52 Ancestors Week 14: Water

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14's theme is "Water." Our ancestors traveled by water, built towns near water, and powered machines with water. How do you interpret this theme?

Now that is a header.

Looks like the themes for the last week of March and the first three weeks of April are all element based. Water, Fire, Earth and Air. I'm going to have fun with these themes because of how often they all appear in popular culture. I actually don't even know which ones to use first! The Fifth Element? Captain Planet? Avatar: The Last Airbender? So many choices. So little time.

Nothing but the sea up ahead!

Let's keep things simple for now shall we? When it comes to water, my entire family has been around it for some time. That much was evident when I talked about Rings Island Marina a few weeks ago. The Rings Island blog was from my mother's point of view as her family lived in and around Newburyport. To recap: I found a cousin and a connection I never knew I had via the marina.

While my mother was born in Newburyport, my father was born in nearby Haverhill. Both cities are found along the Merrimack River and its waters have definitely played a role in my family's history. Even on my dad's side!

My dad loved to fish and still does! Because of his hobby, we spent many summers on the river and in the open ocean. I don't really remember when we started boating. It had to have been some time before I was born because I remember walking down the docks in a very small orange and yellow life jacket. My grandfather, Marco, taught him the ins and outs of fishing. Makes sense given that Marco was born in Italy, a country known for its maritime culture.

The docks are little too quiet.

The lessons were eventually passed down to my brother and I as my father taught us what bait to use for what fish. When not to use bait. Yes, that is actually a thing. Check this out. When you're fishing for mackerel out in the ocean you don't necessarily need bait. All you need is a sunny day and a good, shiny hook.  That should rake in a few mackerel for you. It should be noted that mackerel aren't exactly the umm...SMARTEST fish in the ocean.

I haven't fished in a long time, to be honest. I still remember how. It's true what they say, you know. Catch a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and they eat for a lifetime.

It didn't stop there. We'd also catch flounder, cod and even set out lobster traps. I was always in charge of putting those rubber bands on the claws. Not fun and often requires two people to do it!

It wasn't just fishing that my father taught me. I also learned how to drive the boat, too. I can do a decent job. Whoever said driving a boat is like driving a car is so wrong!

I also had many friends at the marina whose parents were friends of my parents. I would love to share stories. But, some of them may need to be internal. HAHAHA! I will say this. We did cross the bridge over to Newburyport many times to go to the comic store or other places. We had good times and plenty of good memories that will last a lifetime!

Being on the water has been in my blood and in my family for as long as I can remember. Now the circle is complete as my nephews have been getting in on the act and have been enjoying themselves. Fishing and boating have been a great tradition for generations and it's good to see it continue. While you're out on the ocean you really get a very real sense of just how big this planet is and how fragile it is at the same time.

I thank my dad and by extension my grandfathers for introducing me to fishing, boating and everything else. Going out into the ocean really opens ones perspective about the world around them. You learn about our world  and possibly even yourself!

52 Ancestors Week 13: Nearly Forgotten

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13's theme is "Nearly Forgotten." I remember early on in my research when I discovered that my great-great-grandmother lost two infants between censuses. With the exception of their death records, there was no other trace that they existed—no tombstones, no obituaries, not even birth records (likely because they died soon after they were born). Who in your research has been nearly forgotten? Another angle you could take: using a record that was nearly forgotten. Feel free to be creative with this prompt!

Not gonna lie. I was tempted to make a parody of the "Lost" logo.

When you have a large family, a ton of pictures can get lost in the shuffle. Cousins take one picture. Some cousins take like thirty and you never hear from them again. What do you do? Well, you hope that someone somewhere has a picture of that family member and that they're willing to share the picture with you. That's a big if. But, now you can take a picture of a picture with your phone. So, there's really no excuse WHY you can't share that picture of great-grandma Josephine or someone.

Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth D Fellows

Readers may remember me talking about my 3x great-grandfather, Jeremiah Smart Felker. He's the man whose whole life might as well be a Lifetime original movie. Let's recap in the fastest way possible.

1. Born out of wedlock in 1838 in the town of Raymond, NH.

2. Grandfather sued his father for parental rights.

3. Fought as a Union soldier in the Civil War.

4. married Elizabeth Fellows  in 1863.

5. Son Wilfred Felker and daughter in law, Gertrude Stevens have a MESSY divorce. So, he ended up raising my great-grandfather, Austin.

6. Died in Haverhill, Mass in 1918. Grandfather Joseph Felker was listed as his father on his death certificate. Ouch.

Still waiting for that phone to ring, Hollywood. 

Now we're ready to talk about the picture. I acquired it recently and the story definitely falls under the "nearly forgotten" category. A few weeks ago, I thought I would see if I could find something about Jeremiah from 1890. Genealogists know that the 1890 was destroyed much like certain 1960s era Doctor Who serials. Long story there. At least with Doctor Who we have surviving audio for all of the serials. Thank goodness for 1960s British nerd culture.

Hello, 1890 census substitute. How are you?

I ended up finding the 1890 Veterans schedule from Haverhill and sure enough Jeremiah was there. That was no surprise. I knew he had to have been on there somewhere. I went back to my search results and I see "photo hint". I was like "What?" I clicked the link and looking at me was that picture you see up there.Someone had uploaded a picture of Jeremiah and Elizabeth. I was blown away! I looked at who uploaded it and it turned out one of my 2nd cousins did.

Right away, I messaged him on Facebook. To say I was excited was an understatement. This was huge for me because I have three Civil War soldiers in my tree. John Sargent Fisher, Jeremiah Felker and David Stevens. I'm honestly hesitant about Mr. Stevens actually being a Civil War veteran because Stevens is an incredibly common last name. That could be any David Stevens in history. I would need to see some concrete proof before I can say definitively if he fought for the Union. I digress. I had a picture of John Sargent Fisher. I didn't have one of Jeremiah. This was so huge and so exciting!

I asked my cousin how he came by the picture and here's where the "nearly forgotten" comes into play. His aunt (My first cousin once removed)  had a box of old photographs she had given him. She didn't know who was who. So she tossed it to him and luckily some pictures, like the one above, had notes. He sat on the pictures for a while and suddenly decided to scan and upload onto Ancestry. Life got in the way. People have lives and all that. He almost forgot about uploading and apologized. It's okay, though. It's online and now I can share it with everyone.

After plastering the photograph all over the Internet, I posted it to my personal Facebook page and thanked my cousin for his help. I also sent it to various DNA matches who have Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth Fellows as a MRCA with me. I felt that was the right thing to do. One of my mother's cousins commented and said she might have a better quality picture and asked me if I'd like to see it. Why does the like button only work once? Of course I want to see it! I said please and thank you. 

There's a Popeye joke here....

Once I commented, I got an e-mail from one of the people I sent a message to. One of my DNA matches asked me if I wanted to see a picture of Wilfred Felker. I was like "YES! SEND IT!" Well, he did more than just send that picture. He sent a ton of them. But, here is Wilfred Felker. From what I've been told, this picture was taken at his beach house near Plum Island. That has to be sand at his feet. I wish I could see more of his face. But, this will have to do unless my cousins find a better version.

The moral of today's blog is to never forget to put pictures online and tell your cousins about them because he'd be interested in pictures. Wow, that's a very specific moral, Chris. It works, though! I'm not going to complain. My cousin may put up more pictures sooner or later. I'm anxious to see what he has because I have a sort of wish-list. I know I shouldn't be greedy. But, is it too much to ask for a picture or two of Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran? Maybe even Gertrude Stevens? I don't want to get too greedy. I'll take what I can get. Even if it's Gertrude's pet hamster. (She probably didn't have a pet hamster.)

