The Archives of

Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei

Part 4

Last updated January 3, 2001

Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei (The Metro DC Chapter of POINTers In Person met on January 24, 1998 at the Dolley Madison Library in McLean, VA. Nineteen were in attendance along with a written report by another. Lively discussions were held on various research topics.

JOE GUIRRERI is a new member of Mazzei and has been researching for 1 1/2 years. He is working with 20 Guirreri from Partanna, SI and has about 3000 individuals in his tree.

RICHARD CAMAUR (#3158) discussed the Italian Mutual Aid Society, which helped new arrivals. It was formed in 1858 in the San Francisco area. He advised researchers not to overlook Italian cemeteries in searching for Catholic ones, as well as using voter registrations.

KAY HOGAN-TORPEY (#2543) had received a negative reply from the National Archives regarding a WWI draft registration for her Guerino Freda relative. Consequently, she ordered microfilm from LDS and found it herself! She did note that his name in the index appeared at the end of the Fs, out of order.

ART MANFREDI (#3414) received a "brush off" response to one of his letters to Italy, but said that he will rewrite. He has received three "estratti", from one birth and two marriages, while one of them provided a maiden name. On to another branch!

JOHN IACONIS (#2953) has sent letters to first cousins in Calabria and is awaiting replies.

AL SANTOS (#3435) has recently found a great-grandparent's ship arrival. He is beginning to draft a family history and members provided him with several style books.

MARIE BESTUL (#1025) found a 1/6^th cousin via a posting on the Italian Genealogy Homepage on the WWW. She also had the pleasure of revisiting her grandparents' house in South Philadelphia. It was sold by her uncle years ago.

JEAN EVANS (#1607) has great-great grandparents from Condino, west of Lake Garda. He is looking for churches there in order to pursue his ancestry.

MARIE MELCHIORI (#2828) is a professional genealogist. Her mother was born in the Latino province. Most of her relatives stayed in Brooklyn, from where several other Mazzei members hail.

ROBERT MELCHIORI, Marie's husband, reported that his grandfather came in 1904, but was killed in a mine accident in Pennsylvania. Robert's dad immigrated in 1921 from the Trentino region. He has had the pleasure of visiting many of his cousins there.

LOU ALFANO (#2114) received some email via his De Natale webpage. They are 3^rd cousins, once removed. As a result of trading research, Lou has added 88 people to his "forest." His daughter was married last August, so he has a new line to add.

JOHN TROMBA (#2915) reported that one of his leads for some records has turned up nothing.

TOM BRIGGS (#1383) said that his contact in Messina is checking on street addresses in an area of interest. Tom also showed us a book titled The Center, in which are details of the various research facilities involved with genealogical records. It is authored by Christina K. Schaefer.

TONY CIMORELLI runs the PIE homepage and reported that he has made some hardware changes that should improve performance. He is producing a CDROM with passenger ship information and photos that should be out soon. His grandmother came over on a ship and recently he took her back for a visit. They found her old house, which had been boarded up. Pictures were still on the walls!

MARGUERITE BERTOGLIO (#0878) is a 1^st generation Italo-Americano. She knows her cousins in Italy, but they are not very cooperative in discussing ancestry. She is getting ready to join the computer age with her first purchase of a computer for her genealogical database.

DAVE NATELLA (#1073) and his mother DOROTHY reported that the town of Salerno has validated his records for Italian citizenship. However, it may take a year or more for Roma to finalize the checking of credentials. Buona fortuna!

PAUL TRAUNERO (#1541) related that he and his wife have exchanged holiday greetings with their cousins in Italia. The cousins in the Marche region survived the recent earthquakes (terremoti) with little damage and no injuries.

JOHN MAFODDA (#2585) emailed us with his contribution. John contacted a Dr. Antonio MAFODDA at the Italian Trade Commission in Toronto, Canada. As a result of Antonio's recent trip to Italia, it was determined that Antonio's great-grandfather and John's grandfather were brothers. John now also knows the cognomi of many of the spouses. Another cousin sent him pictures of the home where John's father was born. John is beginning to plan a trip to Italia in May.

