52 Ancestors Week 52: Looking Ahead

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 52

This week's theme is "Looking Ahead." Who do you want to find more about in 2023? Now would be a good time to write up what you know (or what you think you know!) and consider what your next steps are. (Of course, feel free to interpret the theme in other ways!)

Not sure what I was going for with this spray paint font.

"This year a lot of things of come to pass. Raise a glass. Raise a glass."-- New Lang Syne by Jim's Big Ego.

    Another year has come and gone and as 2022 winds down, I can't help but reflect on the amazing discoveries I've made in my genealogical adventure. I can honestly say it's given me new hope in finding the answers to various questions that have been nagging me for some time. What will I find in 2023? I'm not sure. But, I can tell you what I HOPE to find next year. When I do make those discoveries, you can bet I'll be reporting them here as I always do.

1950: The year of the beatnik art.

    Since April 2022, we've been able to finally look at the genealogical gold mine that is the 1950 census. Inside, I've managed to find my parents and various other relatives like my 2nd great-grandmother's brother, Paolo Coppola. His daughter Beatrice unknowingly confirmed his birthplace as San Pietro a Maida in the "additional questions" section of the page. This may not seem like much to people reading but this is huge because you don't usually see an Italian town listed on the census page. Usually people just write "Italy" for the birth place and were done with it.

    The timing of the discovery couldn't have been any better because my cousin in Switzerland told me about how her grandmother would talk about her brothers and sister in Haverhill. I would think that she missed them and I honestly hope there were letters back and forth. Sigh....Wouldn't that be a cool discovery? Focus, Chris. One thing at a time! Right. Where was I? Confirming where Paolo was born gave me a brilliant idea. I could ask the commune office in San Pietro for his birth record.

    However, it might be easier for me to get his death record at Haverhill City Hall. You might recall my successful adventure there a few months ago. You KNOW I am going to go there again. They were so nice and helpful. I just wish they'd let me into the back where the magic happens.

    In 2022, I found out you could fight City Hall. Well, if you ask politely, I guess. What do I hope to find in my second trip? This time around I plan on asking for:

1. The death certificate for Caterina and Paolo's brother, Giovanni whose grave I found this year, too.

2. The death certificate for Lucie Cadran-Legault.

3. The death certificate for my dad's cousins Joe and Dennis's paternal grandfather, Florindo Villanucci.

    That's a tall order isn't it? Not to mention a bit macabre. Asking for a bunch of death records? Really, Chris? Well, yeah. Haha. Most of the birth records I have thanks to finding them on Familysearch, asking the commune office or in our own storage. I know it sounds grim. But, every story has an ending and regardless of how sad it makes you feel, closure is a part of life. We make our ancestors come back to life on WikiTree and various other pages. Why not see how things ended?

2023 will also be their 110th wedding 
anniversary.

    Not everything has to be doom and gloom of course. In genealogy, one must take the good with the bad. In the coming year, I'm looking forward to potentially solving a few DNA related puzzles which had been vexing me for some time. To do that, I need help and a 2nd cousin on the Legault side is going to take an AncestryDNA test. 

    When she told me she was planning to take it, I was excited! Who wouldn't be? I love seeing established family members show up as DNA matches. Naturally, I told her about the DNA match I had been having issues figuring out. Solving the puzzle isn't the reason why she's taking it of course. She's legitimately curious to see how she and her daughter connect with me and practically all of the Legaults that are on Ancestry. I still need a scorecard to keep them all straight!!

    In 2023, I also plan on returning to the Haverhill public library to not only look up newspaper articles but to check out some cemetery records. I'm hoping to find the records for St. James Cemetery so that I can find Antoine Legault's final resting place.

   I also plan on continuing my work on the various one place studies I have under my belt. Currently I have these three projects:

1, San Pietro a Maida

2. Haverhill, Massachusetts

3. Gesualdo

    Next year, I think I'll be adding a fourth One Place Study for Newburyport. Why not? I have two One Place Studies for my dad's side of the tree. Why not add a second for my mother's side? Creating one on WikiTree is pretty simple. Just announce your intention, create a space page and boom. You're all set. The cool thing is that these One Place Studies all get added to the official directory!

    I do have that other project that isn't really a one place study per se. But, it links to the Haverhill one so it counts. I am of course referring to the Italians in Haverhill study I've been working on. So many more people left to add from that book. That's what "Connect-a-Thons" are for!

