52 Ancestors Week 18: Where there's a Will

Week 18's theme is "Where There's a Will." This can be a fun theme! Maybe the will you're thinking of is a legal document. (There are certainly some intriguing finds in wills, such as my ancestor who left money to provide for the education of his daughters.) Another way to approach it would be an ancestor who was strong-willed or tenacious. Could there be an ancestor named Will?

In brightest day.....

In brightest day. In blackest night. No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power--Green Lantern's light! 

In DC comics' lore, the Green Lantern Corps uses the color green to symbolize willpower. Other colors symbolize other parts of the emotional spectrum including anger, avarice, fear and hope. Being a Marvel fan, I've always respected DC's characters and the writers' expansion of the mythos. You still can't beat "with great power, there must  also come great responsibility", though. Need to give Stan "The Man" Lee some credit! What does any of this have to do with genealogy? Plenty if you REALLY think about it.

Came to America eleven years before GL debuted.

Our ancestors had to have had a certain amount of willpower to get them from point A to point B. Did they have a Green Lantern ring? No. However, you can't deny that you needed to have some sort of drive to cross vast oceans or move clear across the continent. Take my great-grandparents on my dad's side for example.

Vincenzo Ferraiolo, Maria Tedesco, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione were all born in southern Italy. They all came to the United States and settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts without knowing the language. Why did they do it? What made them leave Italy?

Well, for starters Vincenzo had family living in Haverhill at the time of his arrival. His aunt and uncle lived there and most likely helped pay the way for their nephew to visit. He ended up going back to Italy to get married and returned a few years later with his wife and family.

You hear this story all over genealogical circles or even in casual conversations all the time. Someone has a friend or family member in another part of the world and they invite them from "the old country" to stay for a while. Sometimes even permanently. Sometimes it was only for a job. In Vincenzo's case, it seemed like he was visiting family and if you're Italian you know that "la famiglia" means everything to us. So, the Ferraiolos' willpower was based solely on familial connections from what I've learned. There could be more to the story. It probably doesn't involve cosmic powered trinkets.

The Carrabs clan!

In Giuseppe and Clementina's case, I'm not 100% sure why they left Italy and what drove them and literally their entire family to settle in Massachusetts. Giuseppe didn't travel alone. He left with his wife and young child. His brothers and sister left for Massachusetts, too, leaving his parents and the rest of his family behind. Clementina's brothers and sisters even came to America! What prompted such a mass exodus? Well, let's take a look.

According to various ship manifests, Giuseppe made several trips with his family from Italy to America. His last one was in 1913. The first world war started on July 28th, 1914. However, there were rumblings of war throughout Europe before the first shot was fired. Did the Carrabs family see the writing on the wall and decided to leave because of trouble in Europe? I'm not sure.

We do know that both he and Vincenzo served the United States during the war.  Did he want to leave and help liberate Italy from a threat? It is something to think about and probably something I should look into.

In any case, plenty of our ancestors have the same story. Willpower drives us to do certain things. Do we take the bus or drive to work? Do we do this or that? The drive is there in all of us. In the end, I definitely have the willpower to seek the answers I am looking for in my research. I've even got a Green Lantern ring. =) So, I got that going for me!!

So much nerd cred this week. See ya next time!

52Ancestors Week 17: Land

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 17's theme is "Land." Farming ancestors, homesteaders, and military bounty land claimants are all on deck this week. Who does "land" make you think of?

With your powers combined....

We're finally here! The last of the elemental blogs! If you want to read them, check them out here: Water was about Rings Island Marina and my adventures there. Fire  was about the fire needed to travel across vast distances. Air was about something interesting I found about my grandfather who was a paratrooper during the second world war. What should I write about this week for "Land"? Well...

Vegetable prison

I hinted about my parents' garden before in the harvest blog from September of 2019. That was written at the tail end of the gardening season. Here we are in late April and that, my friends, is usually when the fun starts. It's around this time that we start thinking about planting various things in the garden. In late April, we usually start tilling the soil and plant stuff like potatoes. By May, we toss everything in there we can think of. These would be plants such as basil and thyme and veggies like tomatoes, peppers and green beans.

