Pursuing Our Roots

Many Fra Noi readers were born in Italy, or their parents were. They have the easy task of knowing what town the family came from. And then there are the rest of us. When I was much younger, my Polish grandmother told me that her family came from Krakow and my Italian grand-aunt told me that her family came from Bari. Both were close, but no Toscano cigar! Neither one realized that you need to know the actual small town your family came from to adequately conduct genealogical research. The nearby big city is not good enough. Italy managed its …

Before the internet, people at a local bar would argue about who hit more home runs, Willie Mays or Willie McCovey. Since there was no place to look up the answer, the winner would be the guy who had the hardest punch! Once we had internet access on smart phones, we go to Wikipedia and settle the factual debate without anyone getting a bloody nose. Genealogy methods are not as clear cut as looking up sports statistics, but FamilySearch.org has an entire section of the web site dedicated to looking up how to research a particular locality, small or large. …

Genealogists get a gift once a decade. Every ten years, the federal government takes the census, and 72 years later they release the full results to the public for use in genealogy research. Most people only remember the census as the time when the government asks us how many toilets we have etc. Most of us will probably not live long enough to see those census returns 72 years later. But last year we were given our decennial gift: the 1950 U.S. Census. When I started genealogy in the 1990s, there was basically no internet, and the census records certainly …

Last month, I explained how our ancestors married people from their town of birth a large percentage of the time. This was a byproduct of transportation difficulties, and the custom of arranged marriages, among other reasons. So before entering the once-indissoluble state of Holy Matrimony, a series of documents were assembled to verify that the marriage would be legitimate and could not be challenged. One type of document was the marriage banns, known in Italy as the pubblicazioni. These were used to tell the town that these two people wanted to marry (or their parents wanted them to marry), and …

I grew up in an era when our parents had their friends and we would refer to them as “Aunt” or “Uncle.” Later in life, we discovered they were not related to us. It was a little like when we discovered Santa Claus was just Dad in a red coat and a beard. I never asked my folks why they insisted I call them Auntie Virg and Uncle Bill. I was also surprised how many of my Dad’s colleagues at his job were Aunties and Uncles. When it came to family, nobody was my Aunt or Uncle unless they were …

We are very lucky to have Italian roots, for many reasons. From the point of view of researching one’s family tree, the major advantage of working with Italian records is that so many of them exist, are usually quite accurate, and can be acquired without flying all the way to Italy. Imagine how difficult it would be if the only way you could get a copy of your grandfather’s birth record from Italy would be to fly to Italy and go to the civil records office and request one. They won’t give you a “copy.” Instead, they give you a …

After around 30 years of research experience, I have reached a point where I do what I do like a machine.  I don’t think about the method.  I just do it and it works. In the process of getting ready for presentations on “Beginning Italian Genealogy” I had to ask myself “How did I learn to do this in the first place.’ Then I decided that I don’t want any of you to learn the way I did, which was pure painful trial and error.  There should be a simple guideline for the research method, to help you focus on …

I have been asked by people who are new to genealogy where they can go to get help from an expert, and where they can view records that are categorized as “restricted.” There are two equally valid choices, for different reasons: the nearest FamilySearch Center or Affiliate Library A FamilySearch Center (they were called Family History Centers until early 2023) is a small room in a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) building set aside for genealogical research. You do not have to be a church member to use this room, and no one will EVER give you …

Starting Feb. 25, I began a series of monthly presentations at Casa Italia to give people the easiest way to get started with creating their ancestor family tree. A lot of people know a lot of disorganized information, some of it accurate, some of it not. My goal is to help you organize the info you have, and confirm the accuracy of what you know, or what you thought you knew. The types of information you can find is endless, but the traditional accepted way of comparing your family tree with others is to know seven essential facts about yourself …

Last month, we went over some tricky problems with handwriting in old Italian records. We have to use some simple techniques to help you read the records with less effort and more accuracy. These techniques may not work in every situation but they are a standard logic to help you reduce the number of possible letters to choose from in each word. You may see a very poorly written word that looks at first glance like Mrysiclush, but that doesn’t make sense in Italian no matter what part of the record you are reading. Handwriting tip #1 is the easiest …