52 Ancestors Week 13: Light a Candle

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 13 is "Light a Candle." Candles are often lit in remembrance, in prayer, or when the power goes out for 5 days because of an ice storm. Be creative with this prompt!

The first 13 weeks of 52 Ancestors 2023 is brought to
you by Kleenex.

     The first thirteen weeks of this year's 52 Ancestors has been nothing short of a roller coaster. We've had highs, lows and many feels and looking ahead to the rest of the year's prompts I don't think it's going to stop any time soon. This is good, though. As a writer, you want to be able to talk about the good times and the bad times. Sure it hurts to talk about the bad stuff. However, I've found that talking about the pain in family history also helps one to deal with it in their own way. Does it suck? Well, it wouldn't be family history without discussing some of the bad stuff because life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. In life, you've got to take the good with the bad and that's what I've always tried to do.

    For this week, I will be lighting a candle for my dad's cousin and my first cousin once removed, Carol Ann Messa-Descoteaux. Born to Ugo Messa and my great-aunt, Josephine Carrabs, she basically took a cue from grandma Ollie and was just as amiable and as fun to be with as Ollie ever was. I can't say she was more fun to be with than my grandmother. But, she came close! 

    She would invite my parents, all of my father's cousins over for dinner every year for an event she called "Cousin's Day". This was an event held every May around Mother's Day and was made official once the last of the Carrabs sisters passed away. Originally, we'd all go out to dinner with all of the "Little old Italian ladies (TM)" and go to Carol's house for dessert. Once the last of the sisters passed away, we just went to her house for dinner and dessert.

    Carol was the oldest of my father's first cousins and honestly she was like an aunt to me since my father had no siblings. The same can be said for all of his first cousins on both sides of his family tree.

Carol and Clementina Forgione

   The reason why I'm lighting a candle for her is because she lost her battle with cancer in June of 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. What I remember the most about her was how much she encouraged me during my genealogical adventure once grandma Ollie and her sisters had all passed away. When we'd visit, she would share photographs like this one with me and I'd take pictures of them for safe keeping. I wasn't about to take them from her!! That wouldn't be cool.

    She also had a great sense of humor. I remember asking her about her recipe for eggplant parmesan a couple years before she passed away and she said to ask her daughter Sandra since she helped to make the dish on more than one occasion. So, I asked Sandra and she said it was actually her grandma Josie's recipe. I turned to look at Carol for answers and she just had this "Gotcha" look on her face along with a smirk! Was I trolled? Yes. Yes, I was. Trolled by my own family. Sigh.... This actually happens more times than I'd like to admit, by the way!! I ended up just taking it in stride and eating the delicious eggplant parmesan. What else could I do? Not eat? 

    A few years before that little adventure, we all gathered to watch several home movies on one of those old school reel-to-reel projectors from the '60s. The thing was so loud that I thought it was going to break at any moment! Thankfully, it didn't and we all watched Carol and the others growing up and in the film were her grandparents, Giuseppe and Clementina. She sat next to me and laughed and smiled may times as we watched the events from years gone by.

The heart was a nice touch.

    I've said time and time again that we need to digitize those home movies because film degrades and all that. We have the film strips at my house. We would just need to transfer them to a digital format. That just takes time and money. Here's hoping we do so, soon because there is some serious gold in there! I just wish there was audio so I could hear what Giuseppe and Clementina sounded like. 

    Back on topic! Carol was simply one of the nicest people I've ever known. She was very kind, considerate and encouraging to those around her. I honestly don't think she had a mean bone in her body or anyone ever said anything mean about her. But, you all know what they say. The good die young. 

    It's a shame what happened and everyone was shocked by her diagnosis. However, her memory is alive in those who knew her be it family and friends. Her profile is immortalized here in the blog and on WikiTree. That's really the best anyone can do for a nice person like Carol. Keep her memory alive and tell good stories about people like her who are proof that there's good in the world. 

    
RIP Carol (1943-2020)

52 Ancestors Week 12: Membership

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 12

The theme for Week 12 is "Membership." It isn't unusual to find our ancestors as members of a group, such as churches, school alumni, veterans organizations, or fraternal societies. Have you found an ancestor who was as member of a group? Or maybe you've made a discovery by being a member of a genealogical or historical society. Write about it this week!

