The Archives of

Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei

Part 12

"Il Circolo Mazzei took a break from our usual proceedings and met at Pulcinella's restaurant in McLean, Virginia. Sixteen members were present and shared good conversation and food. As a parting gift, Lou Alfano presented those in attendance with a music CD of Italian favorites. Our next meeting will be in the usual forum on April 15 at 10:00 a.m. at the Dolley Madison branch of the Fairfax County Library System. Ricordi: http://www.geocities.com/circolomazzei/ "

For further information on our chapter, visit:

for past minutes and future meetings and events.

Il Circolo met as usual at the Dolley Madison Library in McLean, VA, on April 15, 2006. Attendance was low, this being the Easter weekend, but we garnered two new members and had a good exchange. Several themes came up repeatedly: difficulties encountered from varying spellings of a name, contradictions between family oral history and archival documents (and sometimes between the documents themselves), and interest in DNA methods to trace relationships.

Lou Alfano (# 2114) long-time POINTer, is moving to Pennsylvania; this was his last meeting with us. We bid him an affectionate farewell and are sure that POINT will be hearing from him in future.

Jane Ferrigno (#3693) has a conflict with oral, church and Stato Civile records for a grandparent's birth -- the baptism seems to predate the birth date in the Stato Civile. Members commented that the Stato Civile is legally the correct date, suggested several possible explanations (error in one of the records, fudging when reporting the birth in order to avoid a penalty for delayed report) and proposed various ways to check -- scan the dates for other events preceding and following the two reports, be sure that date of birth is in the main body of the Stato Civile, not the first sentence (which is the date of the report), if a male child check military registration.

Anne Jeffery (#4845) had been stuck with the immigration record for her grandmother, but Margaret Cutino (#3538) helped her out and Anne has learned that the grandmother came over with five children; family history had said that one child died at sea but this isn't supported by the manifest. The 1920 census suggests that one child died at some point, but all the names had been anglicized so that it's difficult to tell who was who. Anne is going to Italy in June and asked for advice about the best way to get euros, and about bringing or renting cell phones.

John Iaconis (#2953) has a puzzle; his maternal grandmother definitely had two older brothers but he can't find any record of their births and extrapolating from ages these two would have been born when the parents were very young teenagers. Perhaps they were adopted? Or he's found the wrong parents for the grandmother? Members had many comments and suggestions, most of which did not answer the facts, though Lou did make the important point that conservative families sometimes did not report births to the Stato Civile, preferring to use only the church.

John and Margaret were both interested in DNA testing and this lead to much discussion of the various options available -- Relative Genetics versus Family Tree -- and explanations of the difference between maternal (mitochondrial) and paternal (nuclear) DNA. Margaret was advised to get samples from her elderly uncle ASAP. She hopes that their long residence in one village might provide a useful link for others.

Kay Torpey (#2543) reported the very disappointing news that the LDS has been unable to arrange for microfilming of records from Salerno province, despite optimism last year.

Alicia Sommers is new to POINT, having learned about it through the Fairfax Genealogical Society. She is researching the Loudis family (or in Italian Laudisio) from outside Naples.

Connie Sancetta (#4903) spent five days in Rome in February, visiting cousins she has known for years and meeting several more for the first time. They are very interested in the history she has uncovered and are beseiging her with emails, letters and phone calls. Connie also reported that the name now spelled "Sancetta" seems to have derived from two completely different older names -- "Sangetta" from a Spaniard of 1500 in Messina Province and "Ciancetta" from the area of Poggioreale/Salaparuta in Trapani Province.

Winnie Pizzano is also a new member, with ancestors from Avellino. She has met the maternal relatives, who are still making olive oil, and has the Pizzano history pretty complete back to 1500. She found another Pizzano through Family Tree Maker, which lead to a discovery that someone had been married twice. She can't find her grandfather's immigration record and has looked through every pages of the ship manifests for several years around the time he came. Members had several suggestions -- many pages from the 1890's are illegible and/or water-damaged; he may have come in through Canada, he may have helped out during the cruise and would be listed with the crew. Kay recommended a FOIA request to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration, saying you wait a long time but it's amazing how much documentation you can get.

Finally and patiently, John Tromba (#2915) had nothing to report for himself but did report for his cousin Hope Castagnola Bogorad (#1629) who could not attend today's meeting. She had two items to report. First, he told us that the family photo on the cover of the Spring 2006 issue of POINTers is a 1934 picture of Hope's paternal grandparents and their offspring. Hope wrote the accompanying article on page 5 and appears in the picture. Hope also submitted excerpts from her father's autobiography on pages 6 and 7. John and Hope have found dozens of relatives and John provided them with CD's of the family tree, but only if they agree not to give or sell the information outside the family. The second item is a sad incident where Hope wrote to people in Sicily with her father's name looking for family connections. At least one letter fell into the hands of someone of dubious ethics and Hope became the recipient of numerous e-mails that were obvious scams. Whether the letters were intercepted or someone in the family is of dubious ethics is unclear, but it was a salutary warning of the downside in trying to contact strangers.

The next two meeting dates to complete 2006 are July 22 and October 21 in the morning at 10:00-12:30. Since the Dolley Madison Library will be undergoing a renovation, our meeting location beginning in 2007 will be different. Check our Website for details http://www.geocities.com/circolomazzei/.

For further information on our chapter, visit:

for past minutes and future meetings and events.