    Speaking of books, I got "Haverhill's Immigrants at the Turn of the Century" for Christmas. It's a book that's basically along the same lines as the "Italians in Haverhill" book I have and it's a great companion piece. While it has obviously has some Italians in it, there are also many French-Canadians, Lithuanians and other cultures represented in pictures. 

    This book should be very helpful in the One Place Study and I'll be sure to usr that to the best of my ability. Once I look through it and see if I can find anyone I recognize. I haven't found anyone, yet. But, you never know. Something might just leap off the page and get my attention, you know.

    At this point I should probably get the rest of the "Images of America" books about Haverhill. I think I'm missing a couple. They do go a long way to helping me flesh out the old one place study and of course the pictures add faces to the names. That is so important to me and to genealogy in general!

    It looks like 2023 is going to be a busy year for me. Not only will I have these projects to work on. I also have my webcomic over at Starbolt Productions and I'll be helping WikiTree with whatever project they need me to work on. The new year represents endless possibilities. It's up to all of us to make it a good one. I will say this about 2022. Thank God it's over! Chapter 2022 is about to draw to a close. Let's look forward to the future together.

See ya next year!

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.

52 Ancestors Week 51: Perseverance

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 51

This week's theme is "Perseverance." Who is an ancestor who had to persevere? Who is an ancestor you had to persevere in order to find?! Share their story this week.

It's been a long road....

    "Star Trek: Enterprise" received a lot of flack in its day when it was originally airing from 2001 to its cancelation in 2005. Many Trekkies called the show slow as molasses in terms of pacing and hated the clumsy writing during its first two seasons. Some people were probably feeling a bit of franchise fatique as well since three other "Star Trek" shows aired back to back starting in 1987. Whatever your feelings are for the show, you can't tell me that the title song, "Faith of the Heart" by Russell Watson doesn't excite or inspire you while you're working on your family tree. It's actually on my genealogy playlist believe it or not! It's right up there with "Remember Me" from the movie, "Coco"!

     The reason why I bring this up is because I think of the song whenever I look at a picture of an immigrant ancestor or someone who had endured much in their lifetime. It's basically become the theme song for perseverance and the kinds of hardship people had to endure in the past and in the present. They did what they could to build the brighter future we now live in.

    When I look at the Thrulines menu on Ancestry, play the full song, and scroll through the pictures I actually get chills looking at those photos and I can't help wonder about their perseverance in the face of moving from one area of our small blue planet to another. Would you believe the topic of this week's blog could have been the topic for Week 49: New Horizons? Better late than never, right?

Reunited in the afterlife, I hope.

    It goes without saying that my great-grandfather, Vincenzo Ferraiolo, had a lot of perseverance in his heart when he crossed the Atlanic several times in his lifetime in order to visit family, get married and through the years he still managed to find the time to stay in contact with relatives all over the world. I suppose that was in his nature. For better or worse he did his best to keep in contact with various family members as evidenced by his last trip to Italy in the late 1960s.

    There are days when I think that this trait was passed down to me because I'm determined to find out what happened to a sister of his who traveled from San Pietro a Maida to Argentina. Her name was Caterina Ferraiolo  and she was born around 1900 according to my cousin whose name is also Caterina. Note: The Caterina I talked to lives in Switzerland. Just want to avoid confusion! There'll be a quiz later.

    Caterina married a man named Lorenzo Astorino and shortly thereafter, they traveled to Argentina like many Italian immigrants. They didn't all just go to America. You would think that'd be the end of the story. But, it's not. I've been given hints as to their whereabouts and I'm determined to find out what happened to them. Here's what I do know.

1. Both Caterina and Lorenzo were born around 1900 in San Pietro a Maida. 

2. Lorenzo and Caterina moved to the Buenos Aires area. Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack. Most of the population of Argentina live in that area! It's hard to find them. But, it's not impossible!

3. They had the following children: Roberto, Nicola, Giovanni, Giuseppe, Maria and at least one other child.

4. Contact with the family in Argentina stopped shortly after the death of Caterina's mother, Concetta in 2005.

Concetta Ferraiolo

    I know 2005 doesn't seem like it was that long ago to some people. But, bear with me. It's been seventeen years at this point and a lot can happen between 2005 and 2022. Does it really matter how long ago it was? Not to me. I'm determined to find out what has happened to them! It doesn't matter if it was a year or fifty. 