What? You didn't see this card coming? It's the 60th anniversary of Earth's mightiest! 
I have to celebrate somehow!

    I've found that people become members of a group or an organization in order to find fellow like-minded individuals who are united by a common goal. This would be organizations like the "Order of the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America" or other groups dedicated to various ethnicities. In the beginning, the Sons of Italy served to help immigrants assimilate and better understand the strange new country they now call home. Now, the organization is a place where Italian-Americans can discuss important issues facing their ethnic group or just be a place where Italian-Americans can get together and have a good time.

     Other organizations like the "Sons of the American Revolution" are clearly lineage societies who have members whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution. I find myself in a very unique position because I could easily be a member of both organizations. But, what does it take to join them? Join me as I take a look and see if I need a tri-cornered hat and my grandma's rolling pin to apply to these places. Wow. There's an image for you!

    Believe it or not, I have no direct ancestors who belonged to the Sons of Italy. That's not surprising because I'm not sure it was of any interest to Vincenzo, Marco , Giuseppe or any of my other Italian ancestors who ended up in Haverhill. It probably just wasn't their thing. And besides Giuseppe had his hands full with the Italian-American Credit Union. So, there's that.

    Instead of direct ancestors in the Sons of Italy, I have plenty of other people in my tree who joined like my great-aunt's husband, Arnold Villanucci. To your left you see his application to join the Victor Emmanuele Lodge in Haverhill.

    As you can see the application is pretty straight forward. Arnold was asked where he was born, who his father was, what he did for a living, where he lived and if he had ever been a member of the Order before. On the surface, the application seemed like a standard application to join any organization. However, it seems like in the old days a person would have to prove that he or she is of Italian descent. The odd thing is that I've seen this exact same form in English as well as in Italian.

    Here's Antoinetta Penta's application and as you can see it's clearly in Italian. I wonder if they did it this way because Antoinetta was born in Grottaminarda and likely wasn't fluent in English at the time of the application. That makes sense to me. Hopefully, it makes sense to you readers checking out these documents! 

    Both of these application forms are chocked full of genealogical gold because the information can confirm the person's birthplace, year and maybe their parents if you're lucky. I like to think of these applications as a suppliment to any birth record I find and trust me I've found MANY of these Sons of Italy applications.

    This is all well and good. However, what does it take to join the Sons of Italy now? On their website, they've listed the following criteria:

1. Ability to prove Italian lineage.

2. Must be 18 or older to apply.

    I guess that's it. It should be noted that these days some lodges in America are male only and some are female only. Some lodges have become co-ed. Interesting. 

    It should be noted that the Haverhill lodge has long since closed. However, there are still plenty of lodges scattered all around the east and west coasts of the United States, the Southwest, the Great Lakes region and a few in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas. Not bad. Italians do get around. 

    I bet these days they discuss very important topics like Italian-Americans in government, entertainment and their own history as well as community outreach since Italian immigrants are still coming to America.

    In contrast to the Sons of Italy, we come to the Sons of the American Revolution. Because the Revolution was two-hundred and forty years ago, application to this organization is probably more rigid than George Washington's ivory teeth. Sorry, Internet. They weren't wooden.

    On their website, they clearly state that in order to apply you need to prove that you are a descendant from a soldier who fought in the Revolution in either the army or the navy. You also have to prove various other facts such as your ancestor being a member of the Continental Congress, rendered aid in some fashion, were a doctor/nurse and even a participant of the Boston Tea Party! I laughed at that last bit for some reason. Would you qualify if you descend from the guy who cleaned out Paul Revere's horse's stable? 

    I'll have to ask my friends who are in the DAR/SAR about that one. Give the poor guy a break! He likely fed the horse just before they ran off to tell everyone that the British were coming! That was a very important night in American history! If the horse wasn't fed, then he'd have no energy and if the horse had no energy then he can't run. So, basically that guy who fed the horse saved America. If time travel in movies and in television shows have taught me one thing, it's that small moments in time can have big consequences.

    Anyway, would I be able to join the Sons of the American Revolution? That'd be a big "yes" ten times over. If you look at this page on WikiTree,  you'll see that I most certainly can join the Sons of the American Revolution if I wanted to. Seven of the ten ancestors listed there have pages on the DAR website and three do not have any pages. They're still proven soldiers, though thanks to various sources. No one has claimed them as a SAR or DAR ancestor.....yet.

