The Archives of

Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei

Part 10

Last updated October 21, 2004

The Washington, DC Metro Area Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei (POINT Chapter #6) met on January 10, 2003 at the Dolly Madison Public Library in McLean, Virginia.

Lou Alfano (#2114) chaired the meeting in Paul Traunero's absence and opened it by reminding the group about the October 7-9, 2004 POINT National Conference in Kansas City, MO. He mentioned three books he found to be important for research: Finding Italian Roots by John Colletta, Discovering Your Italian Ancestsors by Lynn Nelson, and Italian Genealogical Records by Trafford Cole. Lou stated that they should be used in th order listed, as one becomes more proficient in Italian Genealogy. He noted that coats of arms are given by a sovereign to a person, which can only be passed on by this person to his first son, and his first son could pass it on to his first son, and so on. Only first sons inherit a coat of arms, and therefore, it belongs to no other persons even if you happen to have the same family name. Lou noted that the LDS Family History Center in Oakton, VA has birth, death, and marriage directories for New York City; and that LDS Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software is free and can be obtained from their Internet site.

Bill Menza (#1029) leaves for Salerno in March on the Campania tour sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation. He showed a letter he drafted in Italian to send to the Ufficio di Stato Civile and the Ufficio Anagrafe of San Gregorio Magno for birth, marriage, and family records. Members of the group will help him to rewrite the letter in better Italian.

Art Manfredi (#3414) has traced his father's maternal line back to the 1800s. Tafford Cole is doing research for him on his mother's family. In April Art leaves for Salerno on the NIAF Campania Tour. He passed around copies of the birth and marriage certificate extracts on his great great grandfather and grandother he had just received from the Comune di Campiano. He mentioned that www.ItalyWorldClub.com has a wealth of information on Italy.

Dan Else is researching family in the Avellino area. He noted that the Library of Congress is giving a workshop on Genealogical Research on Wednesdays from Jan. 21 to Apr 21 in the Jefferson Building.

Donna Dengler is researching the Palermo area for family.

Sarena Welch has traced her family on her mother's side back to the 1500s.

Bill Naughton is helping Sarena with her research. He suggests putting your family story on RootsWeb.com. It is free and you do not give up ownership on what you provide as is the case with some other Websites. He said he gets emails constantly from people searching the same family lines, who found his family webpage on RootsWeb.com. Some of these contacts have provided information he would not have found otherwise. Lou Alfano mentioned that Geocities.com is another place to post family information. He said that books like HTML for Dummies would be helpful in learning how to construct website pages; and not to list any living people in what you post; and to use a throw-away email address because of spam problems.

Bob Carrubba is searching in Sicily (Galiano and Trieno) for information on his father's family. It was suggested that he search military records to find out more about some family members.

Louis DeSanti showed the group a family photograph over 100 years old he discovered in the attic, which shows his mother as a young woman. He related how on one of his return trips from Italy as a 15 year old boy, he was held at Ellis Island, because he was a minor. He had to wait until the next day when an adult family member came to get him.

Nancy DeSanti told the group about her trip to Salerno (the one sponsored by NIAF). She said that the hotel where tour members stay gives a view of the Bay of Salerno. The food was excellent. Breakfast was such a meal that you could not eat lunch. She said that a number of people on the tour rented cars to visit the comuni of their families. Next year the NIAF sponsored tour will be to Sicily.

Jerry Polizzi is going to Sicily in March to the town of Polizzi with 35 other people. The trip is being organized by OysterBayTravel.com. He just read the book Blood Washes Blood by Frank Vivano, a foreign correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. It is the personal story of Vivano's search for his family roots in Sicily.

Anne Jeffrey is tracing family in Abruzzo. Two men working on a book on one line of the family have contacted her to review their manuscript.

Kay Hill (#4183) is searching the Lombardi and Gamboni areas. Her family settled in Pittsburg, PA. She plans to get the book Beyond the Golden Door that was mentioned in POINTers.

Connie Sancetta is searching her Sancetta and Romano family lines in Sicily.

David Ciummo said his father come from Italy to Pittsburgh, PA. He is searching his family lines in Abruzzo. His mother's Debeco family line are from the Potenza area. He has an interest in obtaining an Italian passport, since his father apparently was not naturalized. He leaves on a trip to Italy in less than two weeks.

Kay Torpey is searching her Freda ancestors. She recommends the book: The Handy Book of Genealogists. It lists what records each state has. Also, Bookfinders.Com was mentioned for finding books. It does a complete search of the Internet to locate books with one exception of one of the major booksellers that does not want to be included in the search.