Another moral of the story is to be nice to those who have the pictures you are looking for. Always be courteous and nice to those who share. Good things come to those who wait. You just need to be patient. Hopefully, I get some pictures soon. And if you have pictures, please share them with the world.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I love getting pictures of family because it really puts a face to the name and dates you put into your favorite family tree software. 

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 12: Popular

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 12's theme is "Popular." Do you feel like you have an ancestor who everyone is researching? How about a first name that's popular in your family? Maybe there's a story of a particularly popular ancestor.

I'm sure everyone has had that one ancestor everyone and their brother has been researching. Remember how I talked about cousin bait last week? Well, what if I told you I had been the victim of cousin bait on numerous occasions? You probably wouldn't be surprised. I had been working on my family tree since 2006 and other people have been researching for MUCH longer. Since that's the case there is bound to be people who have been looking up ancestors on the tree six or seven generations back. But, what if you find your own paternal grandparents on everybody's tree AND they even have profiles on FindAGrave? That has actually happened.

Grandma's on SIXTEEN trees?!

When I restarted my genealogical adventure in 2017, I found that several people had my grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Olympia Carrabs  on their trees over on Ancestry. I thought that was a bit weird. Then I found that someone made entries on Find a Grave for them. I thought that was even weirder!

Grandma Ollie, still popular among la famiglia.

I wasn't sure what to make of it. My grandmother appeared on sixteen including my own. Who were all these people? Why did they have Grandma Ollie on their tree?! Where were they when I started the tree back in 2006? Why didn't they message me?! These are all very good questions and yes I probably freaked out a little when I saw their entries on Find a Grave complete with pictures of the stones on them. I live within ten miles of the cemetery. You can understand why I was a little apprehensive!

Eventually, I calmed down and I looked at the trees myself. I found several things while looking at them:

* We all had ancestors in common. Most of the time it was Vincenzo Carrabs and Maria Giovanna Capobianco and on some instances it was their parents. Vincenzo and Maria had many kids who came to America.

* For some reason the trees had Grandpa Marco as being born in Palermo, Sicily. That was so wrong. I sent several polite messages to people explaining that it was not the case. He was born in San Pietro a Maida. Not Palermo. To this day I have no clue WHERE people got that idea. At least most trees don't have it as an error any more. All in a day's work for your friendly neighborhood genealogist.

* One lady had a comprehensive tree for my grandmother going back to the 1700s complete with scans of various births, marriages and deaths in the Gesualdo area. That was a veritable genealogical gold mine right there, guys. GOLD!

Once I found that tree, I sent a message to the owner and she was very happy to hear from me. She and the person who made the Find a Grave entries for my grandparents were working on the Carrabs side for quite a number of years. I also found that she was a distant cousin of mine as her ancestors were from the same town.

The person who created the Find a Grave profiles is also a third cousin. Apparently, she sent a message to me on Ancestry during the time I was away. I never got a notification of a new message. I checked my inbox on the site and it was dated 2011. I was like "Eep! It's 2017 and she had been waiting on a reply for six years!!!!!!!"

I was not born in Sicily! 

I messaged her and apologized for the excruciatingly long delay. She was cool with it and now we're friends on Facebook. She and the other genealogist both said that I could use the information they gathered for my tree. I thanked them and now the banns and everything adorn my tree as well as theirs.

So many thanks go out to people who researched the Carrabs side of the tree. Because of them, I've been able to gather records, look up information and learn everything about Gesualdo. I'll forever be grateful to them for their work!

It just goes to show that public trees on Ancestry are great for cousin bait and that it's not always that weird to have your own grandparents on someone else's tree. Most of the time they will turn out to be a cousin of yours. You never know. If you see them on a tree, contact the owner and ask if they are related. Chances are you could hit a genealogical gold mine like I did.