    If I were to apply, would it be best to play it safe by using someone who is already on the site as a way into the SAR? Or would it be best to prove a link to a guy who isn't even ON the SAR website? Those are really my only choices. I don't think it really matters which way I go as long as I can prove a relationship to those guys. I have ten options. Either one would do because these are super confirmed NSDAR patriots etched in titanium. I like to call them the original New England Patriots. =D

    There are a number of ways you can prove or disprove a relationship to a DAR patriot. You could look up the vital records in the town the lived in, check out fold3 for pensions and check out various genealogy books. Be cautious about the last one, though. Sometimes they can be erroneous. Luckily, the ones I've found have been pretty legit and mesh with the vital records in towns like Malden where Amos Sargent came from.

    Truthfully, I'm not sure which organization I would join. There's a great deal of criteria to be a SAR member and there's no doubt that I could easily join. Heh. Imagine me at their reenactments. It'd be funny and would have to be recorded for posterity. The Sons of Italy still takes care of Italian immigrants in America. However, I don't know what the extent of it is. I'd have to do more research. I could do both. Or I could do neither and join the Filles du Roi society. Yes, I can easily join that organization, too. The possibilities are endless for me.

 For now, I think I'm happy just being a friendly neighborhood WikiTreer. Though, even Spidey joined the Avengers eventually. You never know, true believers.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 11: Lucky

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 11 is "Lucky." Were any of your ancestors lucky? Maybe someone won the Georgia Land Lottery? Do you consider yourself lucky to have discovered a particular ancestor or document?

Good luck to all!

    It goes without saying that I'm lucky to have had so many people help me on my genealogical adventure. From my grandparents and various other members of my family to my fellow WikiTreers over at WikiTree. They've all been very instrumental in helping me put together a pretty awesome family tree which I am happy to share with anyone. I'm fortunate to know so many amazing people! To list them all would take a long, long time. A lot of work went into my tree and the work simply cannot be confined to just one website! It may sound smug, but, I feel so grateful and fortunate to have so many people willing to help me out because let's face it; it wouldn't be fun to go it alone and I'd still be having trouble collecting vast amounts of data without everyone's support. It pays to work with someone on a project. SOMETIMES!

    I also consider myself lucky to have access to the commune office in San Pietro a Maida because without them I wouldn't have been able to bridge the gap between my ancestors who left that Calabrian town for Haverhill, Massachusetts and those who lived their entire lives in Italy. I'm sure I would have some information thanks to my great-aunt Nicolina. However, there would still be gaps of data missing and you can only find so much information online regarding the inhabitants of the town from just one source. At the time of this blog's posting records for San Pietro a Maida are on Familysearch and are only accessible via a FamilyCenter or an affiliate library. To make things even more frustrating, the only information available are births from 1809 to 1861 and a Processetti aka marriage announcements from 1809 to the mid 1840s. Something needed to bridge the gap here and that's where the commune office comes in!

Vincenzo e Maria!

    My relationship with the fine folks across the pond started simple enough. I posted on the town's Facebook group because I wanted information on the marriage of my great-grandparents, Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco. That was the most logical place to start short of asking for my grandfather Marco's birth document, which we have.

    It didn't take long for a cousin to find me after I posted. Moments after talking to her, a man who worked at the commune office contacted me and we began talking family history. Using Google Translate, I explained who I was and everything and why I was looking for so much information. He understood and started to look up things for me while suggesting I also e-mail the office itself in order to get a hard copy of the documents. 

    To say I was a bit nervous was an understatement. It was 2018 and I was still a little iffy about using Google Translate to solve that pesky problem of a language barrier. So, I asked the Italian Genealogy Facebook Group and they suggested using a form letter generated by Familysearch to aid me in my quest. I need to be honest here. The form letter they use on FamilySearch seems so cold, impersonal and distant. I felt like these letters needed to include a personal touch and something that says the person asking for information isn't some kind of robot. When you ask a commune office for information, you need to put in your own connection to the town, too, or else no one will help you. I honestly think that's the reason why I've gotten as far as I have. Humans like talking to other humans. They don't want to talk to someone who just puts in stuff like:

"Hello, I am requesting the birth of  Vincenzo Ferraiolo. He was born in San Pietro a Maida in 1894. Who are his parents?"