The Mazzei Chapter wishes to reissue the challenge to the other chapters to honor other Italians with their namesake. We applaud the Garibaldi Chapter. Our chapter archives can be viewed at:

Our next meeting is scheduled for April 25, 1998 at the same location and regular time of 10:00 a.m. Please contact PAUL TRAUNERO (#1541) or our homepage for information.

Return to "Page Guide"

Lou Alfano indicated there are currently 1500+ entries in the immigrant ships Web site that he continues to develop. He made several additional comments on sources of genealogical information.

Marguerite Bertoglio brought a copy of the ship's manifests from when her father left Central America coming to the U.S. and when both her parents came to the U.S. from Italy.

Linda Moran came to this meeting because she had read about the PIP meeting in Las Vegas. She was interested in hearing about other people who might be going to the meeting. She brought the Winter 1993 POINTERS magazine that has a photograph of our group's inaugural meeting. She will be taking a walking tour of Tuscany later on this year.

John Iaconis has been researching at the Annandale Family History Center (FHC) for the last several months and has found family in Italy back to the 1800s. He discovered a lot of genealogical relationships in the home town by recording on a computerized spreadsheet the relevant information (e.g., each parent's family name, dates, and children's name) from each document that he found. He then sorted the individual records by each type of information and noted the relationships.

Al Santos is looking for ship records of his grandfather, first in New York City and now in Philadelphia. He has found information on the ship his great grandfather came over on. He found some interesting information on a Web site of the Peabody Museum.

Margaret Cutino has been searching for relatives with the name of Tirozzi. Using the White Pages of Italy Web site, she found no relevant matches. She did try several similar-sounding names and found relatives with the name Pirozzi. Margaret also questioned the ability to update Italian records with events that have happened in the U.S., for instance, death information. It was agreed in discussion that this information could be incorporated by municipal officials as marginal notes on Italian birth certificates. Such notes are sometimes found by researchers.

Don Gibbon is researching the Gibbon name, having already traced it back to Wales. He received a "World Book of Gibbons" and found more people with the name in the Po River valley than in Wales. He questioned the best way to communicate with officials in Italy.

Dave and Dorothy Natella asked about the availability of FHC microfilm records for Salerno. The Kensington, MD FHC was recommended as being the best local FHC library. Some members suggested going to the microfilm index directly rather than checking the computerized listing because the microfilm is updated more frequently.

Marie and Alden Bestul are revising some of her family histories that she prepared in 1991. She has found using Edmundo Tardio's Web site of Italian surnames, The Italian Genealogy Home Page (www.italgen.com). She has also identified an old friend via the Internet service "Switchboard". She was searching for her father's Merchant Marine service record, from WWI. She contacted the National Archives who put her in touch with a specialist. He obtained the complete 15-page record in two weeks.

Art Manfredi received several more estratti from Italy with important genealogical information. He then wrote to the town priest who extracted information from documents (from 1815) for him and extending his known family back another generation. Art has also had good results with a mass-mailing he sent to his wife's relatives.

Richard Camaur related information received from a "priest with a photocopier" in Liguria with whom he has a very good rapport. He also told of one man who lived during and after the time of Napoleon in the same town all his life. During that time, the town was located in four different countries, complicating genealogical research.

Tony Cimorelli has been working on a CD of ship arrivals, covering the period since 1797. The database has about 100,000 arrival entries in it now. It is available already on the PIE Web site and will be available on CD-ROM soon. In a discussion about the availability of genealogical records on microfilm, he identified the American Genealogical Lending Library as a source that lends microfilm for home use, $3.50/month/microfilm. The user needs a microfilm reader or can take the microfilm to a local library to view it (possibly more convenient than going to an FHC).

Tom Briggs is researching in Palermo and Messina. He received information from someone on the Internet who helped him find microfilm records from the FHC. He found contacts with living relatives from Albany, NY state archives (that don't include New York City information). He asked questions about who is going to the Las Vegas conference and what will be presented there. Several members indicated that they were going, but nobody was aware of what would be presented.