Right. So, how did all of this get started? What prompted my parents to make gardening such a major hobby of theirs? It's hard to say. My parents always had a garden of some sorts. I want to say it started really taking off in the early 1990s. That was when I was involved with cross country and running in general. My mother always told me that we grew vegetables because we would know where our food came from and let's face it fresh basil makes the BEST pesto sauce. I may be biased here. =) She may have a point, though. Fresh vegetables always tended to make everything better and nothing and I mean NOTHING beats the smell of fresh tomato sauce cooking for like seven hours inside your house. So good! There's something to be said for fresh tomatoes because my teammates on the cross country team asked for it all the time! 

Want some tomatoes?

I ran cross country all throughout high school from 1993 to 1997 and my mother would make tomato salad for the team to have during parties or something to snack on before meets. She would cut the tomatoes, sprinkle basil and garlic on it and have it soak in a pan of olive oil. They were so good that this conversation usually took place before the home meets:

Coach: Litchfield runs a good game. But, it's important that we keep energized. I think we have a good chance at beating them since we're on our home turf. The course is nice and neat. We definitely can win.

Everyone: YEAH! 

Coach: Chris?

Me: Yeah, Rhoades?

Coach: Did your mom bring any of those tomatoes? We probably could use some.

Me: *laugh* Yeah, she did. Don't worry about it.

Rhoades loved the tomatoes and so did the rest of the team. There really is something to be said for homemade tomato salad. It wasn't exactly hard to make. That's probably not the point. The point is that we had fresh veggies to help us with our game. The coach really didn't like having us have pizza before a meet. Makes sense. Your body would be digesting that as you're trying to run in the woods. That's a discussion for health blogs. 

Years later my mother and I ran into Coach Robert Rhoades shortly before he passed away and he jokingly asked if she still made those delicious tomato salads. She said she did and he laughed. I was amazed that he actually remembered since it had been over ten years since he last had them. It just goes to show just how good homegrown vegetables are. That's definitely a lesson you can learn from this story. If you have something homegrown, it's going to be in your memories for a long time to come. 

My grandparents more than likely passed down the value of homegrown food to my parents as they even had gardens of their own. Learning how to grow food is something that's been passed down throughout the centuries and is probably one of the most important things you can teach someone aside from fishing. Now, what will happen with the Ferraiolo garden in 2020? It's hard to say as we haven't planted anything. Everything's in the planning stages and I'd honestly really would like Mother Nature to cooperate! I will keep everyone posted and if I could I would definitely send you all some of that delicious tomato salad.

See you next time!

P.S. The tomato salad was technically Caprese salad without the mozzarella slices. So good. =D

52 Ancestors Week 16: Air

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 16's theme is "Air." This theme might be a bit tricky, as most of us don't have pilots or hot air balloonists in our family tree. Be creative. Think of place names, such as Mt. Airy or the "Big Sky" area of Montana. Or "toss it all up in the air" and pick someone at random!

Blue skies.....Smiling at me.....

I think Amy missed an opportunity to talk about an ancestor who was full of hot air. But, that wouldn't be polite and we do like to be polite here at All Roads Lead to Haverhill. Sometimes. Still, we probably all have a relative who is late that. That's beside the point. Let's talk about air! Well, it's partially nitrogen and oxygen. It's odorless, colorless and plants generate...Oh. Right. This isn't a scientific blog. In that case....

Private Marco Ferraiolo and dog.

I've already talked about how my grandfather, Marco Ferraiolo was a paratrooper in World War II. He saw combat in the European theater (Italy) and in North Africa. As a paratrooper, he flew in many missions with the 101st Airborne. He wrote my great-aunt (His sister) detailed letters about his exploits with the 101st. Sufficed it to say, they got pretty graphic.

In one letter, he talked about what it was like to jump from an airplane and how you have to count before you open your parachute.  He talked about how he lost a friend in a jump. It was pretty surreal reading the letter and actually looking at his handwriting--something I never saw before.

A few weeks ago, I found something else from my grandfather's stint in the army that I never saw before. Ancestry recently updated their World War II database with colored images of various draft cards. Naturally, my grandfathers' profiles both received new hints. I checked out my grandpa Robert first and saw nothing new or out of the ordinary. I then saw my grandpa Marco's profile and saw this. His US WWII Hospital Admission card.

