52 Ancestors Week 22: Creativity

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 22

The theme for Week 22 is "Creativity." Whether it's doing arts and crafts, making a meal of out seemingly nothing, or playing music, some of our ancestors were creative people. Sometimes we have to be creative in finding our family tree! As always, feel free to be creative in how you interpret this week's theme.

It's modern art!

    Creativity clearly runs in my family. Let's do a headcount shall we? We have my brother and my dad's cousin Joe who are musicians. My brother plays the guitar while my cousin Joe plays the piano. Come to think of it, I have a few other musically inclined cousins on the Italian side of the tree. The again my uncle Bob on my mom's side has been known to sing a few tunes from time to time. My grandmother Natalie did needlepoint and often made clothes for all of us grandkids. Results, of course, varied! Even I have a creative side! Aside from having my own webcomic, I've dabbled in video production and have even made a few things in pottery class. Are the bowls a little lopsided? Yes. But, it still holds stuff! That's what matters! Also, I have this blog! So, that counts!

    What can I say? We're all creative people here. Even my grandfather Marco was creative in his day. Not only did he build the house I grew up in and part of my dad's office. He was an accomplished painter as well. Was he Leonardo da Vinci? That's debatable. He still painted some amazing things over the course of his life.

Very sublime piece of work. Truly.

    Take this piece for example. This oil on canvas painting currently hangs in the breakroom of my father's office. The painting depicts my great-grandfather Vincenzo enjoying a meal with his second wife, Fortuna.

    For as long as I can remember this painting was at the office and I'd look at it every time I came in for a cleaning or whenever I'd drop by. It's a pretty powerful piece if you think about it. Marco definitely got the looks down pat. This is coming from someone who has trouble drawing people. It's okay. Even Stan Lee couldn't draw people!

    On the table we see wine, bread and cheese. Clearly, Vincenzo and Fortuna were just finishing up an antipasto dish of some kind. Fortuna even has what looks like a hot pepper in her fingers. I wish I could say if the background was their house in Haverhill or not. It might have been. My dad isn't even sure what the background is from. I guess we could say it's their house.

    I do know that the painting had to have been painted sometime before my dad opened his practice in the early 1970s. It was given to him by my grandfather as a present when he started and it's been hanging in that spot ever since. 

The artist himself!

    We have other paintings that Marco made in our archives but this one is the one that I think of the most when I think of my grandfather's artwork. It was the first painting of his that I ever saw. It was also the first image I ever saw of my great-grandfather. It's funny isn't it? Most people see a picture of their great-grandfather first before seeing an actual painting! Crazy, huh?

    The painting also has a place in my heart because I remember coming into the office after school and sitting down to write some of my own stories at the table under it. I would look up and smile at the painting because I was doing something just as creative as Marco did all those years ago.

    So, I often wonder what he'd have thought of my stories and even the pictures I've drawn. I've also drawn many things while under that same painting. It's kind of cool. Though, I do wish he could have seen the creative things I've made. 

    That's not the only painting he made! We have several other paitings of his like this one!

    I look at this picture and I can't help but think of legendary scenery painter Bob Ross. Look at all the happy little trees! No, this isn't a Bob Ross Marco somehow got a hold of! This is a Marco original!

    Not only did he capture his father and step mother in oil-based paint. He painted a beautiful river at sunset. I'm not sure which river is represented here. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's the Merrimack River during the fall.

 That's my story and I'm sticking with it!

   Here's another painting he made!

This is a very adventurous painting isn't it?  We have sailboats at what I assume is Salisbury beach. I'm doing a lot of assumptions with these two paintings aren't I? Don't blame me! I never had the chance to ask my grandfather about these three paintings. 

    They're all very cool and not to mention creative. It's good to know that both he and my grandfather Robert  were creative in their own ways. Bob just took photos with his camera. My grandfather painted. Maybe that's inspired me to get into drawing and eventually writing my own stories. You never know. 

        I guess you could say that creativity is in my blood. I've been surrounded by creative people all my life. Some people sing. Some people play instruments. Some people paint. Art is the ultimate form of expression my family has clearly been finding ways to express themselves. The paitings Marco left behind serve as a reminder of just how creative he was. Let's hope they continue to stand the test of time!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 21: Nickname

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 21

The theme for Week 21 is "Nickname." Names can be incredibly fluid, and nicknames can trip us up in our research. What's a nickname that you've found in your family tree?