    

     From what Caterina has told me, her mother was the one who kept in contact with the family in Argentina the most. Makes sense since she was the matriarch and wanted to maintain contact after the death of her sister in the 1960s.

    I can see why she would want to stay in touch. Argentina is clear across the ocean from Europe. Like her brother, Vincenzo, she was determined to keep the family together despite how far apart various family members were from each other. Just think of how much easier communication with the other side of the world became in her own lifetime! 

    The advent of the Internet certainly made things a lot easier. Think about it. Sixty years ago, this "blog" would be in some newsletter and not coming at you in high res black and white and just thirty years ago we had dial-up modems connecting us to the web. The world has changed and genealogy must and will change along with it using the tools we have at our fingertips.

Maria Astorino

        Finding lost family members is going to be a challenge. All I have to go on are pictures like this one of Maria that my cousin gave me. I'm not sure when the picture was taken or even if she's still alive. However, I am confident in saying that she probably had children. 

   

    When Argentina won the World Cup this year, I was thinking of the Astorinos and I asked Caterina if they were watching the games. She told me Caterina's grandchildren likely watched and celebrated the victory along with the countless other Argentines all around the country.

    I thank her for giving me hope. It's that hope that drives me to find out what happened to the family. 

    So, with all the hope and everything, how am I going to find out what happened to the Astorinos? Well, posting pictures like this online are a good way to start. It's good cousin bait! However, I'm not about to go full T-1000 and knock on every house in Buenos Aires and say "¿Has visto a esta mujer?". That gets the cops called on you if you aren't hit first....

Thankfully, there are a few less dangerous options out there!

Guiseppe Astorino

    Option one is playing the long game and hoping that a DNA match turns up on MyHeritage. In my case, the long game clearly worked because Caterina also has a tree on MyHeritage and several members of the Aleardi family did DNA testing there. That site seems to be very popular for Europeans. Does Argentina allow for DNA testing? They seem to!

    MyHeritage also has various vital records from Argentina in their database. So, one could simply look through there and hopefully find the information they need. Using their resources, you could find immigration and various other odds and ends.

    The second option I have is to ask for help. I'm not ashamed to admit that I need help every now and then. Luckily, I know a genealogist or two who live in Argentina and one of them works with me on WikiTree!  Her name is Cristina Corbellani and she is definitely a rock star in the Italy Project.

    I've told my story to Cristina and she graciously offered to help me find my relatives in Argentina. With friends like her, how could I fail? We haven't found anything substantial, yet. But, I have hope that we will. Two heads are better than one, right? That IS the site's motto. Okay, technically it's "Where genealogists collaborate" but it's the same thing more or less!

Giovanni Astorino

    When you're working on your family tree or the family tree of someone else, you need some perseverance in the face of adversity. After all it's a big world out there. While I may not be trying to make a better life for my family like Vincenzo, Giuseppe Carrabs or any of my other immigrant ancestors did, I'm not about to give up trying to find the family in Argentina and no one is going to tell me otherwise! They're out there.

    Going back to the Enterprise analogy at the beginning of the blog, I do have faith that I'll find them. It may take years. But, they're out there and I hope somewhow they may even find this blog. It's good to have a little faith. How's THAT for perseverance? Gee. I wonder where I got mine. ;)

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 50: Traditions

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 50

This week's theme is "Traditions." Many families have special traditions for this time of year. This week, write about a tradition that your family enjoys (or doesn't enjoy!) and the ancestors that it brings to mind. Do you know who started that tradition? Who changed it over the years?

Those elves go through this every year....

    With Christmas 2022 just around the corner, I do what I always do around this time of year. I look back at all the Christmas traditions my family has had over the years. The biggest of course were the Christmas Eve parties my parents would throw every year. I alluded to them in a previous blog and I think now would be a great time to take a deep dive into the Christmas Eve parties of the past and tell you what they were all about. It was a time honored tradition and I'm going to share it with you all! I just hope you like fried calamari!

Christmas Eve 1996/7ish, I want to say. I could be
wrong. 

    I'm not really sure when the Christmas Eve parties all started to be honest. All I remember growing up was having to get up early and help clean up the house while my parents spent most of the day in the kitchen preparing for the feast. And what a feast we would have! Have you ever heard of the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes? It's definitely a thing. Learn about it here. We had a slight variation of that tradition where fish is served instead of other types of meat.