 If I was them, I'd be like "Who is this American guy and why does he want this information from us? What is this connection to Vincenzo?!"

    I cannot stress how important it is to put some emotion behind the email. I'm not saying go over the top here. I'm saying that stating your connection to the person you're looking for goes a lot way and that's exactly what I did when I asked for help. Of course I needed someone who was well versed in the Italian language and that was where my friends Karen and Trish enter into the picture.

Antonio e Domenica!

    I enlisted the aid of my friend and fellow WikiTreer, Karen Macagno and she helped me write the vast majority of my requests to the commune office. I have also sought help writing the emails from my friend, Trish. She helped me so much in the beginning! I'm beyond grateful! These days Karen helps me type out the emails. The results speak for themselves because together, with the commune office's help, we have found the following documents:

* The birth of my great-grandfather, Vincenzo in 1894.

* The marriage of Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco in 1921.

* The birth of my 2nd great-grandfather, Antonio Tedesco in 1876.

* The birth of my 2nd great-grandmother, Maria Domenica Gullo in 1876.

* Antonio and Maria Domenica's marriage in 1899.

* The birth of my 3rd great-grandfather, Tommaso Tedesco in 1850. I know that would have been on FS. However, I wasn't sure of the spelling of his mother Cecilia Cassese's last name.

*The birth of my 2nd great-grandfather, Marco Ferraiolo. 

* The marriage of my 3rd great-grandparents, Pietro Francesco Gullo and Caterina Butruce.

    This is not a bad haul by any stretch of the imagniation! I've heard there have been times where some commune offices would not take the time to help someone out. It's so cool that they take time out of their busy day governing the town and look up information for an American thousands of miles away. I wonder after all these years sending emails to them that they know me by name by now. I really hope the conversations don't start with "What does that crazy American want this week?!"

Marco, Caterina and Adriana!

    I'm joking. I'm sure they're all happy to help me. It's gotten to the point where now they give me a help number like I'm at the deli or something. I think they do that with everyone. When I send a message, the next day they would send a help number to me and a few months would pass before I get results. This of course depends on how busy the office is and if the information is easy to find.

    These days I'm still thinking about what questions to ask to further bridge the gap between Haverhill and San Pietro. Do I ask about someone who lived in Haverhill in the 1910s and also knew my great-grandparents? There are a lot of Italians in my great-grandmother's funeral list to figure out. Do I ask for information based on information seen on a DNA match's family tree? My choices are getting limited. However, there are still many, many requests I could ask my friends over at the commune ofice.

    I've even made a list of questions to ask them! Some might call it a wee bit obsessive-compulsive. Not me. I think it's a great idea because it would fill in the blanks for me and make my tree even stronger!

Some of the things I'd ask include:

* The marriage of my 2nd great-grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola. Why not, right? Dare I say "Why not?"

* The marriage of my 3rd great-grandparents, Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato. That one's a tough nut to crack to be sure! I have her parents and there was only one Coppola born in San Pietro and that was in 1860.

* The births of my 2nd great-grandfather's brothers, Giovanni and Giuseppe. Yes, they went to Philly and Utica respectively. And yes I have them DNA confirmed. However, it'd be next to have the San Pietro seal of approval!

    That's just for starters. There are so many San Pietro descendants running around Haverhill who I could ask about. The possibilities are endless! I don't want to go crazy and ask for everything and yet it's honestly very tempting!! I must be cautious and pick  out the information that is actually needed.

    You might be wondering why I didn't put down my 2nd great-grandmother's siblings, Giovanni, Paolo and Concetta. Surely I should get their births AND Caterina's.  Here's the thing. I actually have Caterina and Concetta's birth documents in my library.  They're both in "the box" I mentioned in a blog I wrote a while back. Some time in 1963, Vincenzo sent for that information and eventually it was mailed to him. Why? I have no clue.  My dad doesn't even know.

    As for Paolo and Giovanni, they passed away in Haverhill. Wouldn't it be easier to just get the information from city hall? I'm just saying....