If you have correct information on your tree, chances are others will pick up on it and use it for their own tree and so on. It makes research so much easier. Having public trees mean you get to help others without realizing it and that is why I like having a tree online. Sure some trees may have errors. However, that's a chance you're gonna have to take as a genealogist. Who knows? Perhaps YOU will correct their mistakes. Have fun looking for gold!

And yes I talked to my 3rd cousin about the Find a Grave profiles. We had a good laugh regarding my feelings on the issue and my reaction. I am definitely okay with it now!

P.S. This blog was written on what would have been my grandpa Marco's 95th birthday! Happy birthday, Grandpa Marco!

52 Ancestors Week 11: Luck

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11's theme is "Luck." Any tales of ancestors being lucky? What about a discovery that you made with the help of a little luck?

Well, do ya punk?

Luck is a very interesting concept isn't it? Sometimes you find something by chance and while someone might say "Oh, you're so lucky to have found that!". Others might be inclined to say "It's really a coincidence." Some even call good luck or bad luck "karma". Some people on the other hand fall for the cousin bait you put on the Internet. Is that luck? I don't know. I'll let you decide once you finish reading the blog!

Mmm that's good cousin bait.

"Cousin bait" is a genealogical term that refers to relatives of yours coming across your tree online and recognizing a person in it. They say to themselves "Hey! I know that person!" and send you an e-mail. (You hope.) Usually they spot a photograph on your tree on Ancestry or come across their grandparent on a public world tree like Geni or WikiTree.

As a whole, WikiTree has been great for cousin bait since it is a public world tree. If you want cousins to find your work, I suggest you go there and build a tree or wherever else a world tree might be located. You could even make a website dedicated to your family history if you so desire. The only reason I registered back in 2017 is because I actually fell for cousin bait. *cough*. I never said I didn't! My 2x-great grandparents had profiles there. What was I going to do? Not put a tree around them? Clearly you must be new here. It's true. When I registered there were already profiles for Vincenzo Carrabs, Maria Giovanna Capobianco and Wilfred Felker. Sufficed it to say I was surprised and ended up building a tree around everyone. And yes I contacted the profile managers.

Behold the end result of cousin bait.

Turnabout is fair play, though. After I registered, a couple of people have found their grandparents on the tree and have contacted me. The most recent person to fall for the "cousin bait" was a woman who turned out to be my second cousin once removed. She saw her grandmother, Delphine Legault, on WikiTree and send me a private message.

I was initially taken aback by this. Delphine was my 2x great-grandparents Antoine and Lucie's third oldest child. She was born in 1878 and I built the tree down quite a bit on Ancestry. To sum up: She married a man named Oliver David in 1899. They had eight children and the rest as they say is history.

My initial conversations with my new cousin have been pretty good and now we're friends on Facebook. She offered to share pictures with me and I offered to share information with her. The best part is that she's local! She lives right here in the Merrimack Valley. So seeing her is definitely a real possibility. We'd have to set it up of course. Like any meeting, you'd want to go to a public place and talk shop there.

She even asked if my mother remembered her grandfather, Oliver. Naturally, I filled my mother in on everything and asked her about him. My mother mostly remembers her uncle Arthur who had a fish market on Ring's Island in Salisbury. Yet another Ring's Island deep cut.  The market is still there and is run by the uncle's grandchildren.

I swear the Merrimack Valley is like the Kevin Bacon game at this point. Everyone's connected to everyone else. You never know who you are going to find out there. You will find relatives everywhere if you look hard enough.

Now, is this luck or happenstance? It really depends on who you ask. My new cousin has provided me with a ton of information about the Legaults and I really hope she or someone in the family has a pic or something of Antoine and Lucy's. There's got to be something somewhere. She also is a bit of an artist who shares her work and such on this website. Check it out! The pictures she has taken are AMAZING!

A lot of people on WikiTree have had stories like this. The site is tailor made to be the ultimate in cousin bait. The trees are public with varying degrees of privacy. You may find close relatives there or you may find distant cousins. This is one advantage to having a public tree on the Internet. You'll have a chance in finding a cousin who will no doubt have a ton of information. This is how online trees should work. You connect with relatives you may not have found otherwise. So, if you're looking to meet new cousins, I suggest you start getting that cousin bait ready!

