Columns

So I’m sitting in beautiful downtown Berwyn enjoying an espresso when my phone rings. I see it’s Fra Noi editor Paul Basile, so I pick up the phone thinking my Giovanni the Talking Teddy Bear order is ready. Boy, was I wrong. Paul tells me he has an idea for a column about Italian Americans living in the southwest suburbs. I say, “That’s great, Paul. Are you talking Naperville? Lisle?” In a bad Svengoolie accent, he says, “No, Burr-vynnn.” I try to explain that Berwyn isn’t “South Side,” unless we’re talking baseball. And once I straighten him out geographically and …

Hi. I’m Giuseppe Zerillo and I’m Fra Noi’s new real estate columnist. Born and raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago, I learned my work ethic from my mother, who taught me to work hard, treat people fairly and always put others before myself. She used to tell my sisters and me while growing up that “People who work hard while their hair is still dark will not have to work as hard when it turns gray.” How true is that! I work for Gateway Realty & Builders, the first and only company I have worked for since I’ve been …

The journey from Italy to America is most likely the most important part of the lives of our immigrant ancestors. It is certainly a major part of their history, and we need to understand as much as we can about those several weeks in their lives. In the past couple of months, we learned a lot about their experiences aboard ship and at Ellis Island. We learned some tips on finding their passenger list at www.ellisisland.org. Now that we found it, what do we learn from it? Please keep in mind that the older the passenger list is, the less …

Last month, we discussed the procedure our immigrant ancestors had to go through to get off the ship and be released from Ellis Island. This procedure varied at other ports but was similar. By most estimates, 2 percent of the immigrants who entered Ellis Island were forced to return home for health reasons or because they failed the mental aptitude tests or for various employment reasons. During World War I, it was difficult to travel to America, mostly thanks to the new U-Boats that were sinking ships around the coasts of Europe. By the time World War I ended, many …

Last month, we went through some of the decision processes our ancestors went through to make the great trek to America. One of the most important parts of our family history is to understand why our grandparents left their home and everyone they knew and came across the ocean to a place that was entirely different. Most of the Italians who came to America did not leave Italian farm work for American farm work. This is especially true if they were heading for Chicago. Leaving one farm for another didn’t make sense. They barely had enough money to get aboard …

A lot of people have asked me recently about finding more information about their immigrant ancestors. Names, dates and places are the bricks and mortar, but if you want to build a cathedral, you need to do some detail work. Most of our immigrant ancestors did not tell us the story of their journey to America. In many cases, they did not want to recall the unpleasant experience of spending two to three weeks aboard ship, crowded, with little room to sleep, poor food, and poor facilities. If you don’t talk about it, then it didn’t happen! In other cases, …

Last month we talked about computer software to use to enter and organize your genealogy information. I used Family Tree Maker as the example program but there are others out there. We can’t show screens of every program in this column but it is important that you pick one program and stick with it. If you are new to genealogy, you won’t know the strengths and weaknesses of each program. The best thing you can do is to read reviews on the internet, or join a local genealogy group and ask the experienced members for advice. There is also a …

In the past couple of months, we have gathered information from various sources, good and bad. The information may be accurate and may be a little hazy. The amount of information is becoming hard to organize. The chart we drew up on the first day is getting filled with little notes and corrections. We might be losing control of the information we have gathered and we need to organize it and make it easier to focus on specific facts we want to investigate. Usually when we research, we are looking for one or two specific facts at a time. It …

If you’ve ever worked in an office, or if you’ve ever been in a fender-bender, you’ve played a little game called “He Said She Said.” You both argue until blue in the face, but since neither of you has definitive proof of what happened, neither of you can settle the dispute. If only I had better proof than that no-good rotten so-and-so… In genealogy, you may not have arguments per se, but you are looking into your family tree and you are not a professional genealogist. You’re just a regular person. So when someone else looks into the same family …

Last month, we started our journey of discovery by filling out a pedigree chart with all the information we know about our ancestors. I bet a lot of you were surprised by how much you do not know. That is normal. It might have been a struggle to remember your grandparents’ anniversary. (Some folks can’t remember their OWN! Ouch!) This is all part of the process. You should not give up because you do not know everything right away. “The Search” is what genealogy is all about. Now that you have filled in a pedigree chart with what you know, …