    All in all I am just beyond grateful for the help San Pietro's commune office has provided me over the years. I'm lucky in that they never ask for anything in return. No payment. (Offering payment was also on the form letter.), No hard questions. Nothing. I give them a simple request and they usually reply relatively quickly. There's still so much I can learn from them to further bridge the gap between the generations. Will the luck run out? I hope not because I still want to learn all I can from my friends at the commune office. Heh. I've even sent a "Thank You" email and wished them a Merry Christmas one year. I didn't have to. But, it was still a good thing to do. Kindness goes a long way!

See ya next time!

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 10: Translation

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10

The theme for Week 10 is "Translation." Would any of your ancestors have needed someone to translate for them? Have you had to work with records in a language other than your own? No matter the language, it's a good time to write!

Temba, his arms wide.....

    Science fiction offers many ways in which an alien language could be translated for the viewing audience. In "Doctor Who", the Tardis could translate languages within its radius. In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", people had to stick a babelfish into their ear in order to understand those around them. In the universe of "Star Trek", we had the universal translator translating alien languages for our heroes. Though, sometimes even that was not enough. See the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Darmok" for details. The closest thing we have to a universal translator from "Star Trek" in the real world is of course "Google Translate" and for all its faults, it has helped me translate Italian to English and has allowed me to communicate with family across the pond. In this case science fiction has become science fact.

    That isn't to say that I haven't learned any Italian while using Google Translate. I have. I've learned what certain words mean and it has allowed me to translate an Italian birth record without asking for help. I'm not going to say that I've gotten it all down to a science. I'm not completely fluent in Italian. I just know enough to get by when it comes to translating a document. But, I'm not ashamed to admit that I get stuck from time to time. It happens to the best of us and thankfully I know some friends of mine who are always willing to lend a hand.

    Our prompt this week is actually well timed because I got an email from the commune office the morning I started writing the blog and in it were the juicy details regarding the marriage of my second great-grandmother Maria Domenica Gullo's parents, Pietro Francesco Gullo and Caterina Butruce.

Here's what the pdf file attached to the email said:

"il giorno 05 del mese di novembre dell' anno 1874 hanno contratto matrimonio in San Pietro a Maida, Catanzaro.

Gullo Pietro Francesco nato in San Pietro A Maida di anni 29.

di Butruce Caterina natao in San Pietro A Maida di anni 20."

    When I put that that into Google Translate, it meant that Maria Domenica's parents were married on November 5th, 1874 in San Pietro when her parents were 29 and 20 years old, respectively. Great. So, what's the next step after this amazing discovery? I have the marriage document and ages for the parents. Why not go hunt for some 4th great-grandparents?

  

Pietro Francesco Gullo, b. 21 Oct 1845

    On the marriage document, it stated that Pietro Francesco was twenty-nine years old at the time of his marriage to Caterina in 1874. If we do the math and subtract twenty-nine from 1874, we get 1845. We can assume that Pietro was thus born in that year and it seems like a reasonable place to start looking.

    Though, you may want to keep this in mind when you dive into that specific year. You may not find the droid you're looking for. You may find an older sibling who died before your ancestor was born. So, you might want to actually start a year before and a year after the target year.

    In my case, I had actually already FOUND a Pietro Francesco Gullo through my documenting of all the births in San Pietro a Maida. I checked and then I went to the source material to make sure he was the right guy. He was the only Pietro Francesco Gullo I found in my research! The document says that he was born on "ventuno ottobre 1845". Translated, that meant that he was born on October 21st, 1845 to Domenico Gullo, aged 30 and Domenica Marinaro, aged 28.

    And that's how I got from a third great-grandfather to a set of  fourth great-grandparents in just a few hours of research. I know I'm patting myself on the back here but it was honestly a long time coming because you readers all KNOW how much of a brick wall the Gullo family has been for me. My next mission is figuring out the Coppola family.

    The quality of the scan is decent enough and I can now read most Italian birth documents with ease. Compared to how I was a few years ago, this is a huge accomplishment! Basically, I've learned what the months and days are like I was in first grade. I've also begun to understand what certain professions are on these documents. For example a "levatrice" is a seamstress.  A "bracciole" is a laborer like Pietro Francesco's father, Domenico. The list goes on. I've even seen "civico" a few times and I'm not really sure what that term means. I'm still learning! I'm guessing it has something to do with the town government.