When I found it, I checked with my parents to see if this was accurate. We knew he was injured in the war. We just wasn't sure how. The Admission card had a lot of great information in it which explained a lot about his time in the service to the United States army.

If you look closely, you can see a great deal of information. His rank. His age. When he was admitted. Apparently, he got shrapnel to the knee and needed to be operated on immediately. He was discharged in June of 1944 married my grandma Ollie in June of 1946.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Finding more about my paternal grandfather's past means a lot to me than anything else to be honest. He died when I was four and I guess that really effected me. Like I said before, I had people tell me about him all of my life. My entire family told me stories about him and it helped to fill that void. And that's a good thing since I lost him at such a young age.

Who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered! See you next time!

52 Ancestors Week 15: Fire

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 15's theme is "Fire." Fire played a crucial role in our ancestors's lives, whether it was providing heat for homes and cooking or providing power for forges and engines. Of course, fire can also be destructive, both on a personal level or in our research (such a record loss in a courthouse fire). Think, too, about place names that make you think of fire. (One of the best names I've seen for a cemetery is Hell's Half Acre Cemetery in Whitley County, Indiana.)

We didn't start the fire. It was always burning as the world's been turning!

"Hell's Half Acre Cemetery" certainly sounds like a badass name for a cemetery doesn't it? Of course there are a ton of places named after Hell. Hell's Kitchen in New York City is notable for comic fans as that's the home of Marvel's man without fear, Daredevil. Hell's Kitchen is also the name of a  cooking show by chef Gordon Ramsay. There's no doubt about it. Fire and Hell by extension has been ingrained in our media and our lives in general. However, there's another type of fire we should talk about. The fire which drives an ancestor to go from one place to another. That, my friends, is a different type of fire!

You're probably sick of seeing this image showing
up as a hint on Ancestry.

When we talk about that ancestor crossing the Atlantic, most people conjure up imagery of a wooden sailing ship on a perilous journey across the sea. What drove people to make that journey in the first place? What put the fire in their belly and had them decide that "France/England is no longer the place I want to be. I want to get away from here!"

For many people religious persecution forced people to set sail. This mass migration would later be known as the Great Puritan Migration and it lasted between the 1620s and 1640s. One person who made the trip from England during that time period was my 11th great-grandfather, Tristram Coffin Sr even though he wasn't a Puritan himself.

Out of all of my ancestors who took part in one of humanity's largest migrations, Tristram was probably one of the more notable ones. He has a page on Wikipedia! That's got to count for something! Yeah, right. I have a page on IMdb and I'm a Z-grade Internet personality. Still, we shouldn't discount his life because he WAS a big deal.

Ponce de Leon's got nothing on me!

Tristram was born to Peter Coffin and Joanna Kember  on March 11th, 1608 in ye olde England. His reasoning for leaving his homeland after marrying his wife Dionis Stephens is somewhat up for debate. While he wasn't a Puritan, he likely crossed the ocean at age thirty-seven because of the crisis brewing between King Charles I and Parliament. He was one of the landed gentry and wanted no part of the drama unfolding in London.

After arriving in the New World, he wasn't done making a name for himself. He helped to settle the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts in the 1640s after finding nearby Salisbury and Newbury. By 1643 he had a tavern and eventually left to help settle the island of Nantucket where he'd spend the remainder of his life.

Tristram was notable for helping to settle many great colonies which would give rise to the cities my French-Canadian and Italian ancestors called home. The obvious one being Haverhill. Whatever his real reason for leaving England was, you can believe he and his family definitely had an impact on New England. Check out some of his notable descendants:

1. Levi Coffin, the president of the Underground Railroad.

2. Elizabeth Coffin, daughter of a wealthy merchant from Nantucket, was mother of the prominent Massachusetts industrialists Henry Coffin Nevins and David Nevins, Jr

3. Elizabeth Coffin (1850-1930), an artist, educator and Quaker philanthropist, was known for her paintings of Nantucket and for helping revive Sir Isaac Coffin's school with a new emphasis on craft.

Not bad, huh? There's more to Tristram's story than I've covered here. His wife supposedly brewed the best beer in town. He made many deals over the course of his life and certainly ingrained himself in local history.

