Pointers In Person, Chapter 22, met at the Italian
Community Center, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Saturday, January 12, 2002.
Present at the meeting were, Frank Balistrieri, Jinny Balistreri,
Jeanne Bieser, Don Buck, Nancy Bushman, Kris Bushman, Nancy (4317) and Dick
Boudreau, Lois and Stan Cozzuli (220), Tina Favero (4452), Elsie Fucile,
George Koleas (1527), Filomena Lea, Jackie Maggiore (4391), Pat Moon, Mamie
Podewils, Barbara Roberts (1202), Marie Roth (766) and her guest Louise Doria,
Jean and Steve Scalzo, Pat Therkelson (2356), Joyce Weber (4438) and her guest
Letizia Saini, an exchange student from Milan
and new members, David Heathcott and Kathy Natarelli
George
reviewed correspondence that we received from individuals trying to find
information about their families.
·
Roxanne Claassen is looking for
information on Lucerzia Nicoletta Busalacchi, daughter of Giuseppe Busalacchi
and Josephine Costanza from Santa Elia.
·
Dan Niemiec is looking for information
about the death of a child of Palmo Abbinante and Ann Angela Santoliquido
Abbinante between 1917 and 1918 in Milwaukee. Dan is the co-founder of PIP
Chapter #27, North. He invites
our members who may be interested in Chicago research to visit his chapters
website at http://www.rootsweb.com/~itappcnc.
·
George shared extensive information
sent by Peter Bellanti (4028) on Machi, Alioto (which also appears as Arioto
and Galioto) Balistreri, Busalacchi and many others who descended from Michele
Machi from Santa Elia.
·
George also shared information on the
Sanfilippo families sent to him by Peter Bellanti (4028) and Val Schleicher.
There appears to be two groupings of Sanfilippo families, many in
Milwaukee. Peter and Val are looking for the families that will connect the
two groups into one group.
Members
were going to review the information and send all materials and information to
George, who will share what is found with the people listed.
Our
Chapter has been writing articles for the Italian Times.
George contacted the Italian Times to ask if they would accept
queries, if we formatted them into an article. They agreed.
If you would like to place a query in our next article, please contact
George. Try to keep you query to a few sentences and be specific about what
you are looking for.
We
discussed the difficulty in finding records prior to 1620.
Before that time, the church did not require that records be kept.
This is compounded by record storage being changed between different
towns during different time periods. The
best chance in locating pre 1620 information may be from a town historian.
Those
looking for ancestors in Milwaukee Cemeteries should try the Milwaukee
Archdiocese site at www.cemeteries.org.
Burials in Milwaukee Catholic Cemeteries can be searched there, including
information on nearby graves.
If
your family lived outside of Wisconsin, don’t forget to look into Italian
organizations where they lived. For example Societa Mutua Beneficenza Cefalutana that focuses
on immigrants and descendants from Cefalu, Sicily in New Orleans, Louisiana
and Toronto Rende Social Cultural in Woodbridge Ontario, Canada that focuses
on families from Cosceza.
Other
member news:
Tina
Favero (4452) is going to Venice with a group of 5
families.
Marie
Roth (766) had corresponded with an individual in South America interested in
the surname Borre.
Her main interest seemed to be connecting with her family so that she
could get dual Italian citizenship.
Pat
Therkelson (2356) will be attending the Annual PIP conference and will
represent our Chapter.
George
described his use of a Personal Data Assistant (PDA) in his research and his
opinions about applicable hardware and software. The following are his
comments:
A PDA is an
easy, compact way to carry a lot of information to a research site that would
be impractical in any other form. While
there are two main Operating Systems (OS), Window CE and Palm, I chose the
Palm because the programs I wanted to use were available for the Palm and are
not yet available for the Windows CE. Of the various PDA’s that run the Palm
OS, I use a Handspring Platinum. I
selected the Handspring because it had the features I wanted at the best
price. The Handspring models also have an expansion slot to allow you to add
more memory, a digital camera and many other accessories, as you need them.
For details see handspring.com.
Most all PDA’s come with the software to allow you to
SYNC or synchronize the data from your PDA with your home or work PC. By doing
this, if anything ever happens to your PDA, your files are backed up. To
ensure that everything on the PDA is backed up, I suggest a program called
BACKUP BUDDY, available from bluenomad.com.
.
To
carry family file data, I use a program called GEDSTAR 4.2 found at
palmgear.com. GEDSTAR allows you to convert your family file to a GED format
and then carry it with you. This
allows you to read your data only and does not allow data entry.
You can view individual and family information and move between
generations as well as searching your database for a name.
For to do lists, I use GEN2DO V1.0 found at palmgear.com,
which is great to identify specific resources in a book or census or other
resource. For general lists, or lists identified by surname or research
facility or anything else you choose, I suggest using Projects version 1.6.
This is a great project management software program and is currently a
free download from freepalm.com
To a carry Word or Excel files, there is a program by
Dataviz called Documents To Go
that contains Word To Go, Sheet To Go and Desktop To Go. This is a commercial
program that is about $70.00, available from dataviz.com, but is well worth
it, if you need to carry those files.
To take notes, you can use the MEMO PAD program
that comes with the PDA.
There are many programs available for PDA’s that
help you convert names to soundex, calculate birthdates when only death and
age are known or transcribe cemetery records. Check palmgear.com or
freepalm.com for more. You can easily customize the PDA to carry the things
you need the most.
How much memory do you need?
That will depend on your use. The
Handspring Platinum comes with 8 Kilobytes (K) of memory. I carry a 3000+
person family file, spreadsheets with our Chapters 300+ surname database, to
do lists, personal and work calendar appointments and word and excel files
from home and work and much more and I still have 5808K left.
Our
next meetings during 2002 will be Saturday’s, April 13, September 14, and
November 9, 2002 at the Italian Community Center.
We will continue to meet at 11:00 a.m. and will meet until lunch.
We will then order lunch and continue our discussions until 1:30 p.m.
when we will adjourn. Everyone is welcome to attend our next meeting.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
George Koleas at (262) 251-7216 after 7:00 p.m.
Submitted
by George Koleas
