MEETING
NOTES
Rose Ducato and Bob & Audery Allen at Caputo’s
Dr. Tom Militello (President of POINT) and Dr. Trafford Cole (author of Italian Genealogical Records)
POINT Conference Banquet
The Illinois Delegation at the POINT Conference: Joan Brazzale, Jan Harms, Patti Tolone, Alex DeVolpi, Dan Niemiec, (need name, sorry) and Sarah Jacobs
Our annual Lou Malnati’s dinner
NOVEMBER 9TH, 2002
Meeting Notes from PIP Chapter #27.
Our tenth meeting of Chapter #27 Chicago North, came to
order on Saturday, November 9, 2002. Fifteen
persons attended our final meeting of the year. One new person attended, Frank
Scalise, a volunteer at a local family history center. Others members included: Jerry
Farenga(#1763), Toni Garofalo (#1701), Rose Marie Amato-Curtiletti, Roger
MacLennan (#2835), Sharon & Jerry Marconi (#3626), Peter Ducato, Paul
Douglas, Debbie Stecker (#2226) and Laura Heidekrueger(#67).
Dan Niemiec (#2304) opened our meeting agenda with many
topics. He began with covering the
POINT National Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. With so many excellent presenters, it was difficult to choose
which ones to attend. It also was very
hard to stay away from the library and do ones research.
Rose Ulizzi-Ducato (#1812), had one drawback at the
conference. She had ordered films one
year in advance. When she arrived in Salt Lake to find that the films were in
the vault. Ruth Merriman pulled some
strings and got the films out of the vault to the library for viewing within
two days. However, her experience with
the library staff was exceptional. They
were all so helpful and knowledgeable in every aspect. If you are ever planning on a trip to Salt
Lake, make sure you order your films ahead of time. They only can order five
films per person per day, so if you are planning on doing a lot of research
make sure you order early.
Rose Ulizzi-Ducato presented chapter co-founder Dan
Niemiec with a beautiful red shirt with our chapter logo, and a certificate of
appreciation for completing our second year as a chapter. Dan was quite surprised and grateful.
Dan thanked John Storts for providing several hundred
Chicago street name changes from the early 1900s for our web site. He also asked for some volunteers to write
up some Italian genealogy “how-to” guides to be posted to the web site. He also asked for volunteers to extract
Chicago Italian marriage records and make a searchable internet database. The Italian parishes in Chicago have as few
as 60 marriages and as many as 4000. It
is hoped that people whose ancestors attended certain parishes will volunteer
to extract that parish since they might be more familiar with the names.
Sharon and Jerry Marconi are planning on a trip to Italy
next year. Ron LaPenta is having
trouble finding his grandfathers birth place, due to misspelled names and poor
American documents. He thinks he might
have found the right passenger arrival record but isn’t sure. We suggested he find the Chicago marriage
record on the Catholic parish microfilm because they frequently list the
birthplaces of the bride and groom.
Mt. Carmel Cemetery is now putting all the cemetery
records on computer in a searchable database.
They have completed an index through A through H. Soon all of the records will be
complete. (It is not on the internet
and won’t be available to the public for a while.)
We discussed the coming year and advised all Pipsters #27
that the next conference will be held in Kansas City in 2004. We will try to move our meeting times to
mornings rather than afternoons, so members can attend the meetings and do
other activities as well.
We ended the meeting with our annual dinner at Lou
Malnotti's for pizza, pasta, and salad.
Rose Ulizzi-Ducato made her famous Cannoli's to pass to everyone for
dessert.
Our next meeting date and time will be determined as soon
as Schuamburg Library sets the schedule.