Growing up I only heard about the Hamels who helped settle Quebec in the early 1600s. I had no idea who Tristram was until much, much later. After reading up on him and his family's exploits in New England, I get a better understanding of what it must have been like sailing across the ocean and dealing with the colonial hardships of early New England. Sure I read about it in history class. But, now you get a very real sense of it because the actions somehow become more real when you have a personal stake in what was going on in the world.

It took a lot of guts and certainly fire in your belly to make the trip to the New World. You have to appreciate it even though sometimes some ancestors may not have been altruistic. Reading up on Tristram gives me a sense that he was. It's certainly an interesting story and like I said his founding of Haverhill and other Merrimack Valley towns paved the way for my Quebecois and Italian ancestors to settle in the area by the 20th century.

As the song goes, we really didn't start the fire. It was always burning as the world was turning.

52 Ancestors Week 14: Water

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14's theme is "Water." Our ancestors traveled by water, built towns near water, and powered machines with water. How do you interpret this theme?

Now that is a header.

Looks like the themes for the last week of March and the first three weeks of April are all element based. Water, Fire, Earth and Air. I'm going to have fun with these themes because of how often they all appear in popular culture. I actually don't even know which ones to use first! The Fifth Element? Captain Planet? Avatar: The Last Airbender? So many choices. So little time.

Nothing but the sea up ahead!

Let's keep things simple for now shall we? When it comes to water, my entire family has been around it for some time. That much was evident when I talked about Rings Island Marina a few weeks ago. The Rings Island blog was from my mother's point of view as her family lived in and around Newburyport. To recap: I found a cousin and a connection I never knew I had via the marina.

While my mother was born in Newburyport, my father was born in nearby Haverhill. Both cities are found along the Merrimack River and its waters have definitely played a role in my family's history. Even on my dad's side!

My dad loved to fish and still does! Because of his hobby, we spent many summers on the river and in the open ocean. I don't really remember when we started boating. It had to have been some time before I was born because I remember walking down the docks in a very small orange and yellow life jacket. My grandfather, Marco, taught him the ins and outs of fishing. Makes sense given that Marco was born in Italy, a country known for its maritime culture.

The docks are little too quiet.

The lessons were eventually passed down to my brother and I as my father taught us what bait to use for what fish. When not to use bait. Yes, that is actually a thing. Check this out. When you're fishing for mackerel out in the ocean you don't necessarily need bait. All you need is a sunny day and a good, shiny hook.  That should rake in a few mackerel for you. It should be noted that mackerel aren't exactly the umm...SMARTEST fish in the ocean.

I haven't fished in a long time, to be honest. I still remember how. It's true what they say, you know. Catch a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and they eat for a lifetime.

It didn't stop there. We'd also catch flounder, cod and even set out lobster traps. I was always in charge of putting those rubber bands on the claws. Not fun and often requires two people to do it!

It wasn't just fishing that my father taught me. I also learned how to drive the boat, too. I can do a decent job. Whoever said driving a boat is like driving a car is so wrong!

I also had many friends at the marina whose parents were friends of my parents. I would love to share stories. But, some of them may need to be internal. HAHAHA! I will say this. We did cross the bridge over to Newburyport many times to go to the comic store or other places. We had good times and plenty of good memories that will last a lifetime!

Being on the water has been in my blood and in my family for as long as I can remember. Now the circle is complete as my nephews have been getting in on the act and have been enjoying themselves. Fishing and boating have been a great tradition for generations and it's good to see it continue. While you're out on the ocean you really get a very real sense of just how big this planet is and how fragile it is at the same time.

I thank my dad and by extension my grandfathers for introducing me to fishing, boating and everything else. Going out into the ocean really opens ones perspective about the world around them. You learn about our world  and possibly even yourself!

52 Ancestors Week 13: Nearly Forgotten

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13's theme is "Nearly Forgotten." I remember early on in my research when I discovered that my great-great-grandmother lost two infants between censuses. With the exception of their death records, there was no other trace that they existed—no tombstones, no obituaries, not even birth records (likely because they died soon after they were born). Who in your research has been nearly forgotten? Another angle you could take: using a record that was nearly forgotten. Feel free to be creative with this prompt!

Not gonna lie. I was tempted to make a parody of the "Lost" logo.