Rino DiMasso is researching in Abruzzo. He has been accumulating good Web sites and has a list about one page long. He would be happy to share these with anyone.

Joe Guirreri has found 25 Guirreris in Italy, but there are others with variations on that spelling. Joe is responsible for Sicilian information on the Italian Genealogy "GenWeb" Web site. Please send him anything relevant to Sicilian genealogy to be posted on the Web site. His father (or grandfather?) was conscripted at Marsala, and his whole family moved there to be with him.

Jane Ferrigno is researching several names in several families. She has used Sicilian cemetery sites as sources of genealogical information (except for relatives who's burial sites have already been "recycled" for use by others). She has found more of this information in the U.S. than in Italy because of the recycling there.

The Mazzei Chapter held its third meeting of the year on Saturday, July 25, 1998, at Dolley Madison Library in McLean, VA. Nineteen (19) POINTers and guests were present. The meeting was held from 10:00 am - 12:00 noon, but several members stayed afterwards to continue to talk and share information.

LOU ALFANO (#2114) chaired the meeting in place of the regular chairman, Paul Traunero, who was away on vacation. Besides the usual "round robin" discussion by all members which is described below, the following events occurred:
(1) Lou distributed wallet-size chapter membership cards to all chapter members.
(2) Lou distributed a membership roster (60 members).
(3) As is now customary, Lou brought his traveling Italian genealogy reference library (a/k/a "The Suticase") for everyone to use and he gave an update on new additions.
(4) A drawing was held and two attendees won door prizes - two books that Lou donated - The American Express Guide to Rome and They Made It In America by Robert Corte.
(5) We were treated to home-made pizzelle which were provided courtesy of Marie Bestul.
(6) To date, at least one chapter member, Lou Alfano, plans to attend the POINT National Conference in Las Vegas.

TOM BRIGGS (#1383). Tom is researching relatives in Palermo, Messina and Potenza. He recently had a breakthrough when he discovered a 10-year index of vital records for Messina which he learned about through PIE. Tom recommended LDS research outlines which are available from LDS for $0.25 - $1.25 apiece. He showed us one for doing research in New York. Several genealogical books are now available from Ancestry on CD, including The Source, The Library, and The Red Book. Finally, Tom said that we can correspond with an LDS staff member in Salt Lake City via e-mail.

DONNA DENGLER. Donna was a first time attendee. She has been doing genealogical research for 15 - 20 years, on and off, and is looking for research strategies and suggestions. She is researching Palermo and Messina.

DAN ELSE. Dan is researching Campania, Naples, and Avellino. He has been to Italy where he examined town/civil records. He is reviewing LDS microfilm records and found the script very difficult to decipher ("You'll get the hang of it", he was counseled). Tom has found the multi-volume Italians to America very useful. He learned about an Italian ancestor who came to the USA via a ship originating in Glasgow, Scotland, and going on to New York City through Ireland. He doubted whether he would have discovered this through normal research channels.

RICHARD CAMAUR (#3158). Richard is researching Liguria and Genoa and the surname Fontana. He has corresponded to Italy and has contacted Fontana relatives in California.

KAY HOGAN-TORPEY (#2543). Kay is researching Salerno province, town of Valva, and the Freda family. She is collaborating with her uncle who has tape recorded interviews with relatives he found in New Jersey. Kay brought a 1905 photograph which included her grandparents and her Aunts Catherine and Loretta who are now 95 and 97 years old!

ART MANFREDI (#3414). Art is researching his maternal lines in Salerno and Campania. He recently received a 4-page letter, typed in Italian, from a Professor Luigi Grasso. The local civil authorities may have forwarded the letter Art's letter to Prof. Grasso. Prof. Grasso identified the town of Art's paternal grandmother, Campiano, NE of Genoa near Parma. Prof. Grasso offered to do research for a fee, but Art is already working with Trafford Cole. Art is also researching his wife's family, Marsaro, which settled in Brooklyn. There was discussion about the fact that some parts of norther Italy were once under German or Austrian rule.

