52 Ancestors Week 38: Symbols

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 38

The theme for Week 38 is "Symbol." Has a symbol given you a clue about an ancestor? Maybe it was on a tombstone or in a letter. How about a math teacher in the family tree; they use lots of symbols!

Lady Liberty, symbol of America in the Starbolts webcomic!

    Symbols are all around us whether we realize it or not and they all have a special meaning for everyone who sees them. They could be something as innocuous as the "S" logo on Superman's chest. Could that "S" stand for "Superman" or is it the Kryptonian symbol of hope? It's hard to say because many writers have interpreted and reinterpreted the Man of Steel's logo for almost a century. On the genealogy front, we've seen symbols in places like cemeteries or on buildings. Symbols are everywhere. But, by far the most important symbol everyone should keep in mind is a large copper statue standing in New York Harbor. I am of course talking about the Statue of Liberty.

"She's tough. She's
a harbor chick!"

    In the early 20th century, the statue was the first thing many immigrants saw when they arrived in New York from all corners of the globe. She is and remains to this day a symbol of hope, freedom and democracy. The statue assured all immigrants that they'd be safe in the new land they eventually called home.

    She was designed by French sculptor and painter Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and gifted to the United States during the 1880s to serve as a memorial for their independence. After all, the French did play a huge role in the American Revolution just a century earlier. The quest to give the Americans the gift initially started in the 1860s and really got off the ground once the nation abolished slavery.

    Lady Liberty's design itself was based on similar statues like the Statue of Freedom, which sits atop of the Capitol rotunda in Washington D.C. Bartholdi wanted to simplify the design a bit and he even gave her the face of his mother, Augusta Charlotte Beysser Bartholdi. Huh. I always wondered where that face came from!

     In the following years, the statue's purpose grew much larger than Bartholdi and many of his contemporaries could have ever imagined.

    It goes without saying that since her introduction millions upon millions of immigrants saw the statue on their way to Ellis Island. We've seen representations of that moment where immigrants have seen the statue in countless movies, television shows and more. While the imagery is powerful. Can you imagine what the real immigrants must have felt when they saw that symbol of liberty for the first time?

Giuseppe and Clementina

    My great-grandparents, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione first saw Lady Liberty herself when they arrived in New York with their daughter Jenny in the 1910s. Jenny passed away when I was very young. I never got the chance to ask her what it was like to sail into the harbor and see the statue for the very first time.

    However, I did hear from second-hand sources about the event itself from a very, very reliable source---My grandma Ollie.  She told me that her parents left their home in Gesualdo due to the poor living conditions there. They wanted to make a better life for themselves and their new family. When they saw the statue for the first time, it was a new beginning for them. It was then that they decided they wouldn't be going back to Italy because America was their home.

    Looking back, that's a statement many immigrants make and in the Carrabs' case, they had no reason to go back to Italy since Giuseppe's brothers and sisters settled in Melrose and Everett and Clementina's brother followed her to Haverhill. Of course, I've also been told that Clementina just didn't want to travel again. I can't say that I blame her. The accommodations on those ships were not the best.

    Now we know that the statue of liberty was a symbol of a new beginning and hope in America and is a vision shared by many immigrants. What does it mean to immigrants who went back and forth from their homeland many times?

La famiglia di Ferraiolo

    My great-grandfather Vincenzo famously traveled to and from America several times over the course of his life. When he first saw the statue in the early 1910s, I'm sure he saw it as a symbol of hope and freedom like my other Italian great-grandparents did. The only difference was he decided to go back to his hometown several times and on one of those journeys he married Maria Tedesco, my great-grandmother.

    When Maria saw the statue for herself in 1929, she must have felt she had come home. Granted, she was wrestling with two small children at the time and no husband in sight, But, she still must have had a real sense of coming home and a bright future coming for her family on the horizon.

    In Vincenzo and Maria's case, I think America ended up being like a second home to them. Granted they had family in America like the Carrabs. They still had family all around the world. For them, the symbol of liberty was likely just as strong. However, they still had strong ties to their homeland.

    
    Despite having different stories, both sets of Italian great-grandparents clearly saw the statue as a symbol of hope, opportunity and prosperity for themselves and their young families. It is sentiment that's still shared by immigrants today. Granted, no one sails to Ellis Island like my ancestors did these days. Still, the statue has became larger than life and has been seen around the world as a symbol of hope and freedom for everyone and not just Americans.

    Somehow I doubt Bartholdi ever saw that coming for his statue. The world changed so much since his time and now his statue still stands in New York Harbor welcoming the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The statue is a symbol of the melting pot America became and is a symbol of hope for everyone around the world.

See you next time.

Lady Liberty is property of Starbolt Productions. Art by the talented Faeore Grasha.

Statute of Liberty picture: By AskALotl - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149005856

52 Ancestors Week 37: Tombstone

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 37

The theme for Week 37 is "Tombstone." If you're like me, cemeteries are your happy place. (I even had shirts made!) Have you found an interesting tombstone for one of your ancestors? Has a tombstone given you a surprising piece of information?

I still get a kick out of this banner. =)

     Tombstones are interesting I'll give Amy that. I just kind of want her to make a t-shirt that says "Go to the cemetery. Everyone's dying to get in.". I joke, of course. Though, I really want to see those shirts Amy made. They'd be great for Halloween!

    Anyway, tombstones are very interesting like Amy said and can mean a lot to many people depending on the design and the culture of the dearly departed. I've seen a few interesting ones myself ranging from a cube-like tombstone for my 4th great-grandmother, Maxime Lepine to even one dedicated to a child and his love for Pokémon. You'd better believe Nintendo gave the sculptors permission to carve a Pokémon out of marble for the family! If they didn't, Mario would have made some serious enemies and I'm not just talking about Bowser.

