52 Ancestors Week 1: In the Beginning

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 1:

This week’s theme is “In the Beginning.” (According to “The Sound of Music,” the beginning is a very good place to start.) Who was the first person you wanted to find when you started your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, maybe by giving you a bunch of genealogy “stuff”? This would be a great week to write about them!

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state....

    This year's 52 Ancestors is off to a great start and I have to thank Amy for providing a prompt which also doubles as a jumping on point for new readers. It's been a long time since I started writing this blog and this week's entry is actually my 300th blog! As a writer I know how important it can be to include a refresher so new readers can see how you got to a certain point. You see it all the time in comic books and I've been known to do a few recaps every now and then for my own webcomic. In those cases, you kind of have to repeat what has happened in the past because a reader will get lost with all the lore. And as anyone who's read the biggest comics out there know, there are decades worth of lore out there.

    Hopefully, this won't be too bad. It's a good idea to look back and see how far you've come as a genealogist and sometimes you either wince at what you did wrong or nod approvingly at some discovery you made. Looking back can be a good thing. So, let's take a minute and see just how I got to this point.

      My name is Chris and I was born in 1978 to Dr. James Ferraiolo and Diane Hamel. I'm the youngest in the family and the second oldest of ten grandchildren on my mom's side. Since I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, you've likely seen many references to the popular culture of the era. That hasn't effected me one bit, right? Heh.....Sure it hasn't.

Dig those '70s sideburns, dad. 

     My father is, as many genealogists have said, "All Italian all the time". Basically, this means that his tree is one hundred percent Italian. Makes sense because he's the son of Italian immigrant Marco Ferraiolo and Olympia Carrabs, the daughter of two Italian immigrants named Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione.

    My mother on the other hand is a healthy mix of French-Canadian ancestry and colonial American ancestry. Her father Robert Hamel comes from a very French-Canadian family with a teeny, tiny sliver that goes to Scotland by way of my 2nd great-grandmother, Georgianna Ross. My maternal grandmother Natalie has French-Canadian roots as well. However, there's that line from my great-grandfather Austin Felker that leads to colonial New England.

    From all of that you might have gathered that I'm some sort of New England mutt. To that, I say....You're right. Millions of Italians immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century and my ancestors were no exception. The same could be said for the French-Canadians in my tree and they were on North American soil since the 1600s. The only ones who have been in New England since the 1600s have been my ancestors on the Felker side of things.

    Through some cosmic twist of fate, everyone somehow ended up in two cities in the Merrimack River valley. This would be the cities of Newburyport and Haverhill where my parents were born. In fact, this blog gets its name from the Queen Slipper City because even the people in Newburyport were in Haverhill at one point! All roads really do lead to Rome...er...Haverhill. 

    Of course the reason why people settled there couldn't have had anything to do with the shoe and textile mills opening up at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Those mills were looking for workers and they came on the boats and on the planes.

*record scratch* Yup....That's me on my grandma's
lap.

    By the time I came around many stories I would end up hearing about happened. I was one of those kids who'd ask their grandparents a million questions about where we came from and everything. Sadly, my grandfather Marco passed away when I was four and I really don't have any memory of him. There was a silver lining, though. Marco's sister, Nicolina was around and she often filled me in on the stories her brother obviously wasn't around to tell.

    She told me stories about how they were born in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida and she told me that I had family still living there. Some family members came to America while others remained in Europe and somehow they kept in touch with the family over the years. Some even went as far away as South America!  It's very rare for Italians to keep in contact with family in Europe and my great-grandfather Vincenzo made it a point stay connected with them.

    Vincenzo even had a box full of genealogical gold confirming a great deal of information. He had guest lists, naturalization papers, documents, photos and more inside what could only be described as a black box. Meanwhile, my maternal grandparents had boxes of information and pictures as well. For information on the contents of each box, please check the blog archive.

    Not to be outdone, my grandmother Olympia and her sisters (Who I call the "Little Old Italian Ladies") had stories of their own. The sisters always talked about their parents and how they were born in the Campanian town of Gesualdo. The sisters also would talk about their uncles Rocco and Pasquale who ended up in Melrose and Everett and had huge families of their own. In addition, several relatives from the Gesualdo area ended up in America and yes stories have been told about them, too! Pictures were also shared!

Nana and Papa's 50th wedding anniversary!

        My maternal side has just as many stories as my Italian side. My grandfather Robert was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and the father of six children. My grandmother Natalie was one of six children and like Ollie she was always more than happy to talk about family history.

    She told me stories about how her father Austin had ancestors who fought in nearly every major American conflict starting with the American Revolution. She told me how her mother Henrietta Legault  was one of twelve children born to mill worker Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran.

    I'm grateful that my grandparents indulged me with the questions. How easy would it have been had they said : "Get lost, kid"? Thankfully, they didn't1

    Fast forward to 2006. By that point both of my grandmothers had passed away and my only living grandparent was my grandfather Robert. I think it was "Papa" who encouraged me to make a family tree and at that time Ancestry.com was the only game in town for tree creation. There was no geni and WikiTree wouldn't launch for another two years. I started working on the tree after he encouraged me and I got to wondering something. Were the stories I heard growing up all true? Sure I could've asked my parents about them. But, I wanted to check things out for myself!