I was known by one of these nicknames in the header and no it wasn't "Ken
Adams".

     Nicknames are fun and are usually given to others to seal a friendship or to denote fondness for the person in question. This varies of course. While someone might be called "Sport" because they're good at sports. Someone else might be called "Stinky" for obvious reasons. Oh, I'd have hated to have been the kid who was called "Stinky". He'd have to clean himself off and completely reinvent himself in college before it was too late! If not he'd forever be known as "Stinky from the old neighborhood". Kids can be so cruel.

    In my family tree I have several people who went by various nicknames over the course of their lives. For example, my grandmother Olympia was always called "Ollie". The odd thing is that in her high school yearbook she was also called "Limp".  We never called her "Limp". EVER! It just seems wrong somehow. Maybe that was an appropriate nickname for someone in the 1930s. I have no idea! I always knew her as "Ollie" and it wasn't until I got into the fifth grade that I found out her name was short for "Olympia"! No one ever called her "Olympia", either for that matter! She was always called "Ollie" by friends and family alike.

Olympia "Ollie" Carrabs

    The thing about Ollie's nickname is that it was never pronounced like the nickname you'd give a man named "Oliver".  Her nickname was pronounced like "Oh-lee" instead of "Awl-lee". I remember cringing at my grandmother's memorial service because the priest kept using the male pronunciation "Awl-lee" when he was talking about my grandmother. 

    No one ever stopped to correct him. I suppose it was an easy mistake to make. When you see the name "Ollie" in text, you tend to immediately go for the male version of the name because that was the most common way to say it. No one is at fault here! He just didn't know!

    Still, I wonder how her nickname came about. Who was the first to call her that name? Why did people call her "Ollie"? I think the answer might be a little obvious.

    Let's face it. The name "Olympia" can be a little cumbersome and fancy. I think it only works if your last name was "Dukakis".She probably wanted a way to shorten her name much like how I prefer to be called "Chris" over "Christopher". I'm not sure if her parents ever called her "Ollie". But, I know for a fact that her sisters certainly did and that nickname stuck with her for the rest of her life.

    I guess you could argue that "Limp" is also a shortened version of "Olympia". But, that's....that's just not a good nickname. I'm sorry. Sorry, 1930s Haverhill. You dropped the ball on that one. Big time. At least both nicknames are in the yearbook!

    I think I can understand why she preferred "Ollie" over "Limp" because like I said no one ever called her that--ever. I could rant for days about why that nickname is just not that great but we'd be here all day. I get the reference. Don't get me wrong. I'm just not fond of it and I know she probably wasn't as well.

    It's just as well because veryone eventually ended up calling her Ollie as it was a catchier nickname than "Limp". In fact, I bet like only five people in her high school by that name and everyone else called her "Ollie". Who can say? I wish I could go back in time and find out!

    I think I spent too much time harping on "Limp", It might be time to move on....

    Her family was likely the first to call her "Ollie" and over time the name stuck. Word of her nickname spread around her social group and soon everyone ended up calling her "Ollie". And why not? It's a great nickname for a great and amiable lady who always made you feel right at home whenever you visit her house. 

    My brother and I only ever knew her by that name and we just rolled with it because everyone around us called her by that name. For some reason it just suited her and I'm glad she picked that name over "Limp". I think we all are!

      Good nicknames are hard to come by and you want to make sure your friends and family pick one that suits you. You never want to pick your own nickname because that never turns out well for anyone. See "The Big Bang Theory" for details. See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 20: Taking Care of Business

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 20

The theme for Week 20 is "Taking Care of Business." Many of our ancestors ran businesses, either as their full-time occupation or on the side. "Taking care of business" can also be a euphemism for getting things done. Who does the phrase remind you of?

Playing this song solo in Rock Band takes skills.

    Taking care of business is the theme for week twenty and I certainly got things done when I found my connection to a distant cousin! Did I finally find that link to "Isadore" that's been vexing me for years and years? Well, no. Not exactly. Don't lose hope on that front by the way! I fully expect to get closer to solving that puzzle by the end of the year. Fingers and toes are crossed. For now you can read the whole "Isadore" saga here. 