    Tombstones in cemeteries all around the world are all unique in their own way. There's one cemetery in particular that seems to go above and beyond in ways they honor the deceased. My third cousin Melina Astorino recently visited the Cimitero Comunale in San Pietro a Maida while she was visiting the town and took some amazing pictures for me. Let's check them out!

Melina would be great at Find a Grave.

    Naturally one of the first tombstones she checked out was for our second great-grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola. They're our most recent common ancestors and I'm sure she wanted to pay her respects. Hopefully, she passed along a message from their American great-great-grandson. I can dream, can't I?

    This tombstone I'm already familiar with as my cousins Caterina and Adriana also took pictures of the stone. Right away you can see how it differs from memorials in America. Not many of them have pictures attached to them. In fact, I've only ever seen one stone with a picture attached to them and that was for my mom's cousin, Sheila. I guess it's just not common to have a picture in the stone here.

    I've also seen the practice in Latin American countries. It would be nice if more stones in America had pictures. I'm just saying that names and dates are nice and everything but, a picture really says something about the person interred in that tomb.

        The pictures might be a little hard to see. Melina thankfully zoomed in. Let's take a closer look!

Nice pic!

    Now that is a great picture of Marco and Caterina! You can really get a sense of who they were from the picture. I had seen one before and they look like they were nice people. On the stone they were joined by pictures of other family members like their daughters Rosa and Concetta and their husbands. Their son Paolo also has a picture there as well. It's curious that he has one since he passed away in Rome. It makes me wonder if he has two memorials.

       Paolo's wife, Maria Elisabetta Azzarito doesn't appear to be mentioned on the memorial. So, perhaps there is another memorial for the two in Rome. That's just a guess. I haven't figured out how to ask about her stone and not make it sound creepy.

   There were certainly a lot of Ferraiolos on that stone and as you all tell it's been well kept and has been decorated for quite some time. What a way to honor their their memories and I'm glad it's still being tended to by relatives in San Pietro!

   This next stone made me do a doubletake!

Oh, hi Angela Gullo!

    I knew Melina would be looking for Astorino stones in San Pietro. That was a given. She found the birth records for her great-grandfather, Lorenzo and his father Gregorio. Gregorio was born in 1869 and so he would theoretically still have a memorial in the cemetery. Well, we don't know if that's true or not. However, she did find this stone for Tommaso Astorino and Angela Gullo.

  I have two reasons why this stone made be do a doubletake. The first one is obvious. There's a "Gullo" on the stone and I have Gullo ancestors. The second reason is that I've seen those names before! 

    My great-aunt Nicolina has an Astorino DNA match and on the match's tree are Tommaso Astorino and Angela Gullo. I had messaged the owner of the tree and never got a response. I know she's likely connected to Melina because there's only one Astorino family in all of San Pietro. Could the DNA match be connected to me via the Gullos? Hmmm.....It's a possibility!

    

    There was another stone she took a picture of that gave me pause. Check this out!

I'm sorry. What?!

    Marco Tedesco?! Who is Marco Tedesco? Did my great-grandmother Maria have a brother named Marco? I'm not sure. I know she had a brother named Tommaso and a sister named Caterina. Caterina has a stone elsewhere in the cemetery and I believe I've shared it in the blog a few times. Rumor has it Tommaso went to Bari. So, I don't know what became of him.

    I think I'll have to ask my Tedesco cousins about Marco here. Am I connected to him? It's a possibility. Tedesco, like Coppola, is a common name. I'll ask around and see what happens. There's no harm in doing just that!

Okay. I asked my cousin Caterina Papatolo and it turns out that this man isn't related to my Tedesco family. Huh. Well, there's another way to find out this man's identity. Ask the commune office! What other options are there? It's a good thing I asked Caterina! I shouldn't be surprised. Tedesco's a common last name. Don't you just love doing genealogy while writing a blog? It's a good thing I didn't add him to anything!

    Another tombstone is one that might be of great significance to my friend and fellow Wikitreer, Denise.

Things that make you go "hmm".

    Denise has Barberio ancestors who came from the Calabrian town of Pianopoli. Pianopoli is but a stone's throw away from San Pietro and naturally I wondered if there's a connection with this Maria and her Barberios. It's a longshot. But, there may very well be a connection. 

    She recently discovered a connection to Haverhill via a few other families. I showed her the Italians in Haverhill and she found a few names that seemed familiar. It just goes to show that it's a small world out there and we're all connected in one way or another.

    Denise also told me that Pianopoli doesn't seem to keep their cemetery as clean as San Pietro's. I hope you can tell by the pictures Meli took that the townspeople here take extra care in preserving the memories of the deceased and make every effort to keep those precious memories alive for future generations. After all cemeteries are supposed to be monuments for those who have come before us.

    It's important to remember that in Italy and in other places around the world, land is at a premium. That's why San Pietro's cemetery is set up the way it is. Many Italian cemeteries have a fifty year rule and that means that the person is interred for fifty years or more before someone else takes up the plot. The remains are placed in a vault and another person takes the spot unless the family keeps paying to have their remains interred in that cemetery.

   

Concetta Ferraiolo and Giuseppe Aleardi

I have to keep that in mind should I ever go to San Pietro. If you go to an Italian cemetery, you likely won't find stones for someone who died in the 1800s and beyond. Instead, you'll likely find information about them in cemetery offices and in town halls.

    I'm fortunate in that I have cousins who have gone above and beyond to take pictures of graves. I'm not sure if I'll ever find everyone's grave. But, there should be information about them in the town hall.

       For now, I made a page about the cemetery on Find a Grave. It's the least I could do to do my part in keeping everyone's' memory alive. I thank Meli for the pictures she took. They really show that the people of San Pietro a Maida care for those interred at the Cimitero Comunale and as a bonus I've connected a few of the people there to people buried at Haverhill's Saint Patrick's Cemetery. I think you can   guess which connections I made!