    Our feast largely consisted of squid served in many, many ways. We'd have it fried, in sauce, stuffed, in salad and so much more. It was basically "Squid fest." Don't worry. We had gnocchi, haddock and shrimp for the non squid lovers who came to our party. Are you hungry, yet?

     Preparation and cleaning took a while. However, we always found the time to go to my grandmother Ollie's house and pick her up and she'd stay with us up until New Year's Day. Her sisters and my dad's cousins were also invited to the festivities. So, there was no shortage of genealogical gold that evening, believe me. Italians talk, man. Especially after a few glasses of vino. ;) Grandpa Hamel and my other grandmother were also in attendance every once in a while and more conversations of the past were had and photos were shared. And taken. More on that later.

Aunt Mimi!

    Before we picked up my grandmother in Haverhill, there was one stop we had to make first. We drove to my third grandmother, Mary Matorian's house and visit with her for a while. I say she was like my third grandmother because she kind of was. She looked after my brother and I when we were little and we still visited her when we grew up. She and her husband Peter always kept the door open for us. They were very nice people!

    We exchanged gifts and talked about what our plans were for the evening. She and her husband would go to her niece Judy's house and celebrate there. I think one year my father gave her some squid leftovers. Would you believe we even HAD leftovers in the first place? That's pretty hard to believe, isn't it? She did make us stuffed grape leaves, though and my brother and I hid them in the back of the fridge for "safe keeping" when we returned home. Did they survive the night? You tell me. 

    By five o'clock pm EST on Christmas Eve.....the invasion would begin. And guess whose job it was to take everyone's coats?  Not my brother who was tending to some computer issues or some other random thing. Not my parents who were cooking up a storm. Definitely not my grandma Ollie as she was parked on the couch watching whatever Christmas special was on television. Yeah. It was all me. How'd you guess?! It wasn't the dogs.

Cousin Joe and Aunt Louise trying to win the
lottery!

    Taking care of the jackets and everything wasn't really that bad. Giving everyone the correct jacket at the end of the night was the tricky part. Still, I had a good time and took it in stride. I had to be good for goodness sake and marching up and down the stairs all night did wonders for my calves. ;)

    We did have a lot of guests, though. I may have talked about all of this in a previous blog. But, it bears repeating. We'd have a ton of my parents' friends over along with family members. You've heard of the FAN club, right? Friends and neighbors? Yeah. We had that covered. Practically everyone they knew was invited to the feast. No wonder I got confused as to whose coat was whose. You would, too. Don't lie.

    Now, you might be thinking to yourself. "Chris, didn't you have anyone to play with during the festivities?" To that I say "Yes. Yes, I did. Other than my brother, of course." And we had many epic gaming sessions every Christmas Eve throughout the late '80s, '90s and into the 2000s. 

Mi famiglia.

    My cousins and I would traditionally hold tournaments on whatever gaming system we had at the time. In the 1990s, it was the tried and true console called the Sega Genesis followed by the Nintendo Game Cube, Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo Switch. I uhhh....think we know who ultimately won the "Console War" of the '90s now don't we. This commercial aged like fine wine. Nintendo definitely ended up playing the long game.

 

Note: I did play classic Nintendo. But, that was at friend's house. I've even taught my grandmother how to play a couple of the old Sega games. She was quite good! Though, I don't think she knew what to make of "Sonic the Hedgehog". Bit too fast for her!!

    Once I graduated to the Game Cube and my cousins were old enough (I'm the second oldest of the cousins.), we would play games like Mario Kart: Double Dash, Super Smash Bros and various other party games of the era. We always had a great time and eventually we were all called downstairs to take pictures like the one above.

    That picture was one of the rare instances where we ALL looked at the same camera. Everyone was taking pictures of us like we were stars on the red carpet or something. Some of us hammed it up more than others. Probably me. ;)

    The real star of the show was this traditional dessert my father made every Christmas eve. Gaze in wonder at its simplicity. You take:

* Lady Fingers

* TWO types of pudding (Chocolate and Vanilla)

* Blueberries

* Raspberries

* Strawberries

* Whipped cream

    Put them all together and you get this delicious trifle made with love that everyone loved.  It wasn't always the fried calamari that people asked about when they came over. It was always "Did your father make his famous dessert?" Yes, he did. It saddens me that was actually allergic to part of it when I was growing up. I was allergic to chocolate for the longest time. But, I got over it somehow. 

