From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 29: Cousins
The theme for Week 29 is “Cousins.” As genealogists, we know that there are more kinds of cousins than just the children of our aunts and uncles. This week, write about a cousin – no matter how “distantly” they are related to you!
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| What a motley crew. |
Cousins are awesome. There's no doubt about that because they're your first friends! If you're the youngest of the cousins in your family, you're usually told stories about just how crazy your family truly is and if you're the oldest you get to tell the kids about how grandma's dolls come to life every night and rearrange the furniture. Not saying I've ever done that. However, I needed to make up some kind of story behind grandma Natalie's creepy dolls. They had nothing on "Annabelle".
As you might have guessed, I'm one of the older cousins in my family. My brother Jim is the oldest of Robert and Natalie's grandkids and we have eight first cousins. That's only the tip of the iceberg! My family is huge. REALLY huge and getting everyone together in one place is like herding cats. I grew up with cousins on both sides of the tree and knew many of my second cousins. To list them all would take some time. I've even known about some cousins long before I ever took a DNA test. Stories were told about these cousins through the family grapevine and one such cousin is genealogist Mary Tedesco.
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| Maria Tedesco and family |
I know full well that "Tedesco" is a common Italian name like "Coppola". Here's the thing. A common name in one country, doesn't necessarily mean it's common in one small Italian town.
I can say with absolute certainty that Mary Tedesco is a cousin of mine. There is no doubt about it. Our families were paisanos from the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida. It goes a little bit more than just being countrymen, of course. I should probably explain from the beginning.
I first heard about Mary when my father was talking about how my grandfather Marco was close with a man named Edward Tedesco. Edward hailed from the same Calabrian town as my grandfather and lived in Woburn, Mass with his very large family. Edward also had several brothers and sisters who also lived in the area. To make things even more interesting, Edward was named my father's godfather when he was born in 1947. Sufficed it to say, the families were close. Ah, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
My parents told me the story about how Edward and several members of the Woburn Tedesco family were invited to my parents' wedding in 1971. Marco made it a point to invite all of the Italians to the gathering. These were mostly Marco and grandma Ollie's relatives. Several people came to the party and my parents even got a wedding gift from one of the Tedescos. My dad mentioned Edward's granddaughter Mary who was about my age and I thought nothing of it for years. It was one of those things you just kept in the back of your mind and let simmer.
Years went by and I registered on Ancestry.com. I created a family tree there in 2006 and let that simmer. I wasn't getting many hints for the Italian side of the tree aside from the information another genealogist name Mary found for the Carrabis families in Gesualdo. I was going nowhere fast with my dad's paternal side at that point and I let the tree sit there and cook on Ancestry. What else could I do? I did talk to my great-aunt Nickie and she confirmed a lot of what my father told me about the Tedescos. She just didn't know the exact connection we had and I thought that was odd.
Mary said that she saw my grandfather Marco in my tree along with his mother, Maria. Her grandfather Edward told her that we were all related. Edward must have told her the same stories my father and Nickie told me. And like me she had no idea what our connection was. Edward had fond memories of growing up with Marco and that Marco was a godfather to one of her uncles. She asked if I'd be willing to swap info with her and of course I jumped at the chance! Who wouldn't?
I wrote back to her and she said Edward had many great memories about Marco, my father and everyone else in the family. We talked for a bit and things went silent for a few years. I had no idea what happened. Life must have gotten in the way. That and Ancestry's messaging system was not as instantaneous as I would have liked back then.
Nevertheless, we still tried to stay in contact. Though, I probably should have added her to my Facebook back then. It would have made life so much easier. We still messaged each other on the site and I updated her on a few things. I found that her grandfather passed away in 2016 and offered my condolences. It's a shame we never got to meet face to face because the dude drew comics. I would have LOVED to have met him!