     Tombstones often reflect what the person or people buried in the plot were like. Why did someone pick a cube for a tombstone? Who can say? As for the tombstones in Italy, I can actually say a picture is worth a thousand words because they come with pictures. You really get a sense of what the people were like in life and seeing the pictures give people the incentive to keep the memories of the dearly departed alive.

See ya next time!

All tombstone pictures were taken by the talented and awesome Melina Astorino!

52 Ancestors Week 36: We Don't Talk About It

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 36 is "We Don't Talk About It." Admittedly, this could be a difficult theme, so please be gentle with yourself. Feel free to write about something else or skip this week entirely. That being said, is there an event or a person in your family that seemed to always end the conversation whenever it was brought up? What have you discovered about it, or are you still looking for the answers?

Keep your mouth shut, capiche?

        This week's blog is probably going to be a sequel to the one I wrote in June about my second great-grandparents, Wilfred Felker and Gertrude Stevens and their divorce proceedings. In the blog, I wrote about how I asked the Essex County courthouse for details about their divorce. To sum up, I found that he basically accused her of abandonment. The divorce was granted and the matter was closed. Sadly, that's how things operated in the early 1900s. There was no DNA testing and women weren't afforded anywhere near the kinds of rights they have today. It was a different time.

    Not long after I wrote the blog I sent it to a half second cousin who descended from Wilfred and his second wife, Mary Ann Pierce. He told me that the story tracked with what he knew of the man. What he told me next reaffirmed why no one in my family ever talked about my second great-grandfather.

Wilfred and George Amos Felker.

    When I was growing up, everyone talked about their family. I learned a great deal about my Italian side and all of the cousins. I've even heard stories that frankly should be kept internal. Some things just aren't safe for WikiTree or blogs. Keep in mind that they weren't even close to Mafia stories. So, get that idea out of your head!

    My grandmother Natalie always talked about her father Austin, grandmother Gertrude and the Senter family. No one ever really talked about Wilfred. When they did, it was usually in passing. It was something like:

"Oh. Austin's father was a man named Wilfred. Let's talk about his grandfather Jeremiah instead."

    People were really good at evading the question. I typically had to shrug it off and go about my business. If grandma wasn't going to talk about it, then there was no way to get information from her. It's that simple.

    Once I showed the blog to my cousin it became clear why no one ever really talked about Wilfred. My cousin explained that Wilfred was apparently a very difficult man to live with according to his father. He remembered his aunt Grace hinting he and Gertrude were a bit promiscuous.  I'm honestly not too sure about that last part. However, Wilfred being promiscuous does make some sense at least considering the fact that Wilfred got Mary Ann pregnant while my second great-grandmother was pregnant with Austin.

Grace Felker

    That was only the tip of the iceberg. I wasn't sure if I wanted more information. But, I got a full e-mail outlining just what kind of a man Wilfred was anyway. 

    Apparently, Wilfred was never really home and whenever my cousin's father Richard would visit there would always be pipe smoke in the air. It got so bad that Richard would never go inside the home to visit the old man.  He was apparently a real jerk who was just plain old nasty to everyone he ever met. Because of this, he lived by himself in a fishing shack in his later years.

    Wilfred even went so far as to say his son George was a half-brother to his siblings! That's a bit much.

    I was taken aback by those comments and I wasn't sure what to make of it until my cousin told me a story involving Wilfred, his father and my cousin's older sister. I settled down and read it several times before I could make sense of the madness.

    The last time my cousin's father Richard ever saw Wilfred was in 1951 just before he died. Wilfred, Richard and a cousin were all being introduced to the new baby (my cousin's sister) when they all got into some sort of argument and punches were being thrown at each other.

Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault

    That was a lot to take in and his story made me remember all those times my grandmother would never talk about Wilfred. It all started to make sense because why else would she have dodged the questions. 

    Wilfred's story might also explain why all or most of the Felker children and grandchildren moved to Indiana once they were able to do so. I hadn't heard about any Felker relatives until I found my cousin on WikiTree in 2017. 

    I guess it makes sense now why Wilfred wasn't talked about much if at all. The guy was a jerk. And that's putting it mildly.

    It also explains why Austin was living with his grandfather Jeremiah in various censuses and not with his father and half-siblings. Everything made sense and it hit me like an eighteen wheel Mack truck and now that I know more about Wilfred than I ever thought possible, what do I do with the information?

    I can't very well ask my last living great-aunt about her grandfather. I doubt she'd have pleasant memories about him. If she brings him up, the most I can do is simply listen and not say anything. But, that's only if she wants to talk about it. I'm not about to say "Aunt Elaine, can you tell me about Wilfred Felker?" I don't think I need to ask her that question now and at her age it might upset her. So, the best thing to do is to be quiet on that issue.

 

      As for me, I'm going to have to take this in stride because I honestly have to. Wilfred passed away decades before I was born and I can't really judge someone I've never met before. No one can really judge an ancestor. The only thing we can do is break the cycle, you know. It may take generations but cycles can be broken. I think Austin may have seen what his father was doing and started to break the cycle himself because there are plenty of good stories about him. So, it's best to focus on that and not so much the actions of someone who lived a long time ago.

    At least now I can probably close the book on Wilfred Felker. What's past is past and the reason why no one ever really talked about him is now known by all parties. Was he a good man? That's not for us to decide. Events of the past are in the past and we must remind ourselves that we are not our ancestors. We must also remind ourselves that no human is perfect and that's certainly the case here. I just wish I could go back and hug my grandmother knowing what I now know about her grandfather. Maybe then I wouldn't have asked that question.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 35: All Mixed Up

From me: Admit it. We've all been confused. No one's perfect. Sometimes we've confused one ancestor for another because they share the same last name. Other times an ancestor was confused. Confusion happens. Write about it today! Just be careful you don't bark up the wrong tree. Literally.

It was either this or make a ransom letter out of magazine clippings.

