52 Ancestors Week 11: Turning Point

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11:

The theme for Week 11 is “A Turning Point.” In storytelling, there’s the pivotal moment – something happens and nothing is the same afterward. Think of a turning point in the life of an ancestor. It could be going to college, going to war (or not), or making an unpopular choice. You could also be more literal and consider ancestors who traveled. There's no wrong way to interpret the theme!

Greener pastures are this way!

    When you've been on a genealogical adventure as long as I have, you're bound to find many things that have been turning points in your research. Small things here and there turn into big things and before you know it your family tree on Ancestry looks like a forest and you'll be putting profiles in on WikiTree for a very long time. I know that's oddly specific. What do you expect from someone who's been doing genealogy off and on for ten years before finally deciding to register at WikTree?

    I actually think now might be a good time to reflect on some of my biggest turning points in my research. Many of them have been game changers. Some of them may not seem that big. They were big enough for me and that alone earns them a spot on this list! Without further adieu, let's get this party started!

Birth record of Angela Gatto.

    By far the biggest turning point in my research was when my friend and fellow Wikitreer Kathy Nava went to her local Familysearch library and downloaded birth records for me. Before she offered her services, my friend Tricia would also go to her library and get records for me.

    They went to the library because my area does not have a Familysearch affiliate library and for a long time that was the only place where you could find births in San Pietro a Maida from 1809 to 1861. 

    Sounds lame, I know. It was what we had to work with and I thank them every day for their help as they helped me break down several brick walls.

    Before they helped me my father's paternal side was an empty void that needed to be filled. Thanks to their work, I was able to find birth records for several ancestors in San Pietro AND I was able to break a brick wall or two. Tricia found the 1860 birth record for Francesco Coppola and that led me to connecting all of the Coppolas to his grandfather Francesco and his still unknown wife. I still need to find out who that is. That will be another turning point!

    Their help continued for many years and eventually I made a spreadsheet cataloging all of the births in San Pietro a Maida that we were finding. It wasn't until Christmas 2025 when Antenati, the Italian government's repository for Italian records, that the records became available without the need to go to a library. Talk about a great Christmas present! Now I make sure I everything's nice and accurate because while they were helpful with getting the scans, the scans on Familysearch looked like they were scanned using a potato. I had trouble reading them and now the scans are a lot cleaner on Antenati! This was a turning point because now I can look at those records with ease!

    Before I had access to the San Pietro records, the only other Italian records I had were the ones from Gesualdo that my cousin Mary found and uploaded to Ancestry. I saw those records long before I ever heard of Antenati and I would call that one of my earliest turning points.

    Mary had carefully documented, scanned and cataloged every single person who was born, lived in or died in the town of Gesualdo. That was the Italian town where my great-grandparents Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione were born and seeing those records was a turning point early on in my research because they allowed me to get a firsthand look at what Italian records actually looked like. They pretty much prepared me for what I was eventually going to find in San Pietro. Not bad, right?

    I know a lot of my Italian research turning points sound odd since I had help from someone else. However, here's what you need to know. I was not well-versed in the Italian language early on in my adventure. I didn't know about the months of the year or how records were organized. The people who helped me out helped me to understand the records better and I am forever grateful for their help. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Genealogy shouldn't be a solo gig. It takes more than one person to help put the pieces of a puzzle together. Wikitree calls it collaboration and it helps people get further in their research than they ever thought possible!

    I'd say one of my other major turning points was finding out the nitty, gritty details surrounding my second great-grandmother Gertrude Stevens's divorce from her husband Wilfred Felker.

    I knew Wilfred and Gertrude were divorced long before I ever started on my genealogical adventure. My mother remembers growing up with various Senter relatives who descended from Getrude's second husband, Walter.  The only odd thing was that my grandmother Natalie and her sister never really spoke of their grandfather. 

    I didn't get an answer to that question until I sent a query or two to the Essex country courthouse. Eventually, I found out that Wilfred was not a nice man. He cheated on Gertrude and got another woman pregnant while she was pregnant with their son Austin. He had a fist fight with one of his other sons after presenting a child to him. Wilfred clearly had issues.

    The court documents I received ended up cementing those thoughts about Wilfred. The man claimed he was abandoned by Gertrude when in fact he committed adultery. So, not only was he a jerk. He was a lying jerk. Finding out the truth about him was a turning point for sure because it showed me that genealogy is never black and white. There are shades of grey and sometimes you need to take the good stuff along with the bad things you find out there.

    Speaking of genealogy not being always black and white, another turning point would be finding out that my great-grandfather Alfred Hamel wasn't simply a Fix-It Shop owner. No. He may have fixed ships for bootleggers on the Merrimack River during the Prohibition. I wonder if that was his side hustle. You never know! 

    Finding that bit of information was a turning point in my research because before my mother told me that information I had just assumed he was just a regular guy. He was drafted into the service during the first world war. He had my grandfather and was well-liked by the people of Newburyport. There was a reason why he was called "Mr. Fix-it". He could fix anything. Knowing what I know now adds a bit more to his story because now there's a bit more depth to his character.

    I knew there was something more to the swagger he had in this picture from the early 1900s. That swagger hid someone who was a bit adventurous!

    These were just four of my major turning points in my research. I have many more and they all involve DNA and other topics. I have potential turning points on the horizon and I'm sure I'll discuss them another day. These turning points happen when you least expect it. Though, to be honest, I think I'd rather call them "game changers" than turning points. To each their own, I guess!

See ya next time!