    It's okay, though. I still had some of the delectable dessert. My father often made me a personal cup of his famous dessert without the chocolate pudding so I wasn't left out. That was a good thing. It really was tasty!

Chances are good my grandfather took
this picture.

      Now, it wasn't all just gaming until it was time to open presents or anything. I did visit with my relatives and they'd tell me various stories about my great-grandparents or some other family member. We all had a great time and the parties continued even as certain guests either passed away or moved to another part of the country. 

    Parts of them remained in our memories and we even have a few Christmas three ornaments memorializing those who are no longer with us like both of my grandmothers. We have my maternal grandmother's angel and an ornament from grandma Ollie's tree that we always put under the star.

    In a way, their spirit remained long after they were gone. I like to think they were still watching us. For example, I remember one Christmas Eve in the mid 2000s we were talking about Grandma Hamel and suddenly this stuffed bear that played holiday songs when you pressed its paws suddenly came to life and played a digital version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".

Jim? You wanna get your foot off of
 Giuseppe's table?

    We all had a good laugh. Christmas to me is full of memories like that. It's always a good time to celebrate with friends and family and to this day we still have our yearly celebrations. They may be down scaled a bit due to the pandemic and other factors. But, the feelings are definitely there and we still have a great time. 

    Some of the tried and true Christmas traditions like having fried calamari or playing video games have been passed down to my brother and he passed them down to his kids. The circle, my friends, is now complete.

    Good traditions like the Christmas Eve parties are a great way to cement familial bonds with friends and family alike. It's good that they have continued up to the present. However, part of me still can't help but look back at all those Christmas Eves of years gone by where I'd play with my cousins or talk to my grandmothers about growing up in Haverhill. All I have are good memories of those days and I'm glad I'm able to share at least a few of them this week. I hope everyone has a happy holiday!

See ya next time!

Mangia!

52 Ancestors Week 49: New Horizons

From Amy Johnson Crow: This week's theme is "New Horizons." Growth often means pushing into unknown territory. Did any of your ancestors push to see new horizons (literally or figuratively)? How about you? Have you pushed your research by stretching into "new-to-you" resources or techniques?

Why do I get "Love Boat" vibes with this week's header?

   Genealogists push into unknown territory every day by going through pages and pages of documents or even by using the newest tools at their disposal. Recently, Ancestry.com went one step beyond by introducing a new way to see if DNA matches fall on either of your parents' side of the tree using a tool they call "SideView". I've been a user on the site since 2006 and I've seen some new and exciting features pop up from time to time like Thrulines did a few years ago. I don't think anything has ever really prepared me for the intuitiveness and accuracy of this new feature.

 

I like to think of that green on my dad's side 
as basil. Lots of basil.

    To access "SideView", all you need to do is go to your DNA story on Ancestry and scroll down to where it says "Ethnicity inheritance". Since I have already labeled the paternal and maternal side, you will likely see parent 1 and parent 2 on your chart. From there you can click on "View Breakdown" and see what they've found. But, wait! You might want to know how this is all accomplished, right?  How do they split it into maternal and paternal sides?! Do tiny little elves determine which part of your DNA likes pasta and which part likes baguettes? It's a little more complicated than that!

    The site's DNA experts explain everything like this. Ancestry calls itself the biggest database on the planet and that's no hyperbole. Millions upon millions of people have tested on Ancestry and have created the largest database of DNA matches on the planet. The bigger the database, the more matches you will find. Those same matches share one or more segments of DNA with you and at least one of your parents. Ancestry uses the DNA matches to split your DNA into halves that came from each of your parents. It also helps that we get half of DNA from mom and half from dad.

 Firstly, they find segments of DNA that connect to one parent and then separate out the DNA you received from each of them by piecing together segments that overlap. After that, they calculate the ethnicity estimates of both halves and show the percentages passed down by each parent. It should be noted that this is not an ethnicity estimate for your parents. Trust me. My great-aunt Nicolina was born in Italy and has a sea of green for her split with some minor exceptions involving other Mediterranean countries. Gotta love those Romans. However, if  each of your parents test, you may gain a sneak peek into what your grandparents' results would look like. For now, though. Let's look at my results!

    Hey. This isn't that bad. It was incredibly easy for me to decide which side was paternal and what was maternal by looking at my chart. Clearly that sea of pesto sauce is my dad's side. He is, as a genealogist on Geni said, "all Italian all the time". There's no questioning it here. There's that split with north and southern Italy and I ignore it. I tend to just add those together because....Romans. Does anyone honestly think they stayed in one place on their own land?! NOPE!

