On Saturday January 10, 2009, a meeting was held at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 10:30 a.m.. Those in attendance included: Members:, Barb Bombaci (5064), Joe Dentice, Vince D’Orazio (3418), Dani Graf, Lisa Joecks (5065) and Rosemary Joecks, John and Arlene Jorgensen, George Koleas (1527), Harold and Pauline Kuehnel, Filomena Lee, Pat Therkelson (2356) and her guest Kelly Parkhill, Marie Roth (766), David and Tana Salvaggio (4835), Steve and Jean Scalzo. Also in attendance were New Members: Catherine Jones and Jim Santi.
Catherine Jones is researching the surnames Cannauo, Guarniera, Nuciforo. Guarniera and Nuciforo were from Graniti, Messinia, Sicily. Her relatives arrived in Beloit Wisconsin in 1912. She has relatives in Catania, Palermo and Siracusa in Sicily. James Santi is researching the surnames Fuligni from Ancona, Marche, Fucili from Fossombrone, Urbino, Marche and Santi from Fossombrone, Marche. James is a member of the Marchigiani Society. He originally contacted Vince D’Orazio (3418) to try to make contact with Elsie Fucile.
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I regret to inform our membership that our member, Don Buck, died Friday, December 12, 2008, unexpectedly at the age of 57. Don had been researching the family of his wife of 28 years, Carla San Filippo. There has been a change to our website. The personal e-mail addresses have been removed. If someone in interested in one of the surnames listed, they are able to send me an e-mail. I will then forward the contact to you. We are beginning to plan our display for Festa Italiana in July 2009. The featured region will be Sicily. We will need maps, family trees, copies of documents and pictures illustrating emigration from Sicily and naturalization. Please send any suggestions, information or materials you can to me or bring them to our April meeting. Please consider if you are able to volunteer time in the Culture Committee tent during Festa Italiana, If you have any concerns about volunteering, please let me know and I will pass them on to the Italian Community Center, (I.C.C.), Culture Committee. While beginning research for our display, I came across a number of Sicilian focused websites. At first glance www.sicilianfamilytree.com appears to be about families from Misilmeri or Ventimiglia Di Sicilia, Palermo province, but the site has much more to offer. The site has research services for fee and books to purchase, but also has variety of databases and research links that are free. Other sites included: DNA and genealogy information at http://www.bestofsicily.com/genealogy.htm; Sicilian Culture at http://www.sicilianculture.com/links/roots.htm ; Jewish genealogy in Sicily at http://www.italian-family-history.com/jewish/Sicilia.html and http://www.sephardicgen.com/italy_sites.htm ; and Famous Sicilians at http://www.lagazzettaitaliana.com/sicilians.asp . A site that lists mailing lists for areas all of Italy, including Sicily, is found at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-ita.html. Bud Lang, whose posts on PIE we have enjoyed and passed on from time to time, writes that “I have had the honor of visiting Italy, Sardenga and Sicily many times over the years, and now have friends over there. I also just published a very nice book dealing with Sicily. It's not your regular travel book, in the sense it deals with a lot of genealogy and is very personal. You may check it out on my web site, at: www.sicilyupclose.com his book sells for $17.95 per copy.” Bud informed me that his Sicilian side goes back almost 300 years! If you are interested in ordering this book, please tell me and we can get an order together. Joe Dentice reminds us that a meeting will be held on Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. at the Italian Community Center, to answer questions about a trip to Sicily, being planned by Your Go With Joe Travel. The trip will be benefiting the Italian Community Center. The Sicily Experience is May 22, 2009 through May 29, 2009. Eight days in Sicily, Deluxe air conditioned motorcoach transportation, seven nights accommodations in Sicily. Air and land package is expected to be $3542.12, but is quoted at time of booking, no more than this price. The single traveler supplement for single occupancy is $580.92. If interested or to reserve your space, call 414-291-2180 or go to http://www.gowithjoetravel.com/. We also discussed the possibility of arranging our own trip at a future date. Rita Prigioni, WisItalia Webmaster, http://www.wisitalia.org , informs us that on Saturday, February 21, the Madison East Side History Club explores the connections between Madison's first "suburb" - the Schenk-Atwood area - with Madison's first "Little Italy," the Greenbush. Catherine Tripalin Murray will lead the discussion on Saturday, February 21, 2009, at the Goodman Community Center, 149 Waubesa Street, Bolz Room A, Madison, Wisconsin, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm. Tim Romano will share home movies of the Romano family taken between 1956-1960. People who know of connections between east side and Greenbush families and businesses are invited to share their memories. http://www.wisitalia.org/pages/events.html Bobbi Tanzilo reports on
itam_wi@yahoogroups.com that
“The Pietro Conti Regional Museum of Emigration in Gualdo Tadino, in the
Province of Perugia, Italy, is launching a contest for the best video
testimonial on the Italian emigration called “Migrating Memories Video
Contest”. The initiative is aimed at promoting recovery of historical