    I can't say I've never been confused by anything on my genealogical adventure. There have been many times where I've literally barked up the wrong tree and made some mistakes. I've even added a wrong person once or twice through no fault of my own. Mistakes happen and you move on. There's no harm done and you go about your life like nothing has happened. 

    Believe it or not, most of my mistakes and confusion have been on the Italian side of the tree. I don't pretend to be an expert on everything on the Italian genealogy front. I'm far from it. I'm not even fluent in Italian. I can read it, sure. But, I can't carry on an actual conversation with someone! Part of that blog I wrote a few weeks ago was made with Google Translate. 

    In many cases, I've had to build the Italian side of my tree from the ground up. My distant cousin Mary did an amazing job with the Carrabs tree and I've used her work to fill in the gaps. She did an amazing job researching Gesualdo and its neighboring towns. She has thousands of scans on her tree making it one of the best Italian research trees on Ancestry.com! If not THE best!

    This is where my third great-grandmother Maria Vincenza Vaccaro comes in. She was born in Grottaminarda, Italy in 1831 and as luck would have it Mary scanned documents relating to her birth, marriage to husband Pasquale Penta , and her death in 1896.

    There's nothing out of the ordinary here, right? I could have simply plugged in the information and have been done with it. Yeah, that would have been easy and life is rarely that easy.

    Various trees on Ancestry had Maria's father named "Luigi" or "Emiddio" and as a result Mary had Maria's father listed as "Luigi/Emiddio". I've asked her about the name and she told me that she wasn't sure what the man's name was according to the documents. At that point I felt a little disheartened. Here was a lady with decades of being a genealogist under her belt and she couldn't figure out who Maria's father was. I didn't know how to feel about that. So, I set out to find the answers myself!

    I went over to the Italian government's repository for births, marriages and deaths in the country and I looked up Maria's birth record there. The record on Antenati clearly stated she that was born to Luigi Vaccaro and Maria Antonia Andresano. The document gelled with what Mary had on her own tree. At that point I wondered where the confusion was. 

    Well, it turned out that the confusion comes from the 1830 marriage of Luigi and Maria Antonia. On it, you can see his name was "Emmidio" and not Luigi. I think that would confuse just about anyone because on all of Maria's other records (including her death record) her father is clearly Luigi.

    A rational person might think Maria Antonia may have married two brothers and that their daughter was born to one of the Vaccaro men. Interesting theory. However, there's one tiny problem with that. There's no indication that Maria Antonia ever married anyone else and my cousin never found any document stating that was the case.

    Now that I found the source of the confusion, I had to solve the puzzle. Why was her father called "Emmidio" on the 1830 marriage record? That's the only place where that name shows up as far as I can tell because he wasn't called "Emmidio" on his daughter's marriage record! He was called Luigi. Something doesn't add up.

"Emiddio", huh?

        At that point I decided to dig into "Luigi" or "Emiddio" and what I found was interesting. He was a blacksmith by trade and was born around 1798 in Grottaminarda to Carmine Vaccaro and Vincenza Melchionna. I was not able to find any bothers and sisters and as I looked for information an idea popped in my head. What if "Emiddio" was a forename/ middle name for Luigi? It's entirely possible.

    Alas, there's no way to be sure because no birth record can be found online. Civil records in Italy started in 1809 and Luigi here was born in 1798. If you really wanted to find the answer, you'd have to go to the church and look up the record yourself. OR you could dig through the Grottaminarda death records to see you could find him.

    Luigi was still alive at the time of his daughter's marriage to Pasquale and by her death in the 1890s, he was deceased. That's a pretty big window of time isn't it? A lot can happen in just forty years.

    For now, I decided to keep his name as "Luigi" for one simple reason. Two out of three records listed his name as Luigi. That's pretty good. Granted, his wife could have still married a second time. But, that's highly doubtful given all of the information I have at my fingertips. The man could have simply went by his middle name in that one instance. It's honestly hard to tell and no one has a real definitive answer to this puzzle. That's why I decided to stick with Luigi. And no it's not because I've played the Mario games. You didn't see that joke coming?

    With a name mix-up like this, the best thing to do is to go with your gut and possibly two out of three docouments. What was going on with the marriage doc? I have no clue. The father is clearly Luigi on all of the other records. Could I be wrong? Maybe. DNA connections say otherwise. That and well....his granddaughter was named Maria Luigia. Luigia is a feminine form of Luigi and Italian naming conventions would seem to apply here. This is one mix-up I can say is solved. Though, if anyone has any other opinions I'd be happy to hear them!

See ya next time.

P.S. As far as Mary goes, even seasoned genealogists like her have to guess every once in a while. We are all only human. 

52 Ancestors Week 34: Members of the Club

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 34

The theme for Week 34 is "Members of the Club." Fraternal organizations. Civic clubs. Card clubs. Glee clubs. Were any of your ancestors a member? Write about them this week.

It may not be Club Nintendo. But, you still get perks.

    

      Humans are social creatures and people who share a common interest join various clubs. Some people join chess clubs to up their game. Some people join Civic clubs to help their community. If you are a member of a certain ethnic group, you may find yourself becoming a member of a group catering to that organization's message. Last year, I talked about one such group in this blog about the Sons of Italy.

    In the blog, I discussed how the Sons of Italy in America was both a lineage society and a place where Italian immigrants could get help for a variety of issues such as banking and getting a home. That American dream had to start somewhere! The SOIA did a lot of good things for the Italian community back in the day. But, they weren't the only game in town of course. Not by a longshot! Ladies, gentlemen and others, I give you the Freemasons!

   Truth be told I didn't know much about the Masons until I was well into my genealogical adventure. When we'd go to my dad's office, we always passed the Masonic temple on Main Street in Salem. I asked my parents about it from time to time and they told me as much as they could about the Masons.

   The Freemasons are basically a fraternal organization that trace their origin to local guilds of stone masons.