When you have a large family, a ton of pictures can get lost in the shuffle. Cousins take one picture. Some cousins take like thirty and you never hear from them again. What do you do? Well, you hope that someone somewhere has a picture of that family member and that they're willing to share the picture with you. That's a big if. But, now you can take a picture of a picture with your phone. So, there's really no excuse WHY you can't share that picture of great-grandma Josephine or someone.

Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth D Fellows

Readers may remember me talking about my 3x great-grandfather, Jeremiah Smart Felker. He's the man whose whole life might as well be a Lifetime original movie. Let's recap in the fastest way possible.

1. Born out of wedlock in 1838 in the town of Raymond, NH.

2. Grandfather sued his father for parental rights.

3. Fought as a Union soldier in the Civil War.

4. married Elizabeth Fellows  in 1863.

5. Son Wilfred Felker and daughter in law, Gertrude Stevens have a MESSY divorce. So, he ended up raising my great-grandfather, Austin.

6. Died in Haverhill, Mass in 1918. Grandfather Joseph Felker was listed as his father on his death certificate. Ouch.

Still waiting for that phone to ring, Hollywood. 

Now we're ready to talk about the picture. I acquired it recently and the story definitely falls under the "nearly forgotten" category. A few weeks ago, I thought I would see if I could find something about Jeremiah from 1890. Genealogists know that the 1890 was destroyed much like certain 1960s era Doctor Who serials. Long story there. At least with Doctor Who we have surviving audio for all of the serials. Thank goodness for 1960s British nerd culture.

Hello, 1890 census substitute. How are you?

I ended up finding the 1890 Veterans schedule from Haverhill and sure enough Jeremiah was there. That was no surprise. I knew he had to have been on there somewhere. I went back to my search results and I see "photo hint". I was like "What?" I clicked the link and looking at me was that picture you see up there.Someone had uploaded a picture of Jeremiah and Elizabeth. I was blown away! I looked at who uploaded it and it turned out one of my 2nd cousins did.

Right away, I messaged him on Facebook. To say I was excited was an understatement. This was huge for me because I have three Civil War soldiers in my tree. John Sargent Fisher, Jeremiah Felker and David Stevens. I'm honestly hesitant about Mr. Stevens actually being a Civil War veteran because Stevens is an incredibly common last name. That could be any David Stevens in history. I would need to see some concrete proof before I can say definitively if he fought for the Union. I digress. I had a picture of John Sargent Fisher. I didn't have one of Jeremiah. This was so huge and so exciting!

I asked my cousin how he came by the picture and here's where the "nearly forgotten" comes into play. His aunt (My first cousin once removed)  had a box of old photographs she had given him. She didn't know who was who. So she tossed it to him and luckily some pictures, like the one above, had notes. He sat on the pictures for a while and suddenly decided to scan and upload onto Ancestry. Life got in the way. People have lives and all that. He almost forgot about uploading and apologized. It's okay, though. It's online and now I can share it with everyone.

After plastering the photograph all over the Internet, I posted it to my personal Facebook page and thanked my cousin for his help. I also sent it to various DNA matches who have Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth Fellows as a MRCA with me. I felt that was the right thing to do. One of my mother's cousins commented and said she might have a better quality picture and asked me if I'd like to see it. Why does the like button only work once? Of course I want to see it! I said please and thank you. 

There's a Popeye joke here....

Once I commented, I got an e-mail from one of the people I sent a message to. One of my DNA matches asked me if I wanted to see a picture of Wilfred Felker. I was like "YES! SEND IT!" Well, he did more than just send that picture. He sent a ton of them. But, here is Wilfred Felker. From what I've been told, this picture was taken at his beach house near Plum Island. That has to be sand at his feet. I wish I could see more of his face. But, this will have to do unless my cousins find a better version.

The moral of today's blog is to never forget to put pictures online and tell your cousins about them because he'd be interested in pictures. Wow, that's a very specific moral, Chris. It works, though! I'm not going to complain. My cousin may put up more pictures sooner or later. I'm anxious to see what he has because I have a sort of wish-list. I know I shouldn't be greedy. But, is it too much to ask for a picture or two of Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran? Maybe even Gertrude Stevens? I don't want to get too greedy. I'll take what I can get. Even if it's Gertrude's pet hamster. (She probably didn't have a pet hamster.)