    The rest is clearly my mother's side which is French, English, German and a little bit of Scottish for flavoring. The latter can be attributed to my second great-grandmother, Georgianna Ross and her family. However...uhh....they tend to be more French-Canadian than Scottish. Spoilers! Check out her tree while you're at it. I love how it confuses people.

    Any Scottish DNA I have is incredibly ancient as her Scottish ancestor was a man named Alexander Ross who lived in the 1700s and was in Québec by 1774. It helps to know a little bit of history before tackling something like this! The Scottish and English side is possibly from the Felker side as well since my great-grandfather Austin's family is profoundly English/German with lines stretching back to colonial Massachusetts.

    When you scroll down, this chart will show you a detailed comparison between you and your parental units. Evidentially all that sweet, sweet basil got passed down to me without a hitch. Yes, I know it's not really an even fifty/fifty split. I don't think anyone has that degree of perfection. If you think you do, I invite you to take a DNA test. I hear there's a sale going on right now! Just expect surprises!

    There are no real surprises for me here as it's stuff I already knew. However, if you were adopted or are not able to test your parents like I did, this would be very helpful for you because you may be able to figure things out via DNA and of course the paper trail.

Of course, DNA matches will help you out as well. How does Ancestry split my matches? Let's take a look!

    This is encouraging. What we see here are the common names and communities with all the various DNA matches I have. If I were to click the paternal side link, I'd see all of my second cousins on the Carrabs side, the Tedesco cousins and more because they all link with my father and I. 

    The same thing happens on my maternal side. The last names that show up refer to the common last names in your closest match's tree. It's accuracy is up for debate. However, in my case it's pretty spot on. It's up to you to dig in and see if there's any truth to it. God help you if both sides of your family tree have "Smith" and "Jones".

    However, there may be a bit of a problem. Some people may be unassigned to maternal or paternal matches!

Don't worry. I'll find a home for you guys. 
Just give me a minute....

    You can't fault Ancestry for leaving some people unassigned. There are a LOT of people on your match list and so they can't fit everyone in. From time to time they will update and add your family in. However, there is something you could do to speed up the process.  You could just go to your DNA match and decide for yourself if they are paternal or maternal using some good old fashioned detective work! Once you've figured it out, you can select if they are maternal or paternal and the site will recognize the match. Will they put them in the correct column? That, I don't know.

    What I can tell you is that "SideView" is pretty cool. It's a handy tool in our genealogical arsenal. Using it, you may be able to confirm who belongs to who. If you are adopted, the tool can help you figure out your family tree. However, there are some complications even if you know both sides of the tree. What if both sides are very, very Italian like my father or my great-aunt?

That is a lot of pesto....

    There'd still be a parental split. You might even see "Both sides" in that case. So, the best thing to do there is to go with traditional genealogy and see what you can find that way. Then you can go in and label things manually. 

 Sideview is a fun tool to have and I've been fortunate in that things have been relatively simple for me to figure out. Others might not be so lucky. But, it's okay. The "SideView" helps you sort out all the clutter and helps you determine what's going on with your DNA. It's pretty handy to have and I kind of like it. 

    

    Genealogy is constantly evolving and I'm glad I've been here for the highs and lows. Is this a high or a low? That's up to you to decide. I think it's a handy tool that relies on a few things: Other peoples' trees and of course your own work. Ancestry seems to like pushing the envelope when it comes to new and exciting features. Who knows what's next on the horizon? Should be a fun ride! 

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 48: Overlooked

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 48

This week's theme is "Overlooked." We don't always see something the first time it comes across our path. This week, consider a relative whom you didn't pay much attention to when you first discovered him/her... or someone who was overlooked during their life. You could also explore a discovery you made using a resource or clue you previously overlooked.

Siri, find me the creepiest cartoon eyes you can find.

    I try not to overlook anything while I'm doing research. Call it being obsessive/compulsive all you want. However, when I'm trying to find information on someone, I try to find everything and I mean EVERYTHING about the person I'm researching. It's not being OCD if you're just being thorough. Now, that isn't to say I've never missed something. I have and it's no fault of my own. When you're looking at thousands and thousands of birth records, you might miss something that was hidden in plain sight.