    Was it really that simple? I was a kid with a very overactive imagination. I always thought there was something more going on in there. Nothing crazy or anything. Just something more than people gathering to discuss various topics. I know certain lodges don't allow people to discuss politics. That's a relief! If only it worked like that online. I also found it funny how a nail salon was under the temple. By the way, those shops changed hands every few years. It's like that strip mall is cursed or something. It's not a good place to set up shop.

Now, imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of my ancestors was a Freemason!

    It all started with my fourth great-grandfather, David Webster Stevens and his son, Austin. I had no idea they were connected to the Freemasons until I got a random email on Find a Grave about them. I had built their tree up on Wikitree  and no source I found at that point ever indicated that he was a Mason.

    Usually there would be a picture of a card or some clue that'd point someone to the Order. I didn't have any incentive to look because I literally had no clue. That and "Stevens" is a VERY common last name. So, finding anything on a man named "David Stevens" or "Austin Stevens" would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Everything I knew about David and his son changed in April of 2019.

    A man named Duane Crabtree messaged me and asked about putting the term "Elder" on David's profile on Find a Grave. I was naturally hesitant because I had no idea what that meant by that title.. I accepted and my curiosity piqued. I wasn't about to let this one go! I asked Duane what he meant about this "Elder" stuff and he ended up giving me a ton of information. An Elder in this case was not a rank in the Masonic Organization. It was a more of a religious title since he was ordained as a minister in the 1870s.

    Thankfully, he wasn't like "Don't you know about your family?!"  I honestly had no idea. I swear. Well, it turned out Duane is an archivist for the Adventural Library which is housed at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts. 

    He was kind enough to give me this obituary for David:

"He was born in West Parsonsfield, Me., Feb 10, 1829; was ordained to the ministry, July 4, 1876, and was a faithful preacher of the Gospel. He was twice married and by the first marriage had four children, three sons and a daughter. Since the death of his wife in 1911, he has made his home with his son George, by whom he was kindly cared for until he peacefully fell on sleep. Beside three sons and a daughter he leaves several grandchildren, two brothers and many friends to mourn his loss. Words of comfort by the writer from 2 Tim. 4:7, 8 and Rev. 14:13."--The World’s Crisis, 26 Jan 1916, p. 14"

    I thought that was impressive. But, it still didn't provide me with proof that he or his son were Freemasons as he hinted.  He never gave me a solid answer and I was about to go about my business when I suddenly saw a hint on Ancestry for Austin pop up unexpectedly. The hint was for a Mason card! That was good timing!

    I checked the card to make sure it was him and not some other Austin Stevens. That's a good policy to have before you accept any hint on Ancestry. I checked his date of birth and everything and sure enough he was my third great-grandfather!

  

    He was a member of the Merrimack Lodge in Haverhill, Massachusetts and had been a member since April 20th, 1904. The birth and death dates all synced with what I already knew of the man. So, I accepted the hint and went about my business.

    I still had a few questions running around my head. How did Austin's membership slip through the cracks in time? No one knew until I told everyone about it at a family gathering. My best guess is that the information was forgotten over time. It happens. Sometimes family members forget about who belonged to what club. It's not like they kept a diary of their activities. It's up to us to see if we can find out what they were up to when they weren't punching the clock.

    Austin had two children who survived to adulthood, Arthur and Gertrude. Arthur was a Mason himself according to his obituary. He was a member of the "Winnepurkit Tribe" in Lynn, Massachusetts. I have no idea when he joined as I have not been able to find his Masonry card. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

    I think it's cool that I found an ancestor who was a Mason and a son who followed in his footsteps. Women couldn't join and so my second great-grandmother was left with one choice. She could have joined one of the associated groups for women. There's no indication if she ever joined any group. Time will tell if that was the case. It's still amazing to think that after all those years of driving by a Masonic temple and wondering what was going on in there, I'd have an ancestor who was a Mason. I wonder if that's karma.

See ya next time!

  Photo of the Masonic Lodge in Salem, NH is property of Google Earth.

52 Ancestors Week 33: Favorite Discovery

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 33

The theme for Week 33 is "Favorite Discovery." Picking a favorite discovery can be like picking a favorite kid (or, for a genealogist, picking a favorite cemetery). But this week, give it a try. What have you found in your research that you would call a favorite discovery?

Make it so.

        I honestly have a lot of trouble picking a favorite discovery to write about when these prompts come up for 52 Ancestors because I have made so many amazing discoveries on my genealogical adventure. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes like Amy said in the prompt. This week is definitely no exception because the summer of 2024 has been one amazing discovery after another. In June, I hit the ground running when my third cousin Melina messaged me on WikiTree and from there things just sort of snowballed into an avalanche of awesomeness.

Caterina Ferraiolo

    Let me bring everyone up to speed before I continue. I first talked about Melina in a blog I wrote a few weeks ago. She descends from my great-grandfather Vincenzo's sister, Caterina and currently lives in Argentina. That makes Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola our second great-grandparents. Like me, she's very curious about finding out about her family and wants to discover where everyone came from and where they ended up. Her enthusiasm effectively renewed mine as we discovered new things together! In the weeks since I posted that blog, I've given her tons of information and stories about the family in the United States.

    I've told her about how Caterina's brother Paolo and sister Concetta moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts and had large families. I told her about how Paolo was a city detective and worked on several cases involving members of his own family. I told her about how my grandfather and my great-aunt visited Concetta many times and how my grandfather Marco often visited with Concetta's daughters, Angelina and Rose.

    I've even told her about the many, many Ferraiolo and Coppola cousins we have on Ancestry. I think she was taken aback by how many children Paolo had because eight kids between two wives is a lot and keeping track of all of them and their descendants requires a scorecard or an account on your favorite genealogy website. I just hope I didn't overwhelm her with everything because there is a LOT to go through! There are so many names!