Am I lucky to have had her contact me? Yes, I am. I mean she's a great person and is great to talk to. Her art is amazing and she's clearly very creative. So, perhaps that is luck after all!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 10: Strong Woman

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10's theme is "Strong Woman." March is Women's History Month. Let's celebrate by remembering the strong women in our families. The ancestor who comes to my mind first is my great-grandmother Melzena Kelley Ramsey, who lost her first 4 children in a span of only 6 years. She went on to have 5 more children, all of whom lived to adulthood.

Did you expect a Wonder Woman reference? 

Let's kick March off by going higher, faster and further with a discussion about a strong woman. Unlike Captain Marvel, the lady I am going to talk about wasn't played by Brie Larson and did not go toe to toe with Thanos in last year's Avengers: Endgame. She did appreciate my love of comics books, though.

Nonna!

This week I'll be focusing on my paternal grandmother, Olympia Carrabs. There have been several strong women in my family history. I figured it was a good time as any to talk about her. On April 23rd, she would have been one hundred years old and she lived quite an amazing life now that I think about it.

She was born on April 23rd, 1920 to Italian immigrants, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Olympia was named after an older sister who unfortunately passed away in 1913 shortly before the family decided to pull up stakes and move from Gesualdo, Italy to Haverhill. Olympia was the youngest of five and you never would have guessed it because her sisters were always at her house. ALWAYS!!

Seriously. Every time we went over one or more of the sisters were over or were just arriving for a visit. Her house became the go-to spot for the family. It was a very nice house and since the sisters lived nearby, commuting to the place was very easy.

Olympia Carrabs, class of  '35

The reason why I picked my nonna to talk about this week is because to me she always was a strong woman. I'm not saying my other grandmother wasn't because she totally was. It's more that Olympia tended to be a very caring person. As you can see from the yearbook clipping, her classmates seemed to think very highly of her. She really did have a smiling face and a good sense of humor despite everything.

Growing up in Haverhill in the 1930s had its share of hardships. She was a girl trying to get an education at a time when women were told to stay home and raise a family. That was it. End of story. She never settled for that and after marrying my grandfather, Marco  in 1946 she started working for Western Electric as a supervisor. Western Electric later became AT&T.

That's right. She was a supervisor at a phone company. That was a big deal in those days. I sometimes wonder if she would whip Comcast into shape for all the good it would do. Ultimately, she retired from the phone company in 1982. I never really knew why. I never asked because it wasn't my place. Then again, 1982 was around the time my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. So, perhaps she decided to look after him? I'm not really sure.

Gee, I wonder who that adorable baby is. ;)

When my brother and I were growing up, Grandma Ollie was your typical Italian grandmother. She was always an example of a strong woman. There was no other way to describe it. Ollie was smart, funny, sophisticated and while she loved to cook and entertain she never really felt it was an obligation.

Despite her husband passing away in 1983, Olympia persevered and had an amazing amount of support from family and friends alike. Olympia was a person who loved life and her family. I think that's one of the main reasons everyone was over at her house all the time.  Even when we brought her over for Christmas Eve, she constantly appeared to have a great time and always wanted to make sure you were having one, too. That's just the kind of person she was.

Olympia passed away in 2002 shortly before I was going to graduate from college. To this day, I remember my grandmother as being the woman I described here. She was strong at a time when many women were told to basically be housewives. She may not have broken down barriers or glass ceilings. But, she definitely made her mark. She was a great teacher to my brother and I. Through her we learned a lot about Italy and some Italian. There's so much I want to say in this blog and I really don't want to leave anything out.  My grandmother was without a doubt a strong person because she cared about people, worked hard and sacrificed so much to make sure that everyone was happy.