Domenico Gullo, b. 5 May 1816.

    After finding Pietro, I sought out to find Domenico using the strategy I talked about before. I calculated his birth yeat to about 1816. The game was afoot and I dove into the records in 1816 because I hadn't gone that far back. Give me a break, guys. I'm documenting births in San Pietro all by myself!! I made it as far back as 1830. That's got to count for something!

   I looked in 1816 and it didn't take long to find the person I presume to be Pietro's father. I did the math and the timing checks out. Could I be wrong? Possibly. I'm not going to lie. Still, everything checked out and I went through my list of people I documented and found many of Domenico's children including Pietro Francesco.

    One child, Angela Gullo, had a Francesco Gullo listed as her grandfather on her birth document. Chances were pretty good that I found the right man. I added his parents, Francesco Gullo and Caterina Butruce to the tree and ended up with two 5th great-grandparents. Not a bad day's work, right?

    I know I might be a bit hasty in adding the people so quickly. However, I've been researching San Pietro for a while. I honestly haven't found any other Domenico Gullo who would fit the needed criteria such as the birth age and everything. Chances are good that I found the right man. If I'm wrong, I could always go back and edit. It's all learning and sometimes you have to trust your instincts.

    I'm a visual learner and after all this time reading the documents and translating them using Google Translate and other programs, I've begun to really understand what the documents mean. Does this mean I can carry on a conversation with someone in Italian? No. No, it doesn't. However, I did learn how to understand what I'm looking for in the documents by studying them closely.

     It takes time to study languages and I should probably download "Duolingo" so I could get more proficient in it. It couldn't hurt! I have been working with Italian documents a while and I've learned a great deal from friends and translating the documents myself. The next logical step would be to try and learn French, non? Nous verrons si je peux en apprendre, mes amis ! À la prochaine!

Au revoir!

52 Ancestors Week 9: Gone Too Soon

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 9

The theme for Week 9 is "Gone Too Soon." How much time is enough? Just a little bit more...  This week is a good time to write about someone who you'd like to have a little (or a lot) more time with.

Caution: Expect Feels.

Warning: This week's blog is going to have a lot of feels. 

    If you've been reading the blog for a long time, then you know who I'm going to write about this week. When it comes to people being gone far too soon, I can only think of my grandfather, Marco Ferraiolo. I know that my second great-grandfather, Antoine Legault, also qualifies as being "gone too soon" since he passed away at the age of fifty in 1901. However, with grandpa Marco it feels more recent since his death occured within my lifetime. In a few weeks, it will have been forty years since Marco passed away and suffice it to say I have strong feelings about what he missed out on.

La famiglia di Ferraiolo

    My grandfather was born in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida in 1925 and came to America in 1929 with his mother, Maria Tedesco (another family member who was gone too soon) and his sister, Nicolina. Like my grandpa Robert, he served the US armed forces in World War II. However, unlike Robert who was in the Air Force, Marco was a paratrooper.

    After the war, he met and married fellow Haverhill resident, Olympia Carrabs. The story of how they met is a bit of a mystery to me and my father since no one ever thought to ask how the two met. If I were a betting man, I'd say that they likely met at church. It's the only reasonable explanation because they lived around the corner from each other for a good number of years. Sadly, that tale is probably lost to time. My father never thought to ask his parents how they met and sadly that was one of the questions I never asked grandma Ollie. Looking back, I probably should have asked! It is what it is and you really can't dwell on "What ifs" because in the end it'll drive you crazy.

    My father was born about a year after my grandparents tied the knot. They both encouraged him to pursue academia and eventually he became a dentist. He met my mother in college and the two were married by the summer of 1971. And what an event that was! Granted weddings are normally huge events. However, this one was a vitally important one because both sets of grandparents wanted to make sure every family member from both sides were there. EVERYONE. And most people were. It was very important to both grandfathers to have family there likely because Marco's father passed away the previous year and he wanted to maintain connections to the family the same way Vincenzo did. I have pictures from the event and it's so good to put faces to the names I put on Ancestry because a lot of family members were there and their decendants are DNA matches. I wonder what would happen if I were to put the entire wedding album on Ancestry. Talk about "cousin bait".