Another moral of the story is to be nice to those who have the pictures you are looking for. Always be courteous and nice to those who share. Good things come to those who wait. You just need to be patient. Hopefully, I get some pictures soon. And if you have pictures, please share them with the world.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I love getting pictures of family because it really puts a face to the name and dates you put into your favorite family tree software. 

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 12: Popular

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 12's theme is "Popular." Do you feel like you have an ancestor who everyone is researching? How about a first name that's popular in your family? Maybe there's a story of a particularly popular ancestor.

I'm sure everyone has had that one ancestor everyone and their brother has been researching. Remember how I talked about cousin bait last week? Well, what if I told you I had been the victim of cousin bait on numerous occasions? You probably wouldn't be surprised. I had been working on my family tree since 2006 and other people have been researching for MUCH longer. Since that's the case there is bound to be people who have been looking up ancestors on the tree six or seven generations back. But, what if you find your own paternal grandparents on everybody's tree AND they even have profiles on FindAGrave? That has actually happened.

Grandma's on SIXTEEN trees?!

When I restarted my genealogical adventure in 2017, I found that several people had my grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Olympia Carrabs  on their trees over on Ancestry. I thought that was a bit weird. Then I found that someone made entries on Find a Grave for them. I thought that was even weirder!

Grandma Ollie, still popular among la famiglia.

I wasn't sure what to make of it. My grandmother appeared on sixteen including my own. Who were all these people? Why did they have Grandma Ollie on their tree?! Where were they when I started the tree back in 2006? Why didn't they message me?! These are all very good questions and yes I probably freaked out a little when I saw their entries on Find a Grave complete with pictures of the stones on them. I live within ten miles of the cemetery. You can understand why I was a little apprehensive!

Eventually, I calmed down and I looked at the trees myself. I found several things while looking at them:

* We all had ancestors in common. Most of the time it was Vincenzo Carrabs and Maria Giovanna Capobianco and on some instances it was their parents. Vincenzo and Maria had many kids who came to America.

* For some reason the trees had Grandpa Marco as being born in Palermo, Sicily. That was so wrong. I sent several polite messages to people explaining that it was not the case. He was born in San Pietro a Maida. Not Palermo. To this day I have no clue WHERE people got that idea. At least most trees don't have it as an error any more. All in a day's work for your friendly neighborhood genealogist.

* One lady had a comprehensive tree for my grandmother going back to the 1700s complete with scans of various births, marriages and deaths in the Gesualdo area. That was a veritable genealogical gold mine right there, guys. GOLD!

Once I found that tree, I sent a message to the owner and she was very happy to hear from me. She and the person who made the Find a Grave entries for my grandparents were working on the Carrabs side for quite a number of years. I also found that she was a distant cousin of mine as her ancestors were from the same town.

The person who created the Find a Grave profiles is also a third cousin. Apparently, she sent a message to me on Ancestry during the time I was away. I never got a notification of a new message. I checked my inbox on the site and it was dated 2011. I was like "Eep! It's 2017 and she had been waiting on a reply for six years!!!!!!!"

I was not born in Sicily! 

I messaged her and apologized for the excruciatingly long delay. She was cool with it and now we're friends on Facebook. She and the other genealogist both said that I could use the information they gathered for my tree. I thanked them and now the banns and everything adorn my tree as well as theirs.

So many thanks go out to people who researched the Carrabs side of the tree. Because of them, I've been able to gather records, look up information and learn everything about Gesualdo. I'll forever be grateful to them for their work!

It just goes to show that public trees on Ancestry are great for cousin bait and that it's not always that weird to have your own grandparents on someone else's tree. Most of the time they will turn out to be a cousin of yours. You never know. If you see them on a tree, contact the owner and ask if they are related. Chances are you could hit a genealogical gold mine like I did.

If you have correct information on your tree, chances are others will pick up on it and use it for their own tree and so on. It makes research so much easier. Having public trees mean you get to help others without realizing it and that is why I like having a tree online. Sure some trees may have errors. However, that's a chance you're gonna have to take as a genealogist. Who knows? Perhaps YOU will correct their mistakes. Have fun looking for gold!

And yes I talked to my 3rd cousin about the Find a Grave profiles. We had a good laugh regarding my feelings on the issue and my reaction. I am definitely okay with it now!

P.S. This blog was written on what would have been my grandpa Marco's 95th birthday! Happy birthday, Grandpa Marco!