The Group's next meeting is April 10, 2004 at 10 a.m. at the Dolley Madison Library, McLean, VA.

As always, we invite you to our website at

for past minutes and future meetings and events.

or e-mail Paul Traunero or Lou Alfano for additional information.

This year�s second meeting of Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei took place at the Dolley Madison Library on April 10, 2004. Despite the fact that it was Holy Saturday, 19 loyal members attended. In Paul Traunero�s absence, Lou Alfano chaired the meeting and Dan Else took the minutes.

Lou Alfano (#2114) started off the round-robin by announcing the dates of the remaining two meetings of Il Cirolo Mazzei, July 17 and October 9, 2004, at the Dolley Madison Library. He noted that this conflicts with the annual POINT Conference, held this year between October 7 and 9 in Kansas City, Missouri. Lou will present his updated talk on immigrant ships at the conference. He also noted the recent reduction in annual dues for POINT ($30). Lou passed around a copy of a thick reference volume on Italian names and surnames that he had downloaded from the Internet. Nomi E Cognomi: Saggio di Ricerche Etimologiche e Storiche, authored by Angelo Bungioanni, appears to have been written around 1930 and is available as a PDF file at http://www.librister.com/eng/showcase/araldica.html.

Bill Menza (#1029) just returned from a trip to southern Italy that included tours of Salerno, Napoli, the nearby islands and the environs. He contacted Menzas in San Gregorio Magno whom he had met on a 1977 trip. His lunch at their home lasted until 6 p.m. They then talked the curator of the town hall into opening the registers for research. He finally left the town at 9 p.m.

Bob Carruba (#4406) described frustration with sending a stream of letters to an Italian comune that were rejected or ignored. He related his correspondence with St. John's Cemetery in New York City. The Cemetery escalated its price for assisting in document research from $40 to $50 to $300 and now provides a menu of prices. He also found that family photos glued into an album had full identifying information written on the back of each picture.

Joe Gagliardo (#4875), a new member, began his research last July. Both sides of his family originated in Corleone, Sicily. One visit to the National Archives regional Center in New York City, he discovered that his frustration in searching online databases was caused by a misspelling in the original immigration records. Using "Gugliardo," he quickly found original and online information.

Art Manfredi (#3414) engaged Trafford Cole and received a package of research that included a CD of Gedcom files and photographs. Trafford attached a detailed letter that explained gaps in vital records. Priests in the town had sold blocks of records to prominent local families, and they are therefore lost.

Donna Dengler described how Roots Mail postings of several years ago are still generating e-mails from researchers. She asked whether surnames that included "Intessa" indicated an orphan being raised by another family.

Jane Ferrigno (#3693) described her recent 3 1/2-week trip to Sicily and her hit and miss luck in convincing the local parish to open its archive.

Lou DeSanti received a letter from a POINTer in Pennsylvania (Felix Cianciarulo of Coraopolis) because of a posting on the Il Circolo web site. Lou had traced the lineage of one signer of the Declaration of Independence, Caesar Rodney of Delaware, to Italy. Felix had traced another, William Paca of Maryland.

Nancy DeSanti noted that the most recent issue of the National Italian-American Foundation Quarterly (NIAF) featured the Italian roots of the new president of the American Medical Association, Donald Palmisano.

Anne Jeffery (#4845) had excellent service using an online photo restoration service, DiscountDigitalArt.com. She was cautioned to ensure that she used only acid-free plastic sleeves to preserve documents.

Robert Melchiori found that a distant relative in Trento possesses a massive family archive that he is eager to share.

Marie Melchiori (#2828) discovered that World War II selective service records for older men (those born between 1877 and 1897) in some New York City boroughs that are held at the National Archives regional center there have been resorted alphabetically instead of by draft office. She has also begun to correspond with the cousin in the Gaeta/Formia area.

Margaret Cutino (#3538) describes several instances where keeping connections open with other researchers and trading favors had reaped significant benefits by taking advantage of circuitous connections to important information. She offered to use her subscription to Ancestry.com to assist others in online searches. Several members noted that both the Library of Congress and the National Archives seemed to have recently enhanced electronic access to information on their web sites.

Joe Pelczar has discovered through electronic correspondence initiated through the posting of club minutes that his surname appears to have been very common within a small geographic area in Poland.

Elisa Ulino (#2301) recommended 300 Years of Long Island City by Vincent F. Seyfried, published in 1985 by the Queens Historical Society (188 pages) to all those whose families have lived in or near the city through 1930. It is available for $30 from the Society at http://www.queenshistoricalsociety.org/publications.html and is currently being updated.