    I could have just linked her to various blogs I wrote and had been done with it. But, that just seems impersonal. Not to mention rude. I'm not one to say "Yeah. We're related. Here's a blog where I talked about so and so." No. You don't do that to anyone if they're legitimately looking for family. I wanted to share what I've found and talk to her about everything. She's a nice lady and we've hit it off and she honestly deserves to hear about everything. I've told her about so much and I'm happy to report that other family members have been just as helpful. 

    Enter my cousin in Switzerland. Caterina and I had been messaging each other back and forth since that first e-mail I got from Melina and she had me share some information with her. I relayed information back to her from Argentina and for a while it felt like I was a bridge between the hemispheres of our planet. The world is definitely a lot smaller these days.

Caterina would be great at
Find a Grave.

    While on vacation in San Pietro a Maida,  Caterina decided to go to the cemetery and take some pictures for Melina. One of the tombs she took a picture for was for Melina's second great-grandmother, Maria Coppola. She had me share the pictures with her and I looked at the name "Maria Coppola" on the stone for a few minutes because I was wondering "Where have I seen that name before?"

    I had to think about it for a few minutes and then I remembered where I saw "Maria Coppola" in my travels.  While I was researching Giovanni Coppola, I found a ship manifest that said he and his wife Natalina Marinaro were going to San Pietro a Maida to visit his siter....Maria.

    The alarms in my head rang and before you could blink an eye I emailed Caterina asking about Maria's connection to her grandmother and how she fits into our family. I can only imagine Caterina's reaction when I asked the question. Thankfully, she replied with a very nice story and explained everything to me in great detail.

    Maria Coppola was a double cousin of her grandmother, Caterina Coppola. This meant that the Giovanni who lived in Haverhill and had a grocery store on High Street was Maria's brother! The Angela Coppola on the stone was also Giovanni's sister. Their parents were Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato, who were the siblings of my second great-grandmother's parents Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato. Caterina told me about Maria often visited her family while she was growing up. She often visited her grandmother and was generally a warm and caring person. Caterina also slept over at her house.

    Caterina eventually found Melina on Facebook and the two began talking. In September, Melina plans on visiting San Pietro a Maida for the first time and so Caterina put the word out to various family members in town that she was coming. Our cousin Vincenzo offered to help show her around and everything, too. Melina and I even went to a Facebook group about San Pietro a Maida and she met some Astorino family members who would also be helping her during her trip.

La famiglia di Giovanni Coppola

       I can't help but feel happy for Melina. She's getting the same royal treatment I once got when I first met the family in Europe. It's a good feeling and I'm reminded of what Rosa told me so long ago. The same sentiment still applies. "A part of you is here in Italy just as a part of us is with you in America." If you replace "America" with "Argentina", I think the sentiment still works.

    But, you know the warm feelings don't stop here. Caterina told Melina a great story and I think it bears repeating. Get the tissues ready, everyone! 

    At first Caterina told Melina much of what she had told me. She told her how she's a granddaughter of Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola. They had fourteen children but she only knew five of them: Vincenzo, Paolo, Caterina, Rosa and Concetta. Only two of the children stayed in the village since Vincenzo left for America, Caterina for Argentina and Rosa for Rome. Contact was made via letters since no one had phones at the time. (Note. I need to see if Vincenzo saved any letters.)

Caterina Coppola and Marco
Ferraiolo

      Caterina and her siblings were the ones who would write to family overseas. She then told Melina the story of her great-grandparents, Lorenzo Astorino and Caterina Ferraiolo. Lorenzo was born in San Pietro to Gregorio Astorino and Maria Coppola and when he went to Argentina he never returned.

    Her aunt didn't want any other suitors because she was waiting for her Lorenzo. However, he couldn't return since he didn't have enough money to make the trip. Back in those days Argentina was not a rich country and it's a stark contrast to how it is these days. Eventually, Caterina and Lorenzo were married by proxy and they had three children including Melina's grandfather, Juan Julio. The other two were Nicola Roberto and Maria. 

    It took a while for everyone to find out that Lorenzo died young in 1945 at the age of 45 due to cardiac arrest. The family still somehow managed to stay in touch despite having to endure such a tragedy. It had to have been tough on Vincenzo's sister after losing Lorenzo. Her immediate family was scattered around the world and she was left alone with three children to raise.

    Caterina talked about how she last saw her aunt in 1960 when she came for a visit. Her daughter-in-law was pregnant and when the baby was born, they named him after Lorenzo. To make things even more special,  little Lorenzo was given a golden necklace.

Maria Astorino

    I don't know what became of little Lorenzo. However, I do know that not long after Caterina visited Italy, she became ill and she passed away in the January of 1964. Ultimately, it fell on her daughter Maria to stay in contact with the family in Europe. She did exactly that until 1995.

 This just in: Meli has informed me moments ago little  Lorenzo was her father! 

    Caterina sent me the last letter Maria wrote to her mother and I had someone translate it for me since Italian isn't my first language. The email was more than just a little moving!

    Basically, Maria said everyone was doing well in Argentina. However, she herself was unable to travel due to various ailments. She was so happy about the opportunity to go to Italy and was unfortunately unable to do so. So, she thanked her aunt for her kindness and told her how her aunt's smile kept her going. She hoped to stay in contact with the cousins and really wanted to talk to her beloved aunt Rosa (Rosina). She wanted to talk to her on the phone and being a writer I really want to know if she did! I guess I could ask Caterina. Then again she did tell me contact stopped in 1995. So, the outlook isn't so good.

      At least everything worked out in the end because almost thirty years later I got into contact with Caterina on MyHeritage and eventually Melina herself got back in touch with family in Europe. The family reconnected and we're all the better for it! Her family in Argentina has also been helpful in putting the family puzzle back together. As for me? I just make that puzzle a whole lot bigger.  I wish Melina nothing but good luck on her trip to Italy and I really wish I was going with her. Some day I might. You never know what the future will bring.

