52 Ancestors Week 9: Conflicting Clues

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 9:

The theme for Week 9 is “Conflicting Clues.” Sources don’t always agree, and it’s up to us as genealogists to sort out what is correct. This week, explore an ancestor whose records pointed in different directions. How did you sort it out?

I wonder if I'm too subtle. NAH!

    As genealogists we encounter data that conflicts with other data all the time. To combat those problems the fine folks at Ancestry, Wikitree and various online tree websites have devised ways to detect even the smallest error in your family tree. This is what makes world trees a good thing. There are tools that help users find out what data is in conflict with something else. Sure they can be a little pedantic. However, you can't argue with the results. The tools are there for a reason and they help make family trees stronger and as accurate as possible. 

    Those errors you see have to come from somewhere and sometimes you get them in your research. That happens and when it does you have to deal with each issue logically. Is the Doug Jones who lives in Haverhill in the 1940 census the same Doug Jones who robbed the Pawtucket Bank five years later? You never know. "Jones" is a very common last name and it's one of the names I try to steer clear of for the sake of my sanity. "Smith" is the other one.

    Conflicting information doesn't just happen in documents. Someone could give you information that sort of conflicts with information you already have in your tree. This week I'll be talking about one such issue as we dive into the case of Maria Rosa Astorino.

Giovandomenico and Maria.

    I think I've talked about Maria before. If I didn't, I'll get you up to speed. Maria is the ancestor of a cousin of mine who lives in Rome. She was born in San Pietro a Maida in 1884 and over the course of her life she had two husbands, Giovanni Selvaggio and Giovandomenico Davoli. She lived in Haverhill, Mass for a short time before returning to San Pietro with her children.

    Over time, the children she had with Giovanni made their way back to America. Maria and Giovandomenico had several children including my cousin Flavia's grandfather, Trieste.

    Here's where the conflicting clues come in. Flavia, being the great detective she that she is, asked around for information about her ancestor Maria's parents. She was told by a relative that her mother's name was "Maria Coppola". She told me and right away the alarms in my head start ringing like crazy. I HAVE Maria Coppola in my tree. She was the wife of  Gregorio Astorino and was a second great-grandmother of my third cousin Meli.

    Normally, I'd have just added Maria as a daughter to Gregorio and Maria. Unfortunately, I hit a little bit of a snag. Gregorio and Maria had a daughter named Maria Rosa already in my tree. She was born on June 28th, 1898 in San Pietro. Melina got that information from a friend of hers who did some digging into the rest of Gregorio and Maria's children and as you can see it directly conflicts with the information Flavia was given.

    I told Flavia about the error as she worked to add Maria Rosa onto her tree. I even told Meli about everything as well. She assured me that she would get to the bottom of the mystery by e-mailing the commune office in San Pietro and ask them for information on her parents.

    While she sent the email, I went through several scenarios in my head. Could one Maria Rosa have been called "Maria" and the other one be called "Rosa" as a nickname? That's not too far out of the realm of possibility. I mean I have two half sisters in the tree with the name "Marry Rose". 

    I would have talked about that case this week. However, it wasn't so much of a conflict since both sisters were with their father in one of the censuses. That case literally solved itself when I found the obits for each sister and their picture. It would have made for a very short blog!

    I have to admit this conflict does bother me a little bit. On the DNA side of things, I have a ton of matches who descend from Maria Rosa. DNA does not lie and so I'm left with quite a few questions. There's no doubt in my mind that they connect with the Coppola side of my tree as they match virtually every Coppola from San Pietro in one degree or another.

So, I wounder. Could Flavia have been given the wrong information about her great-grandmother? Could Meli's friend have given her the wrong date?

    It's hard to say and I'll have to keep guessing and guessing until Flavia hears back from the commune office. There are other possibilities of course and I think listing them here might be a good way to clear my head as this conflict is ongoing and it might be resolved in the very near future.

1. There were two sisters with the same name. One went by Maria and the other went by Rosa.

2. Maria could have married another Astorino before marrying Gregorio and had Maria Rosa.

3. Maria could have had a middle name and could have been a sister to the Maria I have in my tree. She did have a sister named Maria Concetta and Maria Concetta could be Maria Rosa's mother.

    All of these possibilities are pretty solid and I'm honestly a little unsure if Gregorio Astorino was Maria's father. Gregorio was fifteen when Flavia's ancestor was born. That really puts a damper on the whole "Are Gregorio and Maria Maria's parents" question.

    Needless to say I have a puzzle on my hands and I wish it was solved. The answer lies in the commune office in San Pietro a Maida and thankfully Flavia asked them for her Maria's birth record, marriage record and a few other odds and ends. She'll likely hear back from them sooner or later and right now I'm sitting on many possibilities for what's happening here.

    The facts are clear. My father, my great-aunt match many of the people who descend from Maria Rosa Astorino and her first husband Giovanni Selvaggio. Are the centimorgans that large? No. However, they aren't small enough to be considered false matches, either. So, we are definitely cousins. We just have to figure out what degree the connection is. The ball is in the commune office's court and here's hoping Flavia hears back from them soon.

    While I'm playing the waiting game, I still hold onto the belief that Flavia and the rest of those DNA matches are definitely Coppola cousins to some degree. History has shown me that Coppolas have married Astorinos in the past. Who's to say it didn't happen here?

    Conflicting clues are always going to be one of the most annoying things to deal with on your genealogical adventure. Thankfully, some of the ones I've encountered solved themselves within a few minutes of painstaking research. This one? I wouldn't call it as annoying as the Moses Goodwin case I talked about a while back. It's a good thing Melanie and I laugh about the issues we had with that mess. What a mess that was. 

See ya next time!