OH! Such an adorably baby. ;)

   By 1976, my brother James was born and I was born two years later. The pic to the right is my only picture I have with my grandfather Marco and me. Not long after this picture was taken, he and my grandmother went to Stuart, Florida since they had a house there. 

    Grandma Ollie and Grandpa Marco went back and forth from Haverhill to Florida quite a bit during their marriage. I believe the term for that is called "snowbirds". They would fly down in the winter and come back up north when the weather got too warm.

  During one of those trips, a bombshell hit. My grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer brought on from years of smoking. In those days, chemotherapy was in its infancy and there was little to northing they could do to help his condition. He passed away in Stuart, Florida on March 13th, 1983 and that's when everything started to change.

    When my grandfather passed away, the connections to friends and family he knew seemed to fade away as well. The biggest connection was the Tedescos of Woburn, Mass. After he passed away, my family lost all connection with them up until a certain plucky young genealogist signed into Ancestry in 2006 and came into contact with a distant cousin named Mary Tedesco.

Jim, LOOK AT THE CAMERA!!!!

    Between 1983 and the present, life moved on because that's the only thing you can do when a family member passes away. My brother and I grew up and filling the hole our grandfather left behind was usually Grandpa Bob, Aunt Nickie and "Aunt" Mary's husband, Peter Matorian. 

    Since I was four when Marco passed away, I don't have any memories of him like my brother does. For example, he remembers the time they drank "wine" that was really water from a wine bottle. As you can tell from the picture here, he had a pretty good sense of humor. Sometimes I wonder if that's where I got it from. =) 

    When I was growing up, I often asked everyone what Grandpa Marco even sounded like because for the first couple years of my life, I couldn't hear anything. I was born deaf and I still wear hearing aids to this day. Everyone has told me that he sounded like my father. That was kind of reassuring. But, you know me. That was the first of MANY questions.

You know, those would totally be iPhones today.

    Luckily, my family always indulged my questions and I got to hear many amazing stories about him. We lived in the house he and my father built and I remember my dad feeling his presence from time to time. Grandpa Marco had a particular odor and when my father was working in the basement, he would smell him nearby. Curiously, I thought I smelled something odd the day I brought up that old box that had his and Vincenzo's things inside.

    Growing up, I heard everything and it honestly made me miss him a little bit less. Because I was born the way I was, he would constantly worry about me and my health. I was not the healthiest of children. Let's put it this way. I was Steve Rogers BEFORE the super soldier serum turned him into Captain America.

    In the end, I grew up and managed to defy all expectations put on me. I was told I would never grow beyond five feet. I'm a head shorter than Jim now and he's six feet tall. I ran cross country and track and got the coach's award for bravery. I could go on but we'd be here a while. Despite all his worries, I think I turned out okay. 

Marco and Cammy!

    All these years later I still wonder what he might think of me now since I've been doing the genealogy thing and reconnecting with family members in Europe and elsewhere. I think he would have been happy to know that I reached out to everyone he either knew or descended from someone he knew.

     Like Nicolina, he probably would have taken an AncestryDNA test and like my father, he probably would have needed help sorting through everything such as the DNA matches. I wonder if he'd have had the same reaction his sister had about his half-sister. He knew about Vincenzo's dalliance. So, chances are good he'd have understood and probably would've cursed under his breath. I don't want to put words in his mouth but if his older sister's reaction is anything to go by.....yeah he'd have done the same thing. Let's be honest here.

        I could go on for days explaining everything that my grandfather missed. In the end, it would probably upset me more than anything. A lot can happen in forty years. People grow up, lives change and families drift apart due to the passage of time. It honestly can't be helped. I'd like to think that Marco would be proud of me trying to get the band back together so to speak. He'd be happy to learn that I was digging through records in San Pietro a Maida, his home village, just like his sister was. 

    Like I said earlier, you can't dwell on "What ifs" and everything. I choose to believe he would be happy with how everything turned out. Apparently, he drew a lot and liked science fiction like my faather does. We'd have had a lot to bond over and possibly some comics. I guess in a way I'm lucky that so many people in my life remember him as a good man and was able to share good memories of him. Still, there's that part of me that wished I knew him as well as everyone else did.  But, it is what it is. So, I choose to believe he would be happy with how everything turned out for me and the future's looking pretty good as I continue to discover more connections to Italy.

See ya next time!