ROXANNE FINN. This was Roxanne's first meeting and she is very new to genealogy. Her mother's side came from Catania / Trecastagne about 1910. She is researching the Fichera surname. Roxanne wants to find and visit her relatives in Italy.

JANE FERRIGNO (#3693). Jane is researching her husband's family from Sicily, Trapani province. Jane has worked with Italian census records from 1750, and asked if there are any census records after that. No one was sure. It was pointed out that the Library of Congress has some records which include population count, livestock count, etc., but no traditional census data. Jane has had success using the New York census which were held between the 10- year federal censuses. Everyone agreed that NY census can be very valuable to "fill in the gaps". The New York census records are not indexed, so one has to know the street name, enumeration district, etc. in order to find a family. Finally, Jane asked about the status of the microfilming of vital records in Italy. Richard Camaur reported that he heard that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Italy decided to discontinue allowing LDS to microfilm records.

The discussion about census records brought up several interesting comments and stories. We were reminded that the census often took several days or weeks to conduct, and that it is good research policy to check the enumeration sheets both before and after your family's listing because you could find some interesting things. For instance, Pinky related a story about how a person was mentioned in the same census two times! Apparently the person was interviewed by the census taker when he was single, and was interviewed again several days later after he had married and moved to another address nearby.

MARGUERITE BERTOGLIO (#878). Marguerite is researching Torino. She did not have any new information to report.

PINKY PALLADINO (#937). Pinky is extracting the vital records for the town of Ferrazzano, starting from 1809, using LDS microfilm records. Pinky estimated that he has entered approx. 4,000 records in the past year. This is her last Mazzei meeting - she will be moving to Oxnard, CA, and loooks forward to joining a POINT chapter in CA and also meeting our fearless leader, Tom Millitello. Pinky is a real POINT success story - she has met four 4-star cousins through POINT. Good luck in California, Pinky!

STEPHEN CARFORA (#1279). Steve distributed "Italian-American Genealogy Tips", a compilation of research materials and information prepared by the Italian Embassy press office in Washington, DC. Steve has contacted the INS in hopes of obtaining records his ancestors may have submitted as required by the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Other members said that they have had success obtaining deportation and other types of records from both the INS and the FBI. The FBI has some records of interviews and other information compiled about so-called enemy aliens, including those of Italian descent.

MARGARET CUTINO. Margaret is researching her maternal relatives from Naples and Avellino, the Russo and Ferone lines. Margaret asked about farm rentals in Italy; it was suggested that she check the website "Italy on Line". Margaret also asked if anyone could confirm reports that Italy may be enacting privacy laws which could affect our ability to obtain genealogical information - no one knew for sure. She asked if anyoone ever worked with Italian adoption records - none had. Margaret told us about a Hints from Heloise article which reminded researchers that some cemeteries keep copies of obituaries on file.

JOE PELCZAR. Joe brought several large photocopies of old Italian maps that he obtained at the Library of Congress. The Library staff was very helpful. They will also provide maps in response to written requests. Joe and Margaret asked about names that appear on some of the maps - could some of these be names be family names, in addition to the typical geographical names such as towns, cities, rivers, mountains, etc.? Most of us thought that the names were probably not family names.

JIM GIANNAMORE. Jim is continuing his research, concentrating on his father's side. Jim is contacting relatives in the US. This was Jim's first and last Mazzei meeting since he will be moving out of the area. We wish him well.

MARIE (#1025) & ALDEN BESTUL. Marie (DeCresenzo) is looking up relatives in the US. She recently re-located a second cousin in San Diego who she had lost contact with. She is researching the Avellino area and has found obtaining records from there difficult. She visited Italy in 1963.

FRANK VITALITI. Frank was invited by Bill Menza. Frank has family in Catania and he has traveled back and forth many times to visit them. His last trip was in 1991. Frank's father migrated to the US in 1922 and returned to Italy to marry his mother in 1948. His father owned and/or worked in barber shops in Washington, DC. for many years. Frank graciously offered to do translations for Mazzei chapter members.

