On Saturday, November 11, 2006, 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: Glenna and Larry Amateis, Vincent D’Orazio (3418), Dani Graff, Lisa Joecks, Rosemary Joecks, John and Arlene Jorgensen, Marnie and Dan Krause (4882)and their guest Olga Fucilie, George Koleas (1527), Filomena Lea, Tana Salvaggio (4835), Steve and Jean Scalzo, Margaret Schutz (2149) Susan White
New members Linda Collins, Sandra Ivers
Linda Collins and Sandra Ivers are researching Liberante Foti and Nancy Serio. Liberate Foti immigrated to America on May 3, 1909.
We are continuing to help people who have contacted us. The families that we are helping include:
· Nicolai Aliotti married to Patrina Balistreri in June 1907. Other names connected to the Aliotti family are Bonfiglio and Colla.
· Giuseppe Malena and Raphaella Pascarella.
· Nicholas Antinucci married to Giovina DeFelece and Anthony Antinucci married to Della Carol Pope. This Antinucci family has been found in Pueblo, Colorado, Chicago, Illinois Milwaukee and Kenosha, Wisconsin.
· We helped find the arrival record of Frank Conte married to Ignazia Giofoglione. Using the information we provided, the individual we helped visited the family village in Italy.
- Vincent D’Orazio is helping a person who needs a translation of a marriage contract from 1817 that is written in Italian. It has been in this persons family since his Great Grandparents came to the US in 1903.
If you have any other information on any of these families, please contact me.
Michael Aliota and his committee did a great job on the “THE SON’S & DAUGHTER’S of ASPRA & SANT’ ELIA FAMIGLIA REUNION”. This reunion was open to all descendants from Aspra, Bagheria, Palermo, Porticello, Sant’ Elia, Sant’ Flavia, Solanto, Solunto, Sicily on Friday, September 29th, 2006. The reunion was a success and very enjoyable for all who attended.
Peter Bellanti, who attended and spoke at the reunion has updated the genealogy listings on his web page. He now has over 20,000 names related to his Bellanti tree which now covers several coastal villages including Sant' Elia, Porticello, Santa Flavia, Bagheria and Aspra. His website can be found at www.bellanti.org
We discussed providing a display on Calabria Genealogy at Festa Italiana in 2007. Anyone with family from Calabria or elsewhere is welcome to help. We particularly will need the largest map of Calabria that we can find and family trees that display Calabrese descendants.
We are the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society’s Italian Area Interest Group. The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society announced that Richard Swearingen of the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) has notified the society that The Milwaukee Public Library is trying something new at the Central Library. On the second Saturday of every month, from October through June, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., the Computer Lab on the second floor of the Library will be open for those interested in using the on-line genealogy resources (like Ancestry.com Library Edition) on MPL computers. Since the Humanities Room only has two computers for genealogy research, this will allow lots more people to do some research during the late afternoon on these Saturdays.
The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society is planning
their 15th Biennial Workshop April 21, 2007 at American Serb Hall,
5101 West Oklahoma Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, featuring Cyndi Howells of
Cyndi's List. For information and a list of events go to
http://www.milwaukeegenealogy.org/
Valorie Sanfilippo Schleicher reports that the Italian Community
Center (ICC) Cultural Committee (headed by Anna Pitzo and co-Chair Christine
Zino) will be revamping the ICC web site. They we hope to include items like:
The Italian Times, Festa Italiana web site, Link to Conference Center, History
of the Center, The various Italian Organizations meeting at the ICC, what they
do and their events, Our Italian War Memorial, Italian Photographs,
Milwaukee Italian Genealogy & History and a calendar of events. If you have
any suggestions, please send them to me and I will forward then to Valorie.
Posted on Pointers In E-mail (PIE) was a story about how a family obtained dual citizenship. The Story is; ”My wife and I both have achieved dual citizenship through each of our respective paternal grandfathers through the consulate in Miami. In the case of my wife, she was never able to show if or when her grandfather achieved US citizenship. She requested copies of her grandfather's declaration of intention, petition for naturalization and finally the copy of his naturalization papers from US Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service under the freedom of information using Form G-639. After about 6-9 months they responded with a letter that no record of her grandfather's naturalization were found. Apostille was applied to this letter by the US Department of State and submitted along with all of her other necessary documents to the Italian Consulate in Miami who submitted them to Italy for further verification. Italy was never able to show any evidence that her grandfather became a US citizen and she was granted Italian citizenship. Unfortunately, I can't confirm what the current Justice form is to request this search from their records. Based on my wife's experience, I would think that you should be able to do the same. It is time consuming. It took each of us about a year to go through the process after we had received all of our other documents.”
At this meeting we continued our discussion of the use of
DNA in genealogy. For information on Y-DNA and MtDNA tests go to
http://www.familytreedna.com/ . Family Tree DNA provides the tests for
the National Genographic Project. For information on the project, go to
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/?fs=www3.nationalgeographic.com
. There is also a Sicily DNA project. There are two goals for the project.
The first goal is to investigate the ethnic and genetic diversity of Sicily
and the second goal is to actually establish connections. For more information
go to:
http://www.familytreedna.com/(kwcaes45if3vrx55zrbxxk45)/public/Sicily/index.aspx
.
Our next meeting will be on Saturday, January 13, 2007, at the Italian
Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, starting at
10:30 a.m. and concluding at noon. Please mark your 2007 calendar for our
other meetings in 2007 on Saturday’s, April 7, September 8 and November 10,
2007. 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)