    This week, I received an e-mail from the commune office in San Pietro a Maida and they graciously sent me what amounts to a care package of information concerning my 2nd great-grandfather, Antonio Tedesco. In it was confirmation of his birth date, parents, marriage to Domenica Gullo and his death date. I'll admit it was very cool of them to randomly send me information. I got the feeling they were just catching up before sending the next batch of information my way. Looking forward to finally cracking the brick wall that is Paolo Coppola.

    When I looked at the information, I realized that I hadn't looked at the birth documents in San Pietro a Maida in a very long time. It happens. We get busy with our other projects and life gets in the way. You always want to take a break every now and then when you're knee deep in records and that's what I did.

    Something made me want to look at the records again this week to see if there was something I missed the first time I ran through everything. Like I said, there are thousands and thousands of records for San Pietro a Maida. Going through everything takes time and there are not enough hours in the day.

    I looked at the family tree for my grandfather, Marco and I said to myself, "Pick someone to look up in San Pietro. What could go wrong?"

Little bit of a spoiler here. Heh....

    I decided to look up information on my 4th great-grandmother, Cecilia Cassese because I was on a
Tedesco kick at the time and I wasn't a fan of having the vague birthdate of "1813" on her profile. I initially got that date by examining how old she was on her son Tommaso Tedesco's birth banns in 1850. I took the year 1850 and substracted her age from it. She was about thirty-seven at the time. 

    Tommaso was also one of six known children and when I subtracted their mother's age at the time, the year 1813 kept popping up as a potential birth year. Granted, it could have been an error. However, I wanted to explore the records again to see if I missed anything the first time I looked at that year's birth records.

    I admit when I first ran through the births of that year I was taken aback by the heavy black ink they wrote with. It made things a little hard to read and I decided to put it on the backburner because it strained my eyes a little trying to read the heavy ink from two hundred and nine years ago. I hope they never ran out because there wouldn't be an Office Max in the area until some time in the twentieth century. Eh, they probably made their own ink.

1813, the year ink was in high
demand.

    I was listening to some music while I was surfing though the births and found this gem. I paused the second I saw the baby's name "Cecilia" at the bottom. I looked at the top of the page and saw she was born to Angelo Cassese and a woman whose name I couldn't read at the time. Thanks, heavy ink!! You're a big help!! ;)

At least I was able to make out some of the important details. She was born on June 13th, 1813. Her father's name was Angelo and he was about twenty-two at the time of her birth. This put his birth date some time in 1791. 

That was very helpful. However, I still needed the wife's name. It looked like Domenica to me and I thought the last name looked smudged. I handed the document over to some friends over at the Italy Project who told me that the name looked like "Lijoi" to them. I used Google to see if that was a name in Italy and came up with several hits including an actor with the same name. I smiled because I found a new pair of 5th great-grandparents, Angelo Cassese and Domenica Lijoi. 

    Many celebrations were had because this brought my 5th great-grandparent count up to 109 out of 128. I still had to eliminate a silly little thing called confirmation bias. That's fine, kids. I've come prepared. Your honor, let me present the evidence.

     To the right of this blog post, you will see the 1847 birth record for Angela Tedesco who was born to Tommaso Tedesco and Cecilia Cassese on December 27th of that year. Italians have very strict naming traditions in their family where babies are usually given the names of their grandparents. However, this situation appears to be unique. Cecilia may have named her child after her father. Angelo is the masculine form of Angela in Spanish and in Italian.

    The next bit of evidence is pretty clear. Too date I haven't found a Cecilia Cassese in either 1812 or 1814. So, the chances are good that I have found my 4th great-grandmother and the two mentioned are her parents. The next logical step would be to check to see if I can find an marriage for the two in the old Processetti. That will take some time to go through. However, this is pretty solid evidence don't you think? I wonder why I didn't come across this before. It's not like I haven't tried to find her before. Maybe I just didn't look long enough? Maybe I was intimidated by that heavy black ink? It's hard to say. At least I went back and found the information I needed. It's honestly better late than never, right?

    It's often easy to overlook things on your genealogical adventure because either there are distractions or some documents may appear too hard to read at first glance. You're not going to find everything right away. When you're looking stuff up, instant gratification doesn't always happen. However, it does feel good to go back every once in a while and say to yourself. "Huh. Why didn't I notice that before?" Whatever you do, don't beat yourself up over not noticing a document or a person the first time around. It's still out there waiting to be discovered. So, take a chance and go back to that archive you swore off and see what treasures you might find! You might be pleasantly surprised!

See ya next time!