52 Ancestors Week 43: Lost Contact

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 43

The theme for Week 43 is "Lost Contact." Many families have someone with whom they've lost contact, either by choice or by chance. Who is that person in your family tree?

Stars in the same galaxy, but light-years between us.

        Genealogy and the Internet often go hand-in-hand. With the Internet, you can make friends with people all around the globe and if you're a genealogist like I am you could find cousins by simply doing a DNA test at your favorite DNA testing site or create a family tree on a website like WikiTree, which has a world tree connecting you with millions of people. The possibilities are endless and I'm proud to say that with the Internet I've been able to make contact with family members from virtually every branch in my family tree save for a few lines here and there.

   Not too long ago I would have talked about the Astorino family and how no one had heard from them since the 1990s. The Astorinos descended from my great-granfather Vincenzo Ferraiolo's sister, Caterina. Caterina married a man by the name of Lorenzo Astorino and they moved to Argentina. The family stayed in touch for many years via letters, phone calls and visits. Then came the summer of 2024 when my third cousin Melina Astorino found me on WikiTree. The rest, as they say, is history.

Giuseppe and Clementina.

    I'm glad we made that connection and I still talk to Melina every chance I get. However, now that she reconnected with me, I find myself wondering about someone else on the Italian side of my family tree.

    I've mentioned my great-grandfather, Giuseppe Carrabs many times. He had two brothers who went to America and their names were Rocco and Pasquale.  Did you know he had a sister named Rosina?

    Like her brothers she was born in the Campanian town of Gesualdo to Vincenzo Carrabis and Maria Giovanna Capobianco. She was born there in 1892 and she also immigrated to America. And that's where things took an odd turn. I know for a fact she's a sister to the guys. You can see her birth record on Antenati!

      Growing up, I've only heard bits and pieces about Rosina from my grandma Ollie and other members of my family. She lived near Pasquale in Everett, Mass and married a man named Vincenzo d'Avino in 1923. Shockingly enough, that was it. To date I've never seen her picture and any information I do have is a bit fragmented. It really didn't help that even the extended family like my DNA matches never heard of her.  As you can imagine, I was more than a little frustrated about the prospect of there being a lost Carrabs cousin out there.

    I never really understood why no one talked about her. Was there some sort of rift or something? Did she go against the family? Did her husband not want her talking to her Carrabs relatives? I honestly have no idea. The more I think about it, the more I keep coming up with crazy ideas and scenarios. It's best to keep those under my hat because the truth can be stranger than fiction.  I should also note that Vincenzo was the brother of Caterina d'Avino and Caterina was Rocco's wife. The families were well connected and yet no one ever talked about Rosina.

Rocco on the far left and Pasquale on the 
far right.

    Anyway, frustration can turn into determination pretty quickly as far as I'm concerned. I may not know why Rosina seemingly fell off the face of the Earth. But, I can definitely find out what happened to her through some fancy genealogical jiggery-pokery!

     Rosina married a man named Antonio Pascucci in 1913 at the age of 21. They had one child in 1919 who unfortunately passed away the following year. The two remained together until sometime before the 1930 census. By then Rosina had two more children with her second husband Vincenzo d'Avino and their names were Melinda and Frederick. 

    The children did pretty well for themselves. Frederick married Jennie May Coppola (No clue if she's related to the Coppolas in my tree. The odds are astronomical.). Fred and Jennie had three children together and two may still be around at the time of this blog's posting.  Melinda and her husband John Nichiniello had five children and three of them are still living!

Rosina on WikiTree

      Wow. That's some fancy genealogical footwork, huh? Now that I know that Rosina's descendants are out there, what do I do now? Well, the smart thing would be to play the waiting game and see if anyone from that family takes an AncestryDNA test. Another option is to see if they're on Facebook and try contacting them that way. 

    You might ask yourself if that's stalking. There's a fine line between genealogy and stalking. And besides I just want to see if they're out there. No one has to take a DNA test if they don't want to. I just want to offer up some cousin bait. The first thing I should probably do is beef up Rosina's profile, huh? Maybe add the children and hopefully that will encourage people to contact me. Fingers crossed.

    I've been having a run of good luck contacting "long lost" relatives. They find me on WikiTree and most of the time they've been very receptive to my questions. I suppose the first thing I'd ask Rosina's grandchildren would be if they heard about Giuseppe, Rocco and Pasquale. Like I said. No one ever talked about Rosina and when they did it was just basic information here and there. Here's hoping that someone contacts me either via this blog or the work I do on WikiTree. Fingers crossed!

    It's just really unfortunate that I had so little information on Rosina to begin with. I had to dig through a lot of information to find her, her descendants and fill in the gaps. The reason why she got lost in the shuffle is probably really simple. Italian families are big and sometimes people fall through the cracks for one reason or another. At least we now have a means to contact Rosina's descendants. Will they do DNA tests? Perhaps. For now the hailing frequencies are open on all channels and a general message has gone out to the d'Avinos and Nichiniellos. Here's hoping they take the "cousin bait" and here's hoping they have a picture of Rosina, too!

See ya next time!