find a Grave for two women who were connected to the Giampa family. I figured I'd spruce things up a bit because the profiles were untidy. They weren't connected to anyone. So, I started to suggest connections to people. To my surprise, I found Rosa's grave profile and thought "Wow. I can help this profile and fix things!" I suggested an edit or two. I  also wanted to change the last name from "Stella" to Coppola. THAT was my mistake!!

A few days later, a professional genealogist messaged me on Ancestry and asked me about editing the page on Find A Grave. I was kind of sweating a bit. I don't like stepping on peoples' toes. I know I edit on WikiTree. But, I tend to make sure things are correct before doing any editing! Thankfully, she was understanding and wanted to work with me on the issue. She wanted to know how I came to the conclusion that Rosa Stella was a Coppola and not a Stella like she had said and posted on Find a Grave.

I told her everything that happened. I told her about the book and a few other things. The main thing was that my great-aunt and my father had DNA matches who seemed to come from Rosa's side of the family. She said she'd e-mail me with new information for me. I was a little tense. I didn't know what to expect because I get a little nervous when I make mistakes.Thankfully, it wasn't that bad and she was willing to work with me.

The pro genealogist said that while DNA does not lie, like I told her, there were a few other things I needed to consider. The first thing she talked to me about was the grammatical error in the book. I apologized and she said not to worry about it. I then asked her about the DNA connections and how that all worked. My great-aunt and my father were still DNA matches to people connected to Rosa and they were connected to other members of the Coppola family. She then explained everything as she grew up in close proximity to the lady.

My third great-uncle, Giovanni Coppola, paid the way for MariRosa Stella and her sister, Marianna Stella to come to America. On the manifest it said that Marianna and Rosa were Giovanni's first cousins. My heart skipped a beat. "First cousins?!" I asked.

There was more. (There always is.) Their parents were Pasquale Stella and Caterina Coppola. Bells were ringing in my head at this point. I e-mailed her and told her that my 2x great-grandmother was Caterina Coppola. Obviously she was too young to be Rosa's mother. Rosa was born in 1883. Caterina was born ten years earlier. 

She then gave me a simple solution. Paolo, my 3x great-grandfather, and this other Caterina were in fact brother and sister. I sat back in my chair like "Oh, wow." That explained a bit of the things I was seeing with my father and great-aunt's DNA matches with Rosa and her descendants. 

With the information she gave me regarding Marianna, I then did a search for her on Familysearch and found her Naturalization papers. It confirmed that she was born in San Pietro a Maida with the other Coppolas. A marriage record also confirmed that her parents were Pasquale Stella and Caterina Coppola.

I laughed and sent what I found to the pro genealogist. She seemed pleased that I found the information. She was never angry about the mistake. That was a good thing. I don't like making mistakes. We all make them. No one's perfect in this world. No one can be. It's just lucky that someone contacted me about this mistake and wasn't a jerk. It's too easy to be a jerk online to people. It doesn't matter if you do genealogy or not. The screen gives someone a sense of anonymity and sometimes that separates us from who we are as people. That's a different topic!

Now that I have Marianna Stella's information, the next logical step is to contact the commune office in San Pietro a Maida and see if they can tell me about Marianna's parents and her grandparents. I really want help on that front because Paolo senior has been a decent brick wall up to this point.

Hopefully, I get some answers soon.

Qa'pla!

P.S. It turned out that the genealogist is also a distant cousin via the Hamel line! Now that is cool!

Editor's note: In April of 2023, I found that Giovanni Coppola was not the brother of Paolo, Caterina and Concetta Coppola. He is likely a first cousin of the three. Look for details in a future blog post.