    This week I found my connection with a DNA match named "Zelda". Remember her? She was the one who contacted me about her grandfather Domenico Marinaro in 2023 when she found his page on WikiTree. I wrote a blog about her, the Marinaro family and mused about what the connection would be. Check THAT blog out here!

    In the blog I went over the various possible connectiions we had. Was I connected to her via the Marinaros since I have an ancestor named Domenica Marinaro?  In retrospect, that wasn't actually a bad guess. Marinaro is a fairly common last name in San Pietro a Maida and you have to wonder how many families were connected THAT far back.

    If you look at the screenshot, you might see another last name that's ALSO in my tree. Do you see that "Ferraiolo" in there? Interesting huh? I wonder what would happen if you were to dive into that branch!

    That's exactly what I did! I went to Haverhill city hall to see if I could get the death certificates for Domenico and his sisters, Natalina and Elisabetta. All three death certificates had the name "Elisabetta Ferraiolo" listed as their mother. Clearly Elisabetta was my link to the past. All three were born in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida. So, there were a few things I had to do next. I e-mailed the commune office in San Pietro to see if I could find the marriage of the trios' parents, Bruno Marinaro and Elisabetta.

    While I awaited word from San Pietro, I thought it would be a good idea to see if I could find Elisabetta online. After all she had to have been born in the 1850s and records for San Pietro from 1809 to 1861 were online. I did my search and the only Elisabetta I found was a girl born on April 25th, 1851 to Bruno Ferraiolo and Natalina Arena.

    I did some more digging and found that Bruno was the son of Domenico Ferraiolo and Angiola Cortese. Domenico's parents turned out to be Giovanni Ferraiolo and Antonia Russo, my 6th great-grandparents.

    The stage was set and all I needed to do was find out if the Elisabetta on the death certificates in Haverhill was the same woman I found born in San Pietro in 1851. I told Zelda about everything I've found and all I had to do was play the waiting game and see if I could find any more Elisabettas in San Pietro. Like I said there weren't any which was weird beause there were like fifty Elisabetta Butruces out there.

    Finally the big day came earlier this week when I got an e-mail back from San Pietro and a document saying Maria Elisabetta Ferraiolo and Bruno Marinaro were married on May 28th, 1871. Her parents were Bruno Francesco Ferraiolo and Natalina Arena. As you can imagine I had a big smile on my face and before I even added the information to my tree I e-mailed Zelda and told her the news!

    Once the excitement died down, I built the tree down to Zelda and it turns out that she is a fifth cousin 2x removed. She's also a 4th cousin once removed of my great-aunt and a fifth coussin of my dad's. That makes sense when you look at the cM counts:

Nicolina: 32 across 2 segnents

My dad: 17 cMs across 1 segment

Me: 15 cMs across 1 segment

        I looked at the possible shared relationships and see that they being 4th cousins once removed is indeed a possibility. Over at the shared cM project, there is a 53% chance of that being accurate. You know what? I'll take those odds! I already proved the connection via a paper trail.  DNA here is just the icing on the cake at this point.

    So, that's how I finally discovered my link to Zelda. Are there more connections? It's hard to say. When I look at Zelda's and Nicolina's shared matches, I see a lot of Coppola cousins who descend from Giovanni Coppola and Natalina Marinaro. I see the same cousins when I look at my shared matches and my dad's as well. I think it's safe to say that this case is closed. If only all DNA matches were this easily solved, right? 

    At the end of the day I guess you could say that I took care of business here. I had a DNA match I was trying to figure out for a while. She provided me with some information and I used it to see if I could take things one step further. The moral of the story is that when you work together with a DNA match, you can solve any puzzle. It gets harder when you don't have a helpful DNA match, I know. However, if you have the tools and the drive you can do just about anything!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 19: Preserve

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 19

The theme for Week 19 is "Preserve." We preserve a lot as genealogists: papers, stories, history itself. There is also the tasty kind of "preserve." (Now I'm hungry for some strawberry jam on fresh-baked bread.) What have you or your ancestors preserved?

All 75 issues of Marvel's "New Warriors" Volume 1 (1990-1996)
bagged and in near-mint condition!

    As a comic reader I know how important it is to preserve the thnigs you want to keep for posterity. I have boxes and boxes of comics like the one this week's banner. I put the comics in special plastic bags and stored them all in a nice, dry spot for safekeeping. That box of "New Warriors" goodness up there is just the tip of the iceberg! I have comics from as far back as the 1970s and 1980s in my collection, too. Are they worth anything? It's hard to say. The sentimental value alone is through the roof!

