Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei
The Italian-American Genealogy Group (Washington, DC Metropolitan Area) held its quarterly meeting on April 25, 2015 at the Westover Branch Library, 1644 North McKinley Road (Suite 3) Arlington, Virginia 22205. The meeting started a little after 10:00 a.m.
Without a scheduled
speaker for this meeting, the group shared information about the following topics:
~ Immigration Records that were destroyed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
now called US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
During research, two documents were located which identified that
some Immigration Records were destroyed by the INS prior to
preservation on microfilm:
1. Table 4 - The source of Table 4 is Anne Bruner Eales & Robert M. Kvasnicka, editors, Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives
(Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 3rd
Edition, 2000), pg 79, Section A Population and Immigration, Table 4.
2. Missing Passenger Lists
- This document is from Marian Smith, Historian of then INS in 1989.
It contains some of the same places and dates as Table 4, above.
The filming of the passenger manifests may have been done in the
late 1960's at least that was the date on the Custom Office
records. There are two parts to Marian L. Smith's "The
Creation and Destruction of Ellis Island Immigration Manifests," Part I, 240-245 and Part II, 314-318:
- Part I was in the Prologue Issue Fall 1996 but unfortunately it was not one of the digitized series. However, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) web site for Prologue (their quarterly) is a good source for information http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/index/ Prologue has a section called "Genealogy Notes" which can be extremely helpful to a researcher http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/genealogy-notes.html .
- Part II is an advance copy of Marian L. Smith's article on Immigration Manifests.
There are also some articles about this subject on the NARA web site http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/genealogy-notes.html#natur
~ DNA:
Judy Russell, JD, CG, CGL is the "Legal Genealogist" at http://legalgenealogist.com.
Her blogs are great and she is a BIG fan of DNA testing.
Sunday is the day she devotes her blog to DNA http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/category/dna/ Her April 26th blog was called "A DNA test not to bother with"
http://legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/04/01/a-dna-test-not-to-bother-with/ One of the great things about her blog is that everything is cited as to its source.
- Family Search is a free search site. Family Search is a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but you do not have to be a member of the Church to use the site. Family search is now a National Archives partner http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html
- Find-A-Grave is owned by Ancestry.com. Since Find-A-Grave information is provided by volunteers, it will remain free to use.
- Fold 3, formerly Footnote. There is a blog that answers many questions about this search engine at http://blog.fold3.com/questions-you-many-have-about-fold3/
~ Life Story Video:
For genealogical purposes or otherwise, if you know someone who would like to create a priceless famiy gift by providing their life story on video, go to RainmakerVideo.com to preserve memories and life experiences.
~ Tax Photographs of New York City Buildings
Between 1939 and 1941, and again in the mid-1980s, the city photographed every house and building in the five boroughs. Photographic prints of these unique images are now available at http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/photos/photos.shtiml#order
~ At our next meeting:
- We would like participants to talk about the pros and cons of different genealogy software programs. Please volunteer to discuss the pros and cons of any genealogy software program that you have used or are currently using.
- We also would like someone to help develop
our own Italian-American Genealogy Group (Washington, DC Metropolitan
Area) flyer as a handout with
information about our group. There are several events occurring over the
summer and into Fall 2015 where we could distribute these flyers to let
people know there is a genealogy group in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area that they can join. Are there any retired public relations people
looking for a fun project? Submit your ideas to this webmaster with Flyer in the subject line. Thank you.
After our meeting some of the group went to lunch at a local restaurant.
Our meetings run from 10:00 a.m., until about 12:30 p.m. After our meetigs everyone is welcome to join us for lunch at a local restaurant.
Submitted by Anne M. Jeffery