These minutes were sent to members with e-mail on 11-12-2007
On Saturday, November 10, 2007, 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: Larry and Glenna Amateis, Ruth Hendricks, Lisa and Rosemary Joecks, George Koleas (1527), Filomena Lea, Steve and Jean Scalzo,
Guest: Joe Galati
Before our last meeting in September, Frank Balistrieri called to tell us that, although he wanted to attend our meetings, his health did not permit it. I regret to inform you that Frank passed away September 22, 2007. Our prayers are with his family.
In 2008, Festa Italiana will feature Campania. Anyone with ancestors from Campania or elsewhere is welcome to help. We particularly will need the largest map of Campania that we can find and family trees that display ancestors from Campania. http://www.italiantourism.com/campania.html.
We received a request to translate a letter. Vince D’Orazio helped out long distance from China! Thanks Vince.
Barb Bombaci reports that she has been having great success at finding relatives in Australia and in her grandfather’s hometown in Sicily. She will update us at a future meeting
Joe Galati asked for our help to start his research. I described the process and sites that I used to locate information. One of the most helpful sites in locating arrival records was located at http://stevemorse.org/ . Using the “Gold Form” to search the Ellis Island database for Galati family names departing from Santa Stefano Di Cammastra, I found the arrivals for his family. Checking the burial records for Holy Cross Cemetery at http://www.cemeteries.org/home.asp and the Social Security Death Index at
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/ , I was able to put his family together.
Lisa Joecks attended a seminar at the 29th Annual Polish Genealogical Society of America Conference "Bridges to the Past", held the weekend of September 28-30, 2007. Steve Morse spoke at the conference about his site and the different search engines he has created to search databases. Abstracts of his talks and his speaking schedule are available at http://stevemorse.org/abstracts.html .
Lisa reported that an update was given about the Mormon’s Later Day Saint’s Family History Library’s plans to digitize their records. The project will take years to complete, but is progressing. The Family History Library is working to develop a search engine to provide access to their digitized records. Lisa commented that they should talk to Steve Morse. There was also a description about how the Family History Library negotiates access to records and selects which places to film.
Lisa also told us about a new website at http://www.footnote.com/ . Footnote.com was a sponsor of the Polish Genealogical Society of America Conference she attended. The site has an agreement with the National Archives to digitize selected records. For details, go to: http://archives.gov/press/press-releases/2007/nr07-41.html . This site has a lot of historical information as well as some information that would be of interest to genealogists such as naturalization records. For information on their naturalization records, go to:
http://www.footnote.com/page/73/naturalization-records . There are some free materials, but remember that this is a paid site The site allows you to do a limited search to try them out and decide is you think a paid subscription would be worth the cost of $7.95 per month or $59.95 per year.
“The Golden Door”, a film about a Sicilian who emigrates to America, will be released on DVD on January 8, 2008 at www.amazon.com . The soundtrack and a paperback version are also available. For information on the film, go to: http://www.goldendoor-movie.com/
Dominic Candeloro reports on PIE that his
Italians in Chicago Photo Exhibit is available at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Dominic.Candeloro/ItaliansInChicagoPhotoExhibit
. These pictures were collected for the most part for the Italians in Chicago
Project at the University of Illinois, Chicago, funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, NEH. Dominic was project director. The pictures
were used in a temporary exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center, in the
permanent exhibit at the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia in Stone Park,
Illinois and they were used in a book that he put together for Arcadia Press
entitled “Images of America: Italians in Chicago”. The Arcadia Press has a
variety of books about history, ethic communities and different locations in
America, including Milwaukee, some suburbs and Wisconsin. The Arcadia Press
website is located at
http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/
. Dominic invites you to e-mail comments about his Italians in Chicago Photo
Exhibit and his site to him at:
Dominic.Candeloro@gmail.com
SURNAME [in all capitals]
Comune
Province
Region
Submitter's Name
You can view the BeginIT Surname Database at: http://groups.google.com/group/beginitelementaryitalian
.
If someone sees your surname and wants to contact you, Michael will forward
the contact information to you. There is no direct contact, in order to
protect your privacy. BeginIT also has links for research information at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beginit/links/
.
We were informed by P.O.I.N.T that Ruth Merrimann (#4887) will be giving a series of five talks on five different topics related to Italian genealogy, at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, one each morning, from Monday, August 18, 2008, through Friday, August, 22, 2008. Ruth will repeat the entire series of five talks on Saturday, August 23, 2008, allowing attendees to arrive any time during the week and still hear all her talks. There will be the opportunity for POINTers attending this series to have Ruth and other library staff members to pre-arrange to have films pulled from the vaults and be ready upon your arrival, and have staff available to help with the reading and interpretation of any records found. There will be no cost. A meeting of POINTers In Person chapter leaders and representatives will follow Ruth’s talk on Friday morning, and a POINT banquet on Friday evening, at a location yet to be decided are being planned. The most current information will also be posted on the POINT website at:http://point-pointers.net . If you plan to attend, please let me know. You can represent our Chapter at the meeting.
We received a request to pass on to our members a new e-mail list for people interested in “A free daily e-mail about all things Italian for Italy lovers everywhere”. While not specifically a genealogy site , the past e-mailings have contained some interesting information about places and foods. The site is located at http://www.italiannotebook.com/ . An archive of past e-mails is available at
http://www.italiannotebook.com/Archive.html to let you see what the e-mails contain.
Tim Kenney wrote to inform us that he is currently working with author Paul Canonici on collecting information on the Marchegiani Italians who came to Milwaukee from the Mississippi Delta. For information see: http://www.deltaitalians.com/ . There is also a link on the Garibaldi Society website at http://www.garibaldisociety.org Tim and James Santi, who is also from Milwaukee, is starting a new society called the Marchigiani Society of Milwaukee. Tim reports that he has a large collection of Bay View Italians profiles on www.findagrave.com .
Our next meeting will be on Saturday, January 12, 2008, at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, starting at 10:30 a.m. and concluding at noon. Please mark your calendar for our meetings in 2008 on Saturday, April 19, September 13 and November 8 at the Italian Community Center. 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)