    On the genealogical front, I've tried to employ the same tactics I've been using in the thirty plus years I spent collecting and reading comics. I keep the things I want in safe places and toss out the things I could probably do without. Sorry, grandpa Hamel. Your golf magazines had to go!  It was either that or your grandfather Eugene's antique glasses! I needed to prioritize!! Eh, I don't think he'd have minded me tossing them to be honest. The magazines! Not the glasses! Let's be clear here! 

    Comics and eyewear aside, I have a veritable treasure trove of things in my possession that I've preserved. I could probably open a museum with the toys from the 1980s alone! Though, I don't think they'd be anywhere near minty fresh. Sometimes the battles between the Autobots and the Decepticons got a little.....uhhh....heated.

Vincenzo and his second wife,
Fortuna

        Sadly, there are several things my ancestors had that could never be preserved such as my Italian great-grandfathers' wine collection. Those were likely gone by the mid 1970s.  As discussed before both Giuseppe Carrabs and Vincenzo Ferraiolo made their own wine. The quality depended on the wine producer and my father said on multiple occassions that Giuseppe's brother Rocco made the strongest batch of all! Somehow I believe that.

    I admit it can be hard to preserve wine. Wine only gets better with age so I can't really fault Vincenzo's second wife Fortuna from having her fair share of the liquor after her husband passed away in 1970. It must have been pretty good wine if she kept it all those years. Perhaps it was a way to remember him? I only wish that she kept a bottle of the stuff just so I can say we preserved a bottle of "Chateau Ferraiolo 1963".  I could have made a label and everything and no one would have known the difference! Even a bottle of "Barlett Street Vino" from Giuseppe would have been great! Dare to dream. The bottles would be great conversation starters. Instead we have a collection of antique coke bottles! Win some ya lose some!

    Luckily I have many other things from Vincenzo that I've preserved. Remember the toolbox full of genealogical gold? That's in a nice dry spot in the cellar. Whenever the basement floods, we make sure that it and the other items of genealogical value are kept nice and dry. So far so good! Though, it does help that Vincenzo's box is on a dresser and my grandparents' things are on a table.

Giuseppe and Clementina

In the end, it's probably a good idea to worry more about what you can preserve and not so much the stuff that can be eaten or drank. Those things naturally don't have staying power. That's why I tend to go to great lengths to preserve photographs like this one of Giuseppe and his wife Clementina. 

    For pictures I try to scan what I can so I can either put them here in the blog or put them up on WikiTree or Ancestry. Our pictures are already in really safe locations so I tend to scan them at my leasure. I'm in no hurry to get every picture I have scanned. That would take forever and a day and I learned a long time ago that scanning and editing pictures can take ages! Especially if you're scanning a comic book. I also back up the scans on a zip drive along with all the other genealogical documents I've accumulated. I've even printed out a few and put them in a special folder!

    Pictures aren't the only things I want preserved for safekeeping. In our archive we have ye olde home movie reels. These home movies are strips showing my father, his cousins and his maternal grandparents live and in black and white circa the 1950s/1960s. I swear when I saw them for the first time the "Wonder Years" theme popped in my head. 

Need a clip of them waiting for the
bus!

  The videos themselves are basically of my father and everyone having a great time together in Haverhill. There are no sounds so I can't hear what my great-grandparents sounded like. Oh, man. That would have been so cool. Still, the videos are good and I would totally put the clips to music if I could. Perhaps some era appropriate tunes would do the trick? Where are those Beach Boys songs?

 There are definitely ways to preserve the videos and I will definitely get on that once I have time. What I plan to do is convert them to a video format and store them on the zip drive along with the other things. In fact, I should probably dust off my editing software and make one BIG video out of everything!  Sure it'll take a while to render. But, it'll be worth it. I have the technology! I can also burn it on a DVD and everything!

    Preserving things take time and you always want to make sure you preserve the things you want and the things you need. This is true for both genealogy and of course collecting comics. Do these collect dust? Oh, yes! That's the least of your worries. If you have the things you want, you'll be sure to take good care of your archive. Our stuff is safe and secure and will remain well preserved for many years to come! Now to get started on transferring reels to digital!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 18: Love and Marriage

From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 18 is "Love and Marriage." There are so many ways you could approach this theme! Ancestors who got married multiple times; elopement stories; ancestors who were married a long time; or even the surname of Love!