    The best thing about Caterina's message to Melina was how she told her that she told me to keep doing the research. I laughed at that part and smiled. Of course I will. There's still so much to learn and so much to find out there. All you have to do is put in the work. What will Meli discover on her trip? I'm sure I'll find out and when I do I'll be sure to talk about it here. After all her discoveries are the family's discoveries.

See ya next time!

****

In Italiano:

Onestamente ho un sacco di problemi a scegliere una scoperta preferita su cui scrivere quando mi vengono proposti questi spunti per 52 Ancestors perché ho fatto così tante scoperte incredibili nella mia avventura genealogica. A volte diventa un po' opprimente, come ha detto Amy nel suggerimento. Questa settimana non fa sicuramente eccezione perché l'estate del 2024 è stata una scoperta incredibile dopo l'altra. A giugno, ho iniziato a correre quando la mia cugina di terzo grado Melina mi ha scritto su WikiTree e da lì le cose si sono trasformate in una valanga di cose fantastiche.

Caterina Ferraiolo

 Prima di continuare, vorrei mettere tutti al corrente. Ho parlato per la prima volta di Melina in un blog che ho scritto qualche settimana fa. Discende dalla sorella del mio bisnonno Vincenzo, Caterina, e attualmente vive in Argentina. Ciò rende Marco Ferraiolo e Caterina Coppola i nostri secondi bisnonni. Come me, è molto curiosa di scoprire qualcosa sulla sua famiglia e vuole scoprire da dove vengono tutti e dove sono finiti. Il suo entusiasmo ha effettivamente rinnovato il mio mentre scoprivamo cose nuove insieme! Nelle settimane successive alla pubblicazione di quel blog, le ho dato un sacco di informazioni e storie sulla famiglia negli Stati Uniti.

Le ho raccontato di come il fratello di Caterina, Paolo, e la sorella Concetta si siano trasferiti a Haverhill, Massachusetts, e abbiano avuto famiglie numerose. Le ho raccontato di come Paolo fosse un detective della città e lavorasse a diversi casi che coinvolgevano membri della sua stessa famiglia. Le ho raccontato di come mio nonno e la mia prozia abbiano fatto visita a Concetta molte volte e di come mio nonno Marco facesse spesso visita alle figlie di Concetta, Angelina e Rose.

Le ho anche parlato dei tanti, tantissimi cugini Ferraiolo e Coppola che abbiamo su Ancestry. Penso che sia rimasta sorpresa da quanti figli ha avuto Paolo perché otto figli tra due mogli sono tanti e tenere traccia di tutti loro e dei loro discendenti richiede una scheda punteggi o un account sul tuo sito web di genealogia preferito. Spero solo di non averla sopraffatta con tutto perché c'è MOLTO da esaminare! Ci sono così tanti nomi!

Avrei potuto semplicemente linkarla a vari blog che ho scritto e avrei chiuso. Ma, sembra solo impersonale. Per non parlare di maleducato. Non sono uno che dice "Sì. Siamo imparentati. Ecco un blog in cui ho parlato di tizio e caio". No. Non lo fai a nessuno se sta cercando legittimamente una famiglia. Volevo condividere quello che ho trovato e parlare con lei di tutto. È una brava donna e abbiamo fatto amicizia e onestamente merita di sapere tutto. Le ho raccontato così tanto e sono felice di riferire che altri membri della famiglia sono stati altrettanto utili.

Entra in scena mia cugina in Svizzera. Caterina e io ci siamo scambiati messaggi avanti e indietro da quando ho ricevuto la prima e-mail da Melina e lei mi ha chiesto di condividere alcune informazioni con lei. Le ho trasmesso informazioni dall'Argentina e per un po' mi sono sentita come un ponte tra gli emisferi del nostro pianeta. Il mondo è decisamente molto più piccolo di questi tempi.

Caterina would be great at
Find a Grave.

  Durante la vacanza a San Pietro a Maida, Caterina decise di andare al cimitero e scattare qualche foto per Melina. Una delle tombe per cui scattò una foto era quella della seconda bisnonna di Melina, Maria Coppola. Mi chiese di condividere le foto con lei e guardai il nome "Maria Coppola" sulla pietra per qualche minuto perché mi chiedevo "Dove ho già visto quel nome?"

Ci dovetti pensare per qualche minuto e poi ricordai dove avevo visto "Maria Coppola" nei miei viaggi. Mentre facevo ricerche su Giovanni Coppola, trovai un manifesto di una nave che diceva che lui e sua moglie Natalina Marinaro sarebbero andati a San Pietro a Maida per far visita alla sua siter...Maria.

Gli allarmi nella mia testa suonarono e prima che potessi battere ciglio mandai un'e-mail a Caterina chiedendole del legame di Maria con sua nonna e come si inserisce nella nostra famiglia. Posso solo immaginare la reazione di Caterina quando le feci la domanda. Fortunatamente, rispose con una storia molto bella e mi spiegò tutto nei minimi dettagli.

Maria Coppola era cugina di doppio grado di sua nonna, Caterina Coppola. Ciò significava che il Giovanni che viveva a Haverhill e aveva un negozio di alimentari in High Street era il fratello di Maria! L'Angela Coppola sulla pietra era anche la sorella di Giovanni. I loro genitori erano Giovanni Coppola e Angela Suverato, che erano fratelli dei genitori della mia bisnonna, Paolo Coppola e Rosa Suverato. Caterina mi ha raccontato che Maria andava spesso a trovare la sua famiglia mentre cresceva. Spesso andava a trovare sua nonna ed era generalmente una persona affettuosa e premurosa. Caterina dormiva anche a casa sua.