BILL MENZA (#1029). Bill has been conducting internet searches and writing letters to Menza's in the US and Italy. Bill heard from a Francesco Menza in Rome who reported that the Menza's are originally from Sicily and migrated to the Naples and Salerno areas. Bill has received a great deal of assistance from Frank Campanero, a fellow POINTer originally from NJ, now living in Reno, NV. Frank is going to Italy soon and offered to do some research for Bill on the Vernieri family line. Finally, Bill distributed copies of Frank's basic research fact sheet and some of the records that Frank has obtained for him.

LOU ALFANO (#1142). Lou is continuing to add ships to his Immigrant Ship web site. He recently created a new web site with information about "New York Immigration Stations" which includes brief history of NYC immigration centers, including Castle Garden and Ellis Island (which burned down on June 13, 1897).

Lou showed us an enlarged and scanned photograph of his mother (age 4) and uncle (age 6). He also gave us an update on new books he has added to his library.

The next Mazzei Chapter meeting will be held on October 24, 1998 at the same location, at 10:00 am. Contact Paul Traunero (#1541) or Lou Alfano for information.

Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei convened on 24 October 1998 at our usual location.

Daniel Else -- presented some conflicting vital statistics about his wife's relations, a Conti family. Members shared their thoughts on how to resolve the information.

Vince Bonzagni (#1893) -- has completed his law degree and passed bar. Congratulations! He now will have some time to rekindle his genealogical interest.

Al Stoffa -- a new attendee vie PIE, is researching his mother's Italian kin.

Earl Jones -- attended the POINT national conference and has a good impression. He urged others to attend the next one.

Rino Di Masso (#3721) -- began his research in the Abruzzo region with four surnames. He is now pursuing 10 names. His letter to the Stato Civile has gone unanswered. Members suggested that he write again and to be patient.

Alden and Marie Bestul (#1025)-- informed us that they are trying to organize a family reunion of first cousins. Members offered ideas about reunions that they have attended.

John Iaconis (#2953) -- recently returned from visiting cousins in San Giovanni in Fiore, Calabria.

Al Santos (#3435) -- is trying to get a tombstone replaced in a closed cemetery in Chester, PA. He will probably have to get a resurvey. His relations settled there and he wanted something native to Chester. He determined that the Lester Piano Company was once based there and was owned by Italians. He was able to find a Lester spinet for sale in Virginia and is now the proud owner of one!

Richard Camaur (#3158) -- is awaiting the completion of microfilming of the Diocese of Piacenza, Piemonte by LDS. This is in contrast to previous reporting by the Catholic Bishops of Italy. Meanwhile he has obtained a "status animarum" from 1851 for Rezzoaglio. It likens to a city directory and provided some non-traditional genealogical information. He has also found an Italian priest with a fax! Richard received a dispensation document via fax with a two-day turn-around!

Kay Hogan-Torpey (#2543) -- received a reply to a letter from a civil worker in Italy that concluded that the family of interest moved to the north of Italy in 1955. A subsequent letter to the north fell into the hands of a relative that knows some English and called Kay. Now they are corresponding via email. And they have requested to exchange old photos via email.

Elisa Ulino (#2301) -- has written letters to relatives in Ancona but has not received any replies. Elisa may have a claim to property over there. She is currently taking a class by John Colletta at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Margaret Cutino -- received opinions about various genealogical software. Copies of documents from the local LDS are very poor. It was suggested that she request copies be made from the microfilm in Utah. She is currently pursuing a "catasto" or history of land ownership in Italy.

Jim Giannamore -- says that attending PIPs helps to keep his interest in genealogy.

Lou Alfano (#2114) -- also attended the first POINT national conference. He also bought a book via an Internet auction by Filippo Mazzei, our chapter namesake.

Paul Traunero (#1541) -- attended a Traunero family reunion in July that was attended by three generations. His genealogy book was reviewed by many and he was able to take many pictures of attendees.

Contact Paul Traunero (#1541)or Lou Alfano (#2114).