Finding Your Italian Ancestors Seminar

On October 12, I attended a free seminar hosted by the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society, “Finding Your Italian Ancestors.” The presenter was Paola Manfredi, a native of Italy and accredited Italian Genealogist. Paula earned a degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT with a specialization in family history and genealogy. Her experiences include conducting research on microfilm and at archives all across Italy, teaching Italian research classes at BYU, and presenting at conferences in the US and internationally. Paola also managed Italian record acquisition for Ancestry.com and is experienced in researching, reading and translating old hand written Latin, French, and Italian documents. She currently works at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, UT and travels extensively throughout Europe visiting archives and exploring their record holdings.

I am so glad I attended. I have Italian ancestors on both my father's lines. My maiden name is Ficarra. I've traced and cited sources on this line only through my grandfather Philip. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana about 1887. There is a big, brick wall between his birth and when he enlisted in the regular army in 1910. I can't find his parents in any census or city directories. I did find my uncle Philip age 4 (he was from my grandfather's first marriage), enumerated with Philip's older brother and his family in the 1920 Louisiana census.

I've had better luck with my father's mother's family. I've traced and cited sources from Ross and Christina Catania marriage in 1898 in St Mary's Parish, Louisiana through their deaths.

The Italian seminar was so eye-opening for me. I really didn't know where to start. Paola's seminar came at the right time for me. I felt like a newbie starting all over again. I'm excited and full of optimism once again. Her handout was full of links, descriptions and Italian history. She broke down Italian words, gave us the English version, what to look for and what the phrases in documents meant. She explained the Italian Civil Registration Records, civil jurisdictions and archives.

Localities: Finding a town, Italy before 1861, Historical maps of Italy, Finding a parish or a diocese.

Records: State Archive are located at the provincial level. Gave us clues how to search for a microfilm, search by name and search for records on line at FamilySearch.org

Transcribed Vital records of Italian Towns, 2 links
More Italian Records Online, 6 links
Names, 4 links

Since the seminar I bought the book, “Finding Your Italian Ancestors A Beginner's Guide” by Suzanne Russo Adams, AG.

I'm looking forward to plowing through those Italian brick walls.

1905 Wisconsin States Census

I've been updating my genealogy program this week. I noticed (duh!) that I hadn't entered any census information for my ancestors. Since I was working on my mother's maternal line, Bartunek, I thought, “Why not start with this line.” Wow, what a concept!!

My great-grandparents, John and Frances (Hajek) Bartunek were married June 1893, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. Between 1894 and 1917, they had seven children. My grandmother Jennie (born 1901) was their third child. The first four children were all born in Chicago between 1894 and 1903. Children number five, six and seven were all born in Clark County, Wisconsin.

Since I hadn't been able to located them in the 1900 U.S. Population Census. I started looking for them in the 1905 Wisconsin state census on Ancestry.com. Yippee, I found them in Town of Hoard, Clark County! 

Schedule No. 1—Population.

Enumeration of the inhabitants in the Town of Hoard in the county of Clark, State of Wisconsin, on the 1^st day of June, A. D 1905.
Sheet No. 6

Column 1:

Number of family in the order of visitation.
#117

Column 2:

NAME of each person whose place of abode on June 1, 1905, was in this family.
Enter surname first, then the given name and middle initial, if any.
INCLUDE every person living on June 1, 1905.
OMIT children born since June 1, 1905.
(Line 1) Bartunek, John
(Line 2)        “         Frances
(Line 3)        “         Mary
(Line 4)        “         Bessie
(Line 5)        “         Jennie
(Line 6)        “         Joseph

Column 3:

Relationship of each person to the head of the family.
(John)   Head
(Frances) Wife
(Mary)  D
(Bessie)   D
(Jennie)  D
(Joseph) Son

PERSONAL DESCRIPTION.

Column 4:
Color or race.
(John)   W
(Frances) W
(Mary)   W
(Bessie)    W
(Jennie)    W
(Joseph)   W

Column 5:

Sex.
(John)  M
(Frances)   F
(Mary) F
(Bessie)  F
(Jennie)   F
(Joseph)   M

Column 6:

Age at last birthday.
(John) 33
(Frances)  31
(Mary)   11
(Bessie)   9
(Jennie)  4
(Joseph)  2

Column 7:

Whether single, married, widowed or divorced.
(John)  M
(Frances) M
(Mary)  S
(Bessie)  S
(Jennie)  S
(Joseph)  S

NATIVITY.

Place of birth of each person and parents of each.
Column 8:
Place of birth of this person
(John) Bohemia
(Frances) Bohemia
(Mary) Illinois
(Bessie) Illinois
(Jennie) Illinois
(Joseph) Illinois

Column 9:

Place of birth of Parents of this person.
(John) Bohemia
(Frances) Bohemia
(Mary) Bohemia
(Bessie) Bohemia
(Jennie) Bohemia
(Joseph) Bohemia

Column 10:

OCCUPATION, TRADE, OR PROFESSION
of each person FOURTEEN YEARS of age and over.
(John)   Farmer

Column 11:

Months employed.