Caterina alla fine ha trovato Melina su Facebook e le due hanno iniziato a parlare. A settembre, Melina ha in programma di visitare San Pietro a Maida per la prima volta e così Caterina ha fatto sapere a vari membri della famiglia in città che sarebbe venuta. Nostro cugino Vincenzo si è offerto di aiutarla a fare un giro e anche tutto il resto. Melina e io siamo persino andati a un gruppo Facebook su San Pietro a Maida e ha incontrato alcuni membri della famiglia Astorino che l'avrebbero aiutata durante il suo viaggio.

La famiglia di Giovanni Coppola

Non posso fare a meno di sentirmi felice per Melina. Sta ricevendo lo stesso trattamento regale che ho ricevuto io quando ho incontrato per la prima volta la famiglia in Europa. È una bella sensazione e mi ricorda ciò che Rosa mi ha detto tanto tempo fa. Lo stesso sentimento è ancora valido. "Una parte di te è qui in Italia proprio come una parte di noi è con te in America". Se sostituisci "America" ​​con "Argentina", penso che il sentimento funzioni ancora.

Ma sai che i sentimenti calorosi non finiscono qui. Caterina ha raccontato a Melina una bella storia e penso che valga la pena ripeterla. Preparate i fazzoletti, tutti!

All'inizio Caterina raccontò a Melina molto di quello che aveva detto a me. Le raccontò di essere nipote di Marco Ferraiolo e Caterina Coppola. Avevano quattordici figli ma lei ne conosceva solo cinque: Vincenzo, Paolo, Caterina, Rosa e Concetta. Solo due dei bambini rimasero nel villaggio da quando Vincenzo partì per l'America, Caterina per l'Argentina e Rosa per Roma. I contatti avvennero tramite lettere poiché nessuno aveva il telefono a quel tempo. (Nota. Devo vedere se Vincenzo ha conservato qualche lettera.)

Caterina Coppola and Marco
Ferraiolo

Caterina e i suoi fratelli erano quelli che scrivevano alla famiglia all'estero. Poi raccontò a Melina la storia dei suoi bisnonni, Lorenzo Astorino e Caterina Ferraiolo. Lorenzo era nato a San Pietro da Gregorio Astorino e Maria Coppola e quando andò in Argentina non tornò mai più.

Sua zia non voleva altri corteggiatori perché stava aspettando il suo Lorenzo. Tuttavia, non poté tornare perché non aveva abbastanza soldi per fare il viaggio. A quei tempi l'Argentina non era un paese ricco ed è in netto contrasto con come lo è oggi. Alla fine, Caterina e Lorenzo si sposarono per procura e ebbero tre figli, tra cui il nonno di Melina, Juan Julio. Gli altri due erano Nicola Roberto e Maria.

Ci volle un po' perché tutti scoprissero che Lorenzo morì giovane nel 1945 all'età di 45 anni a causa di un arresto cardiaco. La famiglia riuscì in qualche modo a rimanere in contatto nonostante avesse dovuto sopportare una tale tragedia. Deve essere stato duro per la sorella di Vincenzo dopo aver perso Lorenzo. La sua famiglia più stretta era sparsa in giro per il mondo e lei era rimasta sola con tre figli da crescere.

Caterina ha raccontato di come ha visto la zia per l'ultima volta nel 1960, quando è venuta a trovarla. Sua nuora era incinta e quando è nato il bambino, lo hanno chiamato Lorenzo. Per rendere le cose ancora più speciali, al piccolo Lorenzo è stata regalata una collana d'oro.

Maria Astorino

  Non so cosa ne sia stato del piccolo Lorenzo. Tuttavia, so che poco dopo che Caterina visitò l'Italia, si ammalò e morì nel gennaio del 1964. Alla fine, toccò a sua figlia Maria restare in contatto con la famiglia in Europa. Fece esattamente questo fino al 1995.

Ultime notizie: Meli mi ha informato pochi istanti fa che il piccolo Lorenzo era suo padre!

Caterina mi mandò l'ultima lettera che Maria scrisse a sua madre e io me la feci tradurre da qualcuno, dato che l'italiano non è la mia lingua madre. L'e-mail fu più che un po' commovente!

In pratica, Maria disse che tutti stavano bene in Argentina. Tuttavia, lei stessa non era in grado di viaggiare a causa di vari disturbi. Era così felice dell'opportunità di andare in Italia e sfortunatamente non è stata in grado di farlo. Quindi, ringraziò sua zia per la sua gentilezza e le raccontò come il sorriso di sua zia la tenesse in piedi. Sperava di restare in contatto con i cugini e voleva davvero parlare con la sua amata zia Rosa (Rosina). Voleva parlarle al telefono e, essendo una scrittrice, vorrei davvero sapere se lo ha fatto! Immagino che potrei chiedere a Caterina. Poi di nuovo mi ha detto che i contatti si sono interrotti nel 1995. Quindi, le prospettive non sono così buone.

Almeno alla fine tutto ha funzionato perché quasi trent'anni dopo sono entrato in contatto con Caterina su MyHeritage e alla fine Melina stessa ha ripreso i contatti con la famiglia in Europa. La famiglia si è rimessa in contatto e ne siamo tutti felici! Anche la sua famiglia in Argentina è stata d'aiuto nel rimettere insieme il puzzle della famiglia. E io? Rendo quel puzzle molto più grande. Non auguro altro che buona fortuna a Melina per il suo viaggio in Italia e vorrei tanto andare con lei. Un giorno potrei. Non si sa mai cosa ci riserva il futuro.

La cosa migliore del messaggio di Caterina a Melina è stato come le ha detto che mi ha detto di continuare a fare ricerche. Ho riso a quella parte e ho sorriso. Certo che lo farò. C'è ancora così tanto da imparare e così tanto da scoprire là fuori. Tutto quello che devi fare è impegnarti. Cosa scoprirà Meli nel suo viaggio? Sono sicuro che lo scoprirò e quando lo farò, sarò sicuro di parlarne qui. Dopotutto, le sue scoperte sono scoperte della famiglia.

Ci vediamo la prossima volta!