52 Ancestors Week 37: A Small Detail I Love

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 37:

The theme for Week 37 is “A Small Detail I Love.” Breaking through a brick wall is awesome, but finding a small detail can bring its own kind of joy. (For some reason, it made me smile when I discovered that my great-grandfather had a tattoo.) What is a detail that seems insignificant, but makes you smile when you think of it? 

If I get any closer, that will be a pixelated mess!

    Outside of traditional genealogy there's a ton of little things I've found here and there that I love. It could be my grandfather Bob's VHS copy of "Golf's Funniest Moments" or some random photograph where someone's just having a good time. Little things like that make genealogy fun for me because it shows that our ancestors were people. I can't stress that enough. Now, I don't know if any of my great-grandfathers had tattoos or anything. However, I can tell you that I like the details my great-grandmother's funeral guestbook.

    Now, don't get me wrong. Maria Tedesco's death was tragic. She passed away when she was just forty-three as as a result my father never knew his grandmother. All he and everyone else had to go on were pictures, memories and stories and in a way it actually mirrors how I grew up never really knowing my grandfather Marco since he passwd away when I was four. I just find the list of people who were there interesting because one of the people there links to several DNA matches!

Vincenzo and Maria

    On March 5th, 1943, the Pitocchelli Funeral Home in Lawrence, Mass hosted a very sad gathering. Maria Tedesco, a mother of two, was laid to rest and a veritable who's who of well-wishers from the Italian community in Haverhill were there that day to pay their respects. If you were to look at the list of the attendees, you would naturally find my great-grandfather Vincenzo, my great-aunt Nicolina and my grandfather. That makes sense since they were her family. 

    On the list were various family members including the Tedescos from Woburn and even the Pitocchellis themselves! That seemed pretty logical since it was their funeral home. Then again, how many funeral directors do you know who'd sign a random guestbook?

    My family is actually connected to Guido Thomas Pitocchelli, the man who ran the funeral home. His wife Concetta Coppola was the daughter of Giovanni Coppola who was the first cousin of my 2nd great-grandmother Caterina. Whew. That's quite the connection and it's backed by DNA evidence. My father has a DNA match on Myheritage who descends from Guido and Concetta. Connections like that are easy for me to spot but there's one name on the guest list that sparks my curiosity and also links to a ton of DNA matches. Let's take a closer look!

    On this page alone I see a ton of people I am pretty familiar with. I see several relatives of Vincenzo and many members of the greater Italian community including the ancestor of the guy who founded Benedetti's Deli, Nazarene Benedetti. That is a small detail I love. I can't think of anyone in the Merrimack valley who doesn't love the deli. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend checking the restaurant out! I recommend the Nero. It won't give you agita like the aptly named "Caligula" will.

    You might be wondering where Maria's side of the family was and at first glance it does seem like attendance from her family was a little sparce. I think we need to keep in mind that aside from the Tedescos, most of her family was on the other side of the Atlantic in San Pietro a Maida at the time of her death. Or were they?

    I'm honestly not sure to be honest. It is a small detail I love because my great-aunt Louise used to work at Benedetti's a long time ago and I am a big fan of the subs. I do wonder why he was there. He was probably a friend of the family. Though, I should note that Nazarene had a brother Marcellus who was married to Molly D'Agosto. Molly's sister, Julia was married to Joseph Francesco Medaglia who was the son of Giovanni Domenico Medaglia and Santa Gullo. I hope I didn't make anyone go cross-eyed reading that mess. There's seven degrees of Kevin Bacon here. Or in this case seven degrees of delicious cold cuts.

    Now, the reason why this is important is because Santa Gullo may or may not be a half-sister to my second great-grandmother, Domenica. I say "might be" because apparently Santa's father was named Francesco and Domenica's father was also named Francesco. There's also the fact that my great-aunt Nicolina has a ton of DNA matches who descend from Joseph. I can't find any Medaglias on the list of well-wishers and attendees. Santa and her family did live in Haverhill, though and her presence makes me wonder if she was Maria's half-aunt.

Antonio Tedesco and
Domenica Gullo

    I discussed Santa way back in this blog from January 2021. In the blog, I outlined a plan to prove or disprove her identity. I had been in contact with several descendants of hers and while they did provide me with information about who's who and who actually lived above Benedetti's Deli they didn't know what the connection was.

    Today, I am happy to report that I sent an e-mail to the commune office in San Pietro a Maida and I asked what I couldn't ask in 2021. I asked for  Santa's birth record and I even provided them the details of Domenica's life that I hadn't had back then. Back then I didn't know Domenica's father was Pietro Francesco Gullo. Now, I am wondering if he's the father of Domenica. DNA doesn't lie.....especially if one of those matches shares over 80 cMs with your great-aunt.

    I am curious, though. If she was Maria's half-aunt, why didn't she sign the guestbook?  Perhaps she or her family didn't sign it. Either way, I do think it's odd that there weren't many members of the Tedesco family there that day. There were plenty of Coppolas! That's an understatement!

    I think we have to keep in mind that this funeral took place in 1943 and there was a war on. Gas wasn't cheap and Captain America himself was urging people to buy bonds. Not everyone could make it to the event and perhaps the venue was so crowded that she couldn't sign the book. You never know and I don't have access to a Tardis so I can't find out who was actually there. All I have to go on is a list of names in a pamphlet. She may have been there. Who knows? Perhaps she was already in California at that point?

    At least the pamphlet is full of details I love. The connection to Benedetti's deli is just one of the details in there that I love. There's a lot of names in there and I managed to find most of them on Familysearch. Some people I created profiles for and added them to my tree. Others? Not so much. Hopefully, I'll find that birth record of Santa Gullo and it can tell me whether or not I actually have a connection to Benedetti's. I do love that their name is forever enshrined in that document. Finding the connection beyond "well-wisher" or "friend of the family"  would be the icing on the cake!

See ya next time!