    My great-aunt Nicolina even chimed in and said that I should see if I could find some relatives in San Pietro who could help me out. She gave me some names and I let them sit on the backburner of my mind for many years as I had no means of contacting them. Fortunately, they found me on Facebook!

Austin and Henrietta

    To the surprise of no one, my maternal side was just as accurate as my grandparents described in the family tree they made. I worked on that side first because I knew records would be relatively easy to come by. Massachusetts keeps wicked good records, kids. Remember that. We'll discuss it over coffee at Dunkies.

    The colonial American side filled up really quickly and soon the French-Canadian side followed once I signed up for WikiTree back in 2017. Up until then I was doing genealogy off and on because I was working on my webcomic and I had my own video review show where I reviewed comic books. I still checked on Ancestry every once in a while, though.

    Once I started up again, a lady who turned out to be a distant cousin on the Carrabs side uploaded what could only be described as a treasure trove of information onto Ancestry. Her name is GesualdoGenie and as the screenname implies she researched the town of Gesualdo. She went to the town and scanned virtually every birth, death and marriage record she could find. Afterward, she compiled all that data into one big 80,000 person tree on Ancestry. Included in the tree was my grandma Ollie and her complete family tree.

Giuseppe and Clementina.

    Naturally, I messaged her and she helped me fill in the Carrabs side. It grew upwards toward the 1700s and outwards in the space of a week. Through her I learned about Antenati, the Italian government's repository for every single civil record in Italy from 1809 to the early 20th century. She assured me that the records she and Antenati had were indeed legit and I rapidly filled in the tree.

    I found that the stories about Gesualdo were all true and that my personal "three siblings who came to America" story was in fact true. Some genealogists out there have a similar story where an ancestor was one of three brothers who came to America or something and those brothers went in different directions. In this case, the story was not only true. But, it was backed up with pictures! Lots of pictures!

    To say that I was on a roll would be an understatement. Nothing could stop the wild roller coaster of genealogical  finds. There was still one last thing I had to do. I needed to spit in a tube. Gross, I know. But, there's no way to sugarcoat the desire to take a DNA test. Nicolina had done one herself and she asked my father and I if we would take one, too. 

    Genealogist Mary Tedesco even got in on the act! She and I had been talking off and on for a number of years as well ever since she found me on Ancestry. Her family and mine were both from San Pietro and to make things even more interesting her grandfather was my dad's godfather! Grandpa Marco was very close to the Tedesco family. They all lived in Woburn, Mass and often visited Marco and his family in Haverhill.

    Mary had been wondering about our connection for some time since my great-grandmother was San Pietro native Maria Tedesco, the first wife of my great-grandfather Vincenzo. I'm pleased to say that we found our connection through careful research. She is my 5th cousin! The story of my connection to the Tedesco family was proven to be true!

Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco

    In doing a DNA test, the floodgates really opened for discoveries. Stories ended up being confirmed left, right and center. I found connections to virtually all of Mary's relatives including Mary herself. I found descendants of people who were at my parents' wedding. I found adoptees who were trying to find their place in my ever expanding family tree. 

    I found everything except the connections my great-aunt Nicolina asked me to find. That all changed when I went to the San Pietro a Maida Facebook group and asked them for help. They found me there and we still talk to this day. Over time even more European cousins found me as I put my AncestryDNA test on MyHeritage.

    The funny thing about MyHeritage is that I uploaded my DNA there and let it sit for ages before getting any really substantial DNA matches. That was until my Swiss relatives did their DNA tests there and confirmed yet another story. This one was about how my grandfather Marco, Ollie, my great-grandfather and my great-aunt all went to Switzerland for a wedding. Little did I know that I'd meet the lady whose wedding they all went to! 

Alfred Hamel, king of swagger.

          Caterina and I stay in touch and I do my best to keep in touch with my European cousins and cousins in South America. They've been very helpful in helping me to understand the family story beyond just photographs and information I find online.

    The funny thing is that almost all of the stories I heard growing up turned out to be true. I don't know if it's because the information was fresh in their minds or if there was no reason to really embellish the stories of those who went before us.

    Whatever the case is, I'm more than grateful to see that everything has been more or less true on my family tree. I wouldn't call it boring! Read my past blogs. It's anything but boring. You'll find that drama exists even in a fully completed tree. Trust me. 

    If anything, a complete family tree leads me to more questions and that kid who used to ask a million questions still wants answers!

    And that's the story of how I got to this point on my genealogical journey and how I became a genealogist. I just wanted to see if the stories I heard were true. Did I miss a few things? Probably. Like I said. It's a condensed history of the road I took to get to this point in early 2025. If you want all the dirty details, there are a ton of blogs here to read.  As I look back I wonder what I would have thought of all the discoveries I made if I made them back in 2006. Knowing me there'd still be a great deal of excitement. It's probably best that I made them in small bursts as I'd feel overwhelmed if everything was handed to me all at once. Some things would have gotten lost in the shuffle.

    I'm just glad people were there to help me on the journey and I'm glad I have people still helping me now from cousins in Argentina and Europe to fellow genealogists on WikiTree. Genealogy doesn't have to be a solo gig and I don't think I could have gotten as far as I have without their help and guidance. Now let's see what else we can find on this journey!

Happy 300th blog, All Roads Lead to Haverhill! Here's to many more epic tales!

See ya next time!