On Saturday, September 9, 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: Don Buck, Barbara Bombaci, Colleen Bettini, Joyce Jennings Currier (2783), Lisa Joecks, Rosemary Joecks, John and Arlene Jorgensen, George Koleas (1527), Marie Roth (766), Steve and Jean Scalzo, Lynn Thrasher
Guests include: Manning Bookstaff
Manning Bookstaff, the District Representative of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society attended our meeting and described some of the advantages of being affiliated with the society. For more information on the Society go to http://www.rootsweb.com/~wsgs/about.htm
Manning also reviewed up coming conferences including: The Fall Seminar 2006, featuring Paula Stuart-Warren, CG(SM) nationally known speaker, educator, researcher and writer on Sat., 14 October 2006 at the Univ. of WI--Fond du Lac with a special pre-conference workshop on Fri., 13 October 2006 by Jack Brissee WSGS Past President and NGS Board Member. Next year watch for Gene-A-Rama 2007 featuring Megan Smolenyak on Fri. and Sat., 13-14 April, 2007 at the Olympia Resort and Conference Center, Oconomowoc, Wi. For more information, go to http://www.rootsweb.com/~wsgs/meetings.htm.
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/. We are the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society’s Italian Area Interest Group. The Society also has a trip to Washington in October 2006 and genealogy classes. For information on the classes, go to http://www.milwaukeegenealogy.org/classes.html
The Illinois State Genealogical Society is having a Fall 2006 Conference, Footsteps To The Past: Making Tracks Through Research, Saturday, October 14, 2006 at the Holiday Inn, Itasca, Illinois. For more details go to http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilsgs/fallconf/2006falconf.html
The Milwaukee Family History Center is having a free genealogy workshop on Saturday, October 21, 2006 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at 9600 West Grange Avenue, Hales Corners, Wisconsin. For more information, call 414 425-4182 or e-mail FHC@Rworld.net.
We have set our calendar for 2007. Our meetings will be Saturday’s, January 13, April 7, September 8 and November 10. I will confirm dates with the Italian Community Center from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
We received a thank you from Anna Pitzo for our display on Abruzzo Genealogy at this year’s Festa Italiana. We thank Anna for allowing us the opportunity to help her to preserve our Italian Culture at Festa Italiana’s culture tent. Next year we will be providing a display on Calabria Genealogy. 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.
At this year’s Festa Italiana, Laura Lancione was kind enough to provide family trees for her Lancione family. Laura had added pictures to her family tree. On the opening night at Festa Italiana, a lady was visiting the display when she stopped, pointed to the picture and said that it was her grandparents. Anna Pitzo, who was present at the time called Laura. Laura made contact with the lady, who was a part of the family that was unknown to Laura. The two met again at the display on the final night of Festa Italiana on Sunday and had a reunion along with the lady’s daughter and granddaughter. This was also reported by Bob Ruggieri in The Italian Times, Volume 28, Number 23, September 2006.
Michael Aliota and his committee are continuing to put the finishing touches on “THE SON’S & DAUGHTER’S of ASPRA & SANT’ ELIA FAMIGLIA REUNION”. This reunion is open to all descendants from Aspra, Bagheria, Palermo, Porticello, Sant’ Elia, Sant’ Flavia, Solanto, Solunto, Sicily on Friday, September 29th, 2006, cash bar at 5:30 PM: Dinner 6:30 PM at the Italian Community Center Grand Ballroom, 631 E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202. There will also be a Reunion Brunch on Saturday, September 30th, 2006 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM with a tour of the old 3rd ward, Brady Street, Holy Cross Cemetery and Lake Michigan’s shoreline. For more details contact me or Michael at maliota1@wi.rr.com or (414) 899-4447
Mario Carini, Italian Community Center Historian, is asking for help to locate the burial of a number Italians who died between 1929 and 1932. If you think that you can help, please contact me and I will provide a list.
Marne Krause (4882), has joined the list of members who have had an article published in POINTers. Her article on her Fucili family “Partings” was published in Volume 20, Number 2, Summer, 2006.
We have been working with a number of people to help them with their genealogy. The families that we are helping include: Nicolai Aliotti married to Patrina Balistreri, June 1907. Other names connected to this family are Bonfiglio and Colla. Giuseppe Malena and Raphaella Pascarella. Nicholas Antinucci married to Giovina DeFelece and Anthony Antinucci married to Della Carol Pope. We also 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. If you have any other information on any of these families, please contact me.
Barbara Bombaci reported that after having posted information on her family without result, she suddenly and unexpectedly received an answer that provided her with a great deal of information. This proves that posting queries and information on bulletin boards and websites can pay off. These messages often stay available for years. You never know when one will provide you with the key information that you seek.
After 10 years of searching, Joyce Jennings Currier (2783), had a breakthrough. She decided to take the information she had on a trip to Albany, New York to try to find more information about her family. Armed with death notices, she thought she’d try to see if the funeral home was still open. It was. She called and spoke with the wife of the owner, who agreed to meet with her. This lady copied all of the related records on Joyce’s family and had the copies waiting for Joyce. When the owner arrived, Joyce showed him a picture she had. He recognized his parents in the picture and knew of living relatives. Joyce was taken to her new found relative’s home where they reunited, shared information and informed Joyce of living relatives in Bellona, Italy. Joyce’s experience shows the power of actually visiting the places our relatives lived and a little luck.
In addition to searches, maps and images, Google now offers a news archive search, which provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. In addition to helping you search, news archive search can automatically create timelines which show selected results from relevant time periods. Some locations require you to pay a fee, some require you to create a log on and some are free. To go to the new feature, go to http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en&tab=wn&q=
We sometimes discuss the difference in dialect between Italian and Sicilian. For an informative link to a Sicilian Dictionary in .PDF, go to http://www.linguasiciliana.org/documenti_file/sicilianu.pdf . For an MS-Word Version, go to: http://www.linguasiciliana.org/documenti_file/sicilianu.pdf
The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society Reporter, Volume 37, Number 3, August 2006, reprinted an interesting article from the July-August 1988 Genealogical Helper called Medical Terms for Genealogists.
Family Chronicle magazine, July/August 2006 edition had interesting articles including: Need help Identifying Those Old Family Photo’s, Picture Preservation Made Easy and Old Photo’s on the Net.
We discussed 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, November 11, 2006 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 next
meetings on Saturday’s, January 13, 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)