Kay Torpey (#2543) described both the discovery of a large, beautiful cameo belonging to her great-great-grandmother's sister and a family history project undertaken by an uncle that is grinding to a halt. She is planning a trip to Trenton, New Jersey, to solve both problems. She discussed a small group of POINT members who have formed a collective for the clearing of genealogical data and hiring of researchers.

John Iaconis (#2953) will soon travel to Basilicata. He discussed the difficulty in traveling from Rome to the heel of the Italian boot.

Mary Madeline King discussed her intention to visit the Abbruzzo. The group discussed the merits of various tour companies (Trafalgar, Insight, Globus, etc.). One member suggested that she contact Bethesda Travel Center, which is local, designs custom vacations, and is owned by Guido Adelfio, an Italian-American.

As always, we invite you to our website at

for past minutes and future meetings and events.

or e-mail Paul Traunero or Lou Alfano for additional information.

Our last meeting was held on July 17, 2004 at our usual meeting place at the Dolley Madison branch of the Fairfax Public Library System in McLean, Virginia. We numbered 16 and included a new member who discovered us via our Web page. After the meeting, some members reconvened at Pulcinella's Italian Restaurant. Our next and final meeting for the year is scheduled for October 9, 2004 at 10:00 am. Below, chronicles the minutes of our round-robin format discussion.

Anne Jeffery -- had nothing new to report, but was able to take away several nuggets of information about genealogical resources.

Joe Pelczar -- mentioned that upgrading to Internet Explorer 6.x helps when downloading files from the Ellis Island Website.

Margaret Cutino -- told of her recent trip to the Library of Congress' Adams Building, where they have back issues of old magazines. They can give a window into society of years gone by.

Jerry Polizzi -- related his second trip to Sicily in March of this year. The NIAF tour was able to go off-track to some monasteries in Cefalï. He also noted that the last issue of POINTers included an article about his relatives that was submitted by his cousin-in-law.

Kay Torpey -- updated us on her endeavor to contact a cousin in order to repatriate a family cameo. She eventually succeeded in getting it to Tony Altieri. Kay had found it among her mother's belongings after she died. She also recently tape recorded her father's answers to questions about his experiences in World War II. She will submit the copies of the tapes to the LOC's veterans history project. The early portion of the tape has some background noise and we discussed who to contact that might be able to cancel it.

Laura La Corte -- is a new member and received an abundance of advice regarding recording of the information that she has and interviewing relatives. At the end of the meeting, she found three POINT members researching a surname of interest to her and now has their contact information.

Nancy De Santi -- made her first visit to Italy without her father. She took a NIAF sponsored trip to Sicily. The tour was flexible and included a foray into the countryside. [author note: This week I received an email request for more information about Nancy's entry in the Mazzei minutes of January 2002 regarding Maria Barbella!]

Louis De Santi -- is satisfied with his genealogical information dating back to 1840. He has gathered this via visits to the towns where he lived as a child. In the near future, he is to be interviewed for inclusion in a family time capsule.

Richard Camaur -- has long been researching in the Genoa area and has submitted nine surnames to POINT. Fellow member Jean Florio saw his CUNEO line and suggested that he search in the Sopra Chiavari area.

David Ciummo -- discovered documents and letters in a shoebox belonging to a relative. His relatives lived in Acquaviva. They emmigrated from France due to the satisfied quotas from Italy. He has found the port of entry from 1930 of his father and grandmother.

Art Manfredi -- was on another NIAF sponsored trip to Campania. He had made arrangements with cousins there to drive him to the town of his mother's origin--Santangelo Fasanella (SA). While there, he was treated to a 2-1/2 hour dinner with 17 people!

Bill Menza -- was on yet another NIAF trip to Salerno, when he was able to visit the town of his great-grandparents--San Gregrio Magno. It was a great experience for him.

Lou Alfano -- recently bought the book The Story of Italian Immgration-Passage from Italy. He also shared three books by Giovanni Schiavo. On the subject of whether William Paca was an Italian signer of the Declaration of Independence, Lou posted a rebuttal on the Colonial Hall Website, citing some other sources to consider. Lastly, he noted that during his research, the term "collegiata" can also refer to a church.

Paul Traunero -- recently updated and completed gathering copies of obituaries of his relatives from his home town. In one of them is noted the exact date of immigration, September 1, 1882, for which he has been seeking their port of entry at the National Archives. His ancestors have failed to be included in both the Germans and Italians to America series.

Linda Moran -- along with husband, Earl Jones, announced that they are going to Nicosia, Sicily early next year in order to further her genealogical research.