OWNERSHIP OF HOME.

Column 12:
Owned or rented.
(John)   O

Column 13:

Owned free or mortgaged.
(John)   M

Column 14:

Farm or home.
(John)   F

2013© Gayle Ficarra Wolcott

Book Review

Finding Family

Last week I attended a book club meeting with a few people from our genealogy society. We try and get together once a month to discuss and share the books we have on our shelves. Sometimes we have eight people in attendance, sometimes we have only three or four.

This month, one member discussed a book she borrowed from another member of our society who bought the book from our Ways and Means Sales table at one of our general meetings. She said she couldn't put it down and finished reading it in one sitting. She gave it to her daughter who also finished reading it in no-time flat. That intrigued me.

When we got up to leave, I asked to borrow the book and then pass it onto another member who also said she was interested in reading it. This past week I started and finished this wonderful, easy to read and hard to put down book from Richard Hill called “Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA”.

I love a good mystery, in fact, that's mostly what I read on my Nook. This book kept me up late at night; I was sneaking a few chapters as I ate lunch or while a passenger in the car. Let me quote what is on the back of the book:

“...this isn't fiction. It's an engrossing account of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records. This fascinating quest—including the author's landmark use of DNA testing—takes readers on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer.”

The book is only 249 pages but they are packed with insightful and helpful tips anyone could use. The chapters were tight, didn't ramble and moved the story along in a nice easy clip.

I'm not adopted, nor is anyone else in my family, but I would highly recommend this informative, delightful and sometimes humorously funny mystery.  Our society's Ways and Means chairperson will be purchasing more of these books for our sales table.

2013 Jamboree - Day 3

I had another great day here at Jamboree. Morning classes started with:

8:30 a.m.
D. Joshua Taylor, "Preserving Digital Files: A Step-by-Step Guide"
Wonderful presentation. Joshua went into detail of how and when to start preserving our digital files. He shared some stories of what NOT to do and how to avoid disaster. So glad I went to this class.

10:00 a.m.
Rhonda R. McClure, Was My Ancestor Naturalized?"
Since I'm starting on researching naturalization records, this was a class I didn't want to miss. Rhonda stated when laws took effect and the naturalization process.

11:30 a.m.
John P. Colletta, "Your Immigrant Ancestors How to Discover Their True Stories"
He described the original records and published materials available along with three immigrant stories.

After lunch I perused the exhibit hall, asked a lot of questions, picked up brochures; even won one of the raffles.

2:00 p.m.
Leland Meitzler, "Researching Your Germanic Ancestors Using Online Resources"
My maternal line is German. Haven't done much German research but after Leland's class, I won't be short on websites and links. Good talk.

3:30 p.m.
Cyndi Ingle Howells, "Advanced Googling for Grandma"
This is the first time I've seen Cyndi. I've been using her website since I first started by family research. This advanced Google search left me in awe. She is just amazing. Excellent presentation!

I was able to get a ticket for the Saturday night banquet. The guest speaker was, D. Joshua Taylor, "Games, Stories, and Adventures: The Future of Family History." Enjoyable table conversations; met some great people from around California. I don't always go to the banquets, glad I did tonight.

2013 Jamboree - Day 2

 Had a great day. Got to sleep in, then went down and had a quick cereal breakfast on the "green" between the hotel and the convention center. I attended the JamboFREE Italian Research Roundtable session. Met wonderful people. The moderator was so helpful. She brought several of her own books on Italian records from home. She let us browse through them. She is at the immigration table in the exhibit hall. I have Italian brick wall; I'll be stopping by her booth throughtout the weekend. She'll also be able to help me with my German ancestor questions.

I signed up for the three day conference and was also able to get a ticket for Saturday night banquet. I bought the syllabus (as big and heavy as a phone book). Looked through the book over lunch to help me pick which classes to attend this afternoon. Here's the classes I took:

1:30 p.m. - Lisa Louise Cooke, "Pimp Your iPad: How to Turn Your iPad and Other Tablets Into an Ultimate Genealogy Cruisin' Machine."
EXCELLENT!! I bought her book, but this was what I needed to fully understand some of the Apps.

3:00 p.m. - D. Joshua Taylor, "ArchiveFinder and ArchiveGrid: Treasures in Archival Records."
Lots of great information. Kind of felt over-my-head, but was able to keep up when he got into the ArchiveGrid information.

4:30 p.m. - Daniel Poffenberger, "The Parish Chest: Beyond the Christening, Marriage and Burial Registers."
His talk was on Church of England parish records. I don't have any English ancestors but his talk was very informative and funny.

I'll be checking out the vendors in the exhibit hall; hike down the High-Tech Hallway in the hotel to take a Test Drive in the Tech Zone. Maybe signup for a one-on-one consultation with a Research Assistance from the Southern California Chapter of APG.

There's a wide variety of classes to choose from. Looking forward to tomorrow's sessions.