We're no strangers to love....

    In my family tree there's no shortage of people who have been married for a very long time. As of this blog's posting, my parents have been married for fifty-three years and had their big fiftieth wedding anniversary at the height of the Covid pandemic. My maternal grandparents had their fiftieth anniversary in the summer of 1998 and I wrote about that awesome party last year. What do you say we talk about an anniversary I couldn't possibly remember unless I was a Time Lord? Get inside the Tardis because we're going back in time to 1963!

    The early 1960s saw many of today's pop culture icons make their debut. In 1963 alone many of my favorite characters first burst onto the scene like "Doctor Who", "Iron Man", the  "Uncanny X-Men" and Earth's mightiest heroes, "the Avengers". The year certainly saw some tragedy of course with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, time marched on and people still found time to celebrate in the midst of all the chaos going on around them.

    Enter Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault. My great-grandparents celebrated their fifttieth wedding anniversary in the fall of 1963. They were married by a Justice of the Peace in Haverhill City Hall on November 29th, 1913. Back then the city must have been so different. Think about it. Automobiles were just starting to be developed and if you wanted to get anywhere you had to take a train.

    By 1963, the happy couple had six children including my grandmother Natalie and twenty-two grandchildren.  If they were going to have a party, I hope they either rented a room or just had one big party in the backyard. That's quite the army, huh? The family still continued to grow as the decade marched on!

    The party took place the week before Kennedy's assassination and my mother remembered everything that happened in that historic month. I don't think anyone who was around in November 1963 will ever foget that month! My grandfather Robert had driven the Hamel clan from California to Haverhill for the anniversary celebration. He was on a month's leave from the Air Force and they had plenty of time to travel and stay in the city for as long as they wanted. They stopped once in Wyoming and went straight to Massachusetts from there.  According to my mother, Wyoming was pretty nice. Though, having to share a car with four siblings was NOT her idea of a good time!

Blanche Legault-Yerxa

    My mother and her family ended up staying with my grandmother's sister Elaine for the whole time they were in town.  The odd thing was that despite traveling clear across the country the party was adults only! Can you believe that? You travel clear across the country only to find out that no children were invited! I guess that means I don't have any story to tell, huh? WRONG!

    There's still plenty to tell and there are plenty of pictures of the event in my archive somewhere. I just have to look for them. My mother remembered that whole month-long stay in Haverhill vividly because of how chaotic things were on the news as events unfolded. The children weren't even allowed to watch the news after the tragic events took place in Dallas! Instead, they ended up watching Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot on live television in her cousin's house. Wow. So much for shielding the kids, huh?

    Well, they weren't going to be sheltered forever, guys....

   Back to the party itself. At the time my mother was fourteen years old and even though she wasn't invited, she got to talk to her great-aunts like Blanche and various relatives from New York afterwards. So, the party wasn't a total wash as far as family gatherings go. She got to see relatives she hadn't seen in a long time and catch up on all the latest gossip.

Austin and Henrietta circa 1949.

    As far as Austin and Henrietta go, I'm sure they had a wonderful time with their friends and family. I'm not sure who all went to the "no kids allowed" party. But, I'm sure some of Henrietta's sisters and Austin's half-siblings all went to the event. 

    My mother said that the party was likely held at a hall or someone's home. It's hard to tell just based on the picture I have here.  The background looks like it could be from someone's house. I'm not sure. Either way, it's a shame that none of the kids were there. I'd have loved to hear stories from the event and all I have is a few pictures here and there. It's fine. Both Austin and Henrietta were at my parents' wedding in 1971 and I KNOW that was definitely a good one. Always is when Italians are involved. Just sayin'!

    A fiftieth wedding anniversary is a huge milestone for any couple as it shows that a marriage has stood the test of time. Austin and Henrietta were a couple from similar backgrounds since her father died when she was eight and Austin's parents divorced when he was a baby. They both had to endure a lot of drama and that usually brings people together. They stuck it out through thick and thin and as a result they had an amazing family. It's just a shame that the kids were left out of the party. I don't think I'll be letting that one go right away! But, it is what it is. A 50th anniversary shows a good, strong marriage and having a veritable army of grandchildren was their legacy!

See ya next time!