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| Yup. Still 50% pesto. |
While doing a search for my great-grandfather Vincenzo, I found a blog she wrote about the first Italian-American Thanksgiving and in it she mentioned Vincenzo, Maria and their family. I remember her writing about how her family went to Vincenzo's house in Haverhill to have Thanksgiving there. According to Nicolina, that was one of many family get-togethers. Check the blog out here!
I asked Mary about the blog and she said that it was one of the many memories her grandfather had. She then asked if my father and I would ever do a DNA test on Ancestry. I asked my dad (who was talking to Nicolina at the time about the same topic!) and we decided to take the test. What did we have to lose?
My father and I took our tests and sure enough we matched Mary and countless other members of her family. There are just too many to list. I checked my dad's match list and he had more matches at greater cM ranges. Then an idea popped in my head. What if I had access to Nicolina's test? Nicolina and her daughter Cathie were more than happy to let me see her test results and sure enough Mary and her family were on the list with one of Edward's sisters leading the pack at a hefty 133 cMs. DNA does not lie. There is a connection!
I asked Mary about that match and she wasn't sure what to tell me. She still wasn't sure what our connection was. So, I decided right there to make it my mission to find that connection and I believe I finally found it after so many years. It only took digging through the entire San Pietro a Maida archive and using new features at Ancestry and DNApainter to do it. It was a process that took a long time and many years. I think we can all agree I had vested interest in finding the connection.
To confirm this I had to do some good old fashioned genealogy and probably annoyed some of the family in Italy in the process. If I did that, I am so sorry! Either way, I knew from my research that Edward had a father named Giuseppe. He was the one who initially moved to Woburn and everything in the 1920s.
My first inclination was to ask the family in Italy if my second great-grandfather Antonio had a brother named Giuseppe. He did not. I asked the commune office in San Pietro a Maida about Giuseppe's parents and found that they were Fortunato Tedesco and Caterina Butruce. Fortunato's parents turned out to be Giuseppe Tedesco and Caterina Rocca. At this point I was in the 1840s and still hadn't found the connections. I tried not to let my frustration get the better of me. I was so close I could feel it! I ended up digging through the archives and found three Giuseppe Tedescos who could have been Fortunato's father. One kid was born in the 1830s and the other was born in 1843. As weird as it sounds those were the only two people named Giuseppe Tedesco that I found in the entire archive who were possibly the father. There was one Giuseppe Tedesco born in 1844 and the names of his parents didn't synch with what I had in my tree. See what I mean about common names being not that common in some places?
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| Archivo Stato Civile di San Pietro a a Maida, Catanzaro. 1843 births. #35. |
The other Giuseppe Tedesco born in 1834 had different parents. They were Giuseppe Tedesco and Catarina Gullo. While I do have a connection to the Gullo family, it seemed more logical to me that the 1843 Giuseppe was Maria's ancestor based on Nicolina's matches with her great-aunt and the sheer volume of matches. Like I said before. She matched virtually every single member of Mary's family and all of them are a solid match.
Now, I could be mistaken. I could have some error or something else I couldn't have foreseen. This is a lucky guess and it's a solid one. Whatever the case is, it's clear that Mary and I are cousins. The paper trail and DNA evidence proved it without a shadow of a doubt.
Once I solved the puzzle, I showed it to several other genealogists and they came to the same conclusion I made and agreed with my assessment. I showed Mary herself and I'm hoping she liked my discovery. I have yet to hear from her on that front. The really cool thing is that the discovery about the connection coincided with a discovery in my parents' wedding album. In the guestbook were the signatures of one of Mary's ancestors and several of her great-aunts who eventually had their DNA tested on Ancestry as well.
Many people say I have a lot of determination to get things done and I do. I'm not going to lie. I had real vested interest in finding my connection to Mary because of the stories my father and others told me, the various gifts the family received and all that. DNA matches was one thing, this was something else. This was an attempt to solve a very old riddle and I'm glad I solved it with some help from some amazing friends and family. I found many cousin connections over the years and this one was the most important one I had to solve and I'm glad I finally solved it. At least I hope I did!
See ya next time!
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