memory and raising awareness of the Italian emigration throughout the
world, from the end of the Nineteenth century to the present time, as well
as furthering research and studies on its historical, social and economic
aspects. The videos must illustrate the emigration experience through
individual, family-related, or community-based stories. For details go to
www.emigrazione.it (click on
"English", and, then, on the "Video Contest" or e-mail:
info@emigrazione.it or call: 075
9142445. To e-mail the contact person outside Italy, write to Giovanni
Scarola at
giovanniscarola@yahoo.ca or
Call + 416-789-4466 (Toronto, Canada) |
Please remember to mark your calendar for the following 2009 events:
The Wisconsin State Genealogical Society’s 2009 Gene-A-Rama will be held Friday & Saturday, April 3-4, 2009, in Madison, Wisconsin. For details go to: http://wsgs.wetpaint.com/page/Meetings+&+Conferences
The spring Milwaukee County Genealogical Society’s Biennial Genealogical Workshop is scheduled for April 18, 2009, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Details will be posted on the MCGS website at www.milwaukeegenealogy.org
Michael Alioto is planning a Sicilian Family Reunion is being planned for Friday, September 18, 2009 At the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee Wisconsin. A brunch will be held on Saturday, September 19, 2009 also at the Italian Community Center. Michael Alioto will inform us of more details as they are available.
The Wisconsin State Genealogical Society’s 2009 Fall Seminar will be held Friday & Saturday, October 2-3, 2009, in Neenah, Wisconsin. For details go to: http://wsgs.wetpaint.com/page/Meetings+%26+Conferences
Pat Therkelson (2356) asks if anyone has any information of the village of Greci. One relative, Michael Sasso, returned to the village after the death of his wife. On Google I found two references to Greci in Campania at http://www.grecicousins.com/1.html and http://en.comuni-italiani.it/064/037/ . There are also references to Corte Dei Greci in Venezia and Piana Dei Greci , which is now Piana Dei Albanese in Palermo, Sicily at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piana_degli_Albanesi.
We discussed one tip concerning birth, marriage and death records. Sometimes, these records exist in multiple forms. There may be a form at the local, county and state level and they may all contain somewhat different information. Dani Graf ran into this as she was working on assembling documents for her dual citizenship application.
Vince D’Orazio (3418) passed and described a marriage record he had that was written in Latin.
Many towns in Italy now have websites. Some sites are extensive and some are very simple. The site may include an e-mail address. This may be faster than writing a letter. We discussed how getting a response from an Italian Records office is very unpredictable. In one instance, a letter sent by Vince D’Orazio (3418) was published in the local paper. In addition to these websites, there are also organizations forming that are developing information on their area of interest. Two examples are for Barga at http://www.barganews.com/2007/09/13/barga-genealogy-research-group/ and for Termini Imerese http://www.termini-imerese.org/ A surname database and researchers are listed on the Comunes of Italy site at http://www.comunesofitaly.org/DB/index.php . If you know of other useful databases, please send them to me and we will include discussing them at our next meeting.
Experiences with Footnote.com were discussed. This is a for fee site. It has a lot of information. The main question is whether it has information on your family. You can do a free search to see if there are records, but to access those records, you will need to pay either a monthly of yearly fee. The site is at http://www.footnote.com/
When reviewing any website, beware that there may be “free” and “for fee” sections. When visiting a site, make sure you understand the conditions of any “Free Trials”. These are rarely free and may commit you to more of a membership than you want. Make use of as many free services that you can before you decide to commit to join a site. If you use a “Free Trial” or a one month test, be sure to mark your calendar to cancel the service before it automatically renews.
We reviewed a list of ten genealogical resolutions for 2009 listed in By Kimberly Powell on the website About.com. They included: 1. Interview a Relative; 2. Take a Class or Learn a New Research Skill; 3. Get Organized; 4. Don't Put Off Until Tomorrow; 5. Label & Store Your Family Photos; 6. Two Heads are Better Than One (Join forces with other people researching the same surname or in the same area. Join a genealogical or historical society in an area in which you are researching and then get involved in some way.); 7. Keep Track of Correspondence; 8. More Than Names & Dates, (Add details about the persons life and who they were); 9. Put Your Research To Good Use; and 10. Volunteer to Help Others. For details and more references go to http://genealogy.about.com/od/basics/a/resolutions.htm
Our next meeting will be on Saturday, April 25, 2009, at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, starting at 10:30 a.m. and concluding at noon. Our remaining meetings in 2009 will be, September 26 and November 14. We welcome anyone with an interest in Italian Family History. If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact George Koleas by e-mail or by calling (262) 251-7216 after 7:00 p.m..
Submitted by George Koleas (1527)