For further information on our chapter, visit:

for past minutes and future meetings and events.

or e-mail Paul Traunero or Lou Alfano for additional information.

The latest meeting of Il Circolo Mazzei was held on October 9, 2004 at the usual location--The Dolley Madison Library--in McLean, Virginia. Notes from the meeting follow:

Art Manfredi passed around some birth and military conscription records for one of his Great Grandfathers. He noted that the Archivio di Stato di Parma now has an email address on its stationery. He also passed around a photo of the building in Little Italy in NYC where his Manfredi Grandfather and Great Grandparents lived in 1880. There is now a Chinese restaurant on the street level.

Joe Gagliardo noted that all his ancestors came from Corleone in Sicily. He has civil birth and marriage records. Is beginning to search church records held by the LDS, he was surprised to find an index to marriages for 1581-1880. From these records he has traced his name back to 1609. Another member noted that LDS films might be filed by town, diocese or province, so it is a good idea to try various searches to find available records.

Joe Pelczar noted that the Library of Congress Adams building allows personal scanners to be brought in and used.

Margaret Cutino added that she and Joe were scanning the cover of a magazine that was deteriorating seriously, and they called it to the attention of Library personnel. It might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Elisa Ulino is researching in Le Marche and Basilicato. A family trunk has yielded photos of her Grandfather, one of which needs restoration. Several members offered suggestions for a source.

Will Amatruda has been searching for his Grandmother�s grave in NYC. She brought his Mother to the US when his mother was 8 months old and died shortly thereafter. The death certificate had "county farms," thought to be akin to a potter�s field. His research led initially to Staten Island, but the latest suggestion is Kings County Hospital cemetery, a lead he will pursue. He also passed around a Sanborn map, the detailed maps done for insurance purposes in the late 1800s. The Library of Congress Map Room in the Madison Building has the collection. Another member noted that this Map Room also has maps of towns in Italy. Will also mentioned that he had gotten some useful information from gravesites at St. John�s Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Louis DeSanti noted that this was Columbus Day weekend and celebrated it by graciously giving each member a copy of his book Columbus and the New World!

Nancy DeSanti noted that she is going on the NIAF trip to Sicily, and will be attending [as will Art Manfredi] a reception at the NIAF gala next weekend for those who went on the NIAF trip to Campania.

Jerry Polizzi noted that he had toured Tuscany recently, and that the Sicily trip on which he had gone last March was being conducted [by Dr. Mario Macaluso] again in 2005.

Robert Melchiori learned from a nuns� Motherhouse in Tenafly, NJ, that an ancestor was buried in a cemetery in Jersey City. Upon going there, he found she has been buried in a common grave for nuns.

Dan Else had no new information.

Donna Dangler mentioned that her Mother had met someone with the same name from the same ancestral town. This is a potential source for information. She is also looking for a cooking class in Sicily.

Anne Jeffery is researching her family from Termo along the Adriatic Coast. She had a problem getting "official" information from a small cemetery in Delaware. Even though she knows from her Mom that ancestors are buried there, the cemetery claims they have no record.

Marie Melchiori, who is a professional genealogist, noted the importance of documenting the source of every detail in our research. She gave us a copy of a reference list for citation standards, and examples from two software packages of printouts - one with no citation information and the other with full citations.

Connie Sancetta recommended the book Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb. She is researching the Sancetta name from the Messina province in Sicily. Her GGGGrandfather had a brother, and she found his town. She then went to the Italian phone book, found relatives [fifth cousins?] and visited them. She received a very warm welcome. She is a paleontologist, and has been invited back to participate in a dig with a professor from the University of Messina!

Loren LaCorte is just starting her quest. Her Great Grandfather was an orphan in Italy and she doesn�t know the town he was from. Members made several suggestions on avenues of research she might pursue. Marie Melchiori suggested Legacy [free] or Master Genealogist [purchase] as software packages.

Jane Ferrigno is researching in Sicily, and has found Ferrignos in Alcome from 1704 to 1920. She went there and met third cousins, but inexplicably was not well received. She has tracked some relatives to Naples, but has had trouble finding records. She is also trying to find the gravesite of a Great Aunt in a Toms River, NJ, cemetery. Since she does not know the year of death, neither the cemetery nor the Town Hall can help. Marie Melchiori noted that a book about NYC graveyards had been published about five years ago.

Our next meeting is scheduled for January 15, 2005.

For further information on our chapter, visit:

for past minutes and future meetings and events.

or e-mail Paul Traunero or Lou Alfano for additional information.