Italian-American Genealogy Goup Meeting Notes
Minutes Prepared by: Barbara (Barb) Morten
13 April 2019
The meeting was held at the McLean Government Center
1437 Balls Hill Road
McLean, VA 22101
Phone 703-356-0551
Note: the minutes are maintained on the website:
http://www.circolomazzei.org/
The meeting opened with a greeting and introduced our speaker, Francesco Isgro', of the Casa Italiana Sociocultural Center in DC. The address is 595 Third NW, Washington DC 20001.
The center opened 22 March 1981.
Francesco’s talk described the history of Italians in the DC area. Many of the first Italians were architects and artists. He showed photos of the building site of the Casa Italiana Sociocultural Center over time and described the changes. He also showed a chart showing the number of Italians in the DC area over time.
He also described the various collections that are, or will be, displayed at the Center, including:
Oral Histories of Italian Americans
Virtual Collection
Library of Italian Books, DVDs, and CDs
The Center also has a Language School, Cooking and Ceramic Classes.
The Center will have a Piazza on its grounds.
He also mentioned that the Center is fund-raising and all donations are welcome. Also, he handed out a flyer that had a list of items that are being solicited for donation to the Italian American Museum of Washington DC (IAMDC) including:
Mementos of the journey from Italy to Washington: old photos, passports, tickets, trunks
Items brought to the area from Italy: cooking/sewing items, Italian medals, linens
Items related to the work done by early immigrants: tools, work ids, uniforms, and medals
Items related to the Holy Rosary Church and its history: photos, programs, posters
Contact the Holy Rosary Church at 202-638-0165 for more info on donating.
The next meeting will be held at the McLean Government Center. The next meeting will be on Saturday, July 13th. Meetings are held from 10am to 12:30pm and several attendees then go out to lunch together.
Next year, the quarterly meetings will be held on the 3rd Saturday of the month.
We then went around the room discussing our current dilemmas, challenges, and accomplishments related to our genealogy.
Notes:
A member found an Italian birth certificate and described the difficulty in deciphering it. A discussion ensued about transcribing records. The book, Italian Genealogical Records by Trafford R. Cole has several examples of various records and transcriptions of each.
It was mentioned that after the first few, it gets a bit easier, but there is help at the Family History Centers with translations.
A member is looking at church and civil records for Sicily and Naples.
A member whose ancestors are from Potenza immigrated to Cleveland. And another member’s ancestors are from Germany and Switzerland.
A member mentioned that FindMyPast.com had copied Catholic Church records.
[Barb Morten adds that when she went to the site it has Catholic Church records from Ireland, but not from Italy. However when she did a search using ‘Italian Church records’, she was able to see several links to investigate.]
A member is planning a trip to Massena in Sicily. She asked for assistance in planning the trip and another member mentioned his talk and that he would be willing to send a copy to her. Other suggestions included:
Contact the APG , Association of Professional Genealogists, for local research, and possible assistance on site.
Call the Library in the town for assistance.
Search on-line for the town: it may have a Facebook page, or link
A member is searching Adjioni, Sicily
A member has ancestors in Campania, Benevento, Foiano val Fortore
A member (Basilicata, Pietro) - Came back from a tour along the west side of Italy and Lisbon/Spain/Switzerland through Naples.
We then discussed various Italian tours
A member said they had put part of their family tree on Ancestry with a temporary subscription and wanted to know what happens if they stop their subscription. Can they ‘take back’ their tree? Suggestions were made that:
--You can mark your family tree as Private
--You can remove your tree (Of course, this doesn’t stop anyone who viewed, and possibly copied the info while it was available to have the info.
A member whose ancestors are from Cassarta, Sicily has collected/contacted over 2000 names/towns via Facebook. He sent out notes asking, ‘Do you know your grandparents, great grandparents?’ and collected the info.
A member whose ancestors are from Sardinia can trace his mother’s line back to 1550. His father’s father was a coal miner in Sardinia. He was able to find his father’s mother by going to the town and church records. His grandmother was adopted 3 days after birth; then again in 1908 after the Tsunami, and was taken to America.
A member whose ancestors are from Palermo, Sicily is still gleaning information on Ancestry.
A member whose ancestors are from Poland uses Ancestry. His grandfather was from Poland.
A member whose ancestors are from Italy and Croatia said her grandfather was a shipbuilder and lost his family in the Russian Revolution.
A member whose ancestors are from Massena Province maintains a database of 1800 family members.
A suggestion was made that we use Roll Call, i.e. that we send an email out to all members with a Title line of ‘Roll Call’ with our individual Surnames and Communes for our families.
A member is interested in DNA research. He has located 3rd and 4th cousins using 23AndMe and MyHeritage.
A discussion followed related to the use of various DNA based programs:
23andme is more tailored to health and DNA. Website: https://www.23andme.com
MyHeritage is more interested in connecting families
Website: https://www.myheritage.com
Cautions that came out of the discussion included:
Be Sensitive that others may not want to know or reveal information about their family.
Be careful what you look for!
A member whose ancestors are from Tyrol (South of Austria) said that if your family has a Saint, then genealogies may have been written about their families.
[Barb Morten also found genealogies of pastors in a book about the history of a church.]
A member mentioned that her grandson’s wife is a genetic counselor.
A member whose ancestors are from Poland and Ireland said he and his cousin are working together to research his father’s line in Poland. His mother is from Ireland. He uses FindMyPast.com.
A friend of a member and a guest to this meeting is from Italy and is willing to help translate Italian forms.
A member whose paternal ancestors are from Palermo grew up in DC. Her father grew up in Brooklyn and took a bus at age 22 to ‘Wherever it would go’. He ended up in DC. He worked for Sanitary Grocery, which is now Safeway, moved back to NY, but returned to DC because it was cleaner.
[Barb Morten says having grown up in western New York, I can empathize. The first snow, usually in November, brought a beautiful blanket of white, but then everything turned to mud brown and gray until spring, usually in May.]
A member said FindAGrave.com has been bought out by Ancestry. Currently, you can search for a grave site for free, but if you want to add a photo, or information, you need to register. There was a discussion of ‘ownership of photos’.
[Barb Morten went to the website: https://www.findagrave.com/list-faqs
and read several of the questions and responses. If you submit a photo, you have seven days to transcribe the info from the stone. If you don’t someone may be given ownership of the photo to transcribe the info. The FindAGrave site has lots of links and you can spend hours searching there for cemeteries, names etc.]
The next meeting will be held in July at the McLean Government Center.
Other:
WDCFHC Annual Conference, May 4. Registration is Now Open This is the Family History Center in Kensington. Website: wdcfhc.org/wordpress/2019/03/wdcfhc-annual-conference-may-4-registration-is-now-open/
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The End of April 2019 Minutes