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.