MEETING
NOTES
On a beautiful
crisp, fall, day, PIP #27 Chicago North held its final meeting for the
year. Our attendence jumped to 24 people for a variety of reasons; Nonna Rosa'a
(Rose Marie Ulizzi-Ducato #1812) famous Cannoli's made their annual
appearance; co-chair Dan Niemiec (#2304) gave a presentation on his recent trip
to Italy; and our group held it’s annual family-style meal after the meeting.
His presentation
on his trip to Triggiano, Bari, Italy was very impressive. I am not sure what most
of the other twenty-four persons in attendance thought. I know when the
presentation was over most of us wish we could have been with Dan in Italy,
researching our ancestors. One special guest Rachael Barbour came all the way
from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She came all the way to Illinois not only for the
presentation, but because she is a distant cousin to Dan Niemiec on both her
maternal and paternal lines.
Among the areas
Dan covered in his talk were:
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Write to the
priest ahead of time. Dan’s Triggiano
Mother Church has a web site and the pastor has e-mail.
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Meeting with
the priest at the appointed time (Dan
was delayed by one day by other family and the priest nearly did not permit him
to use the records as a result)
-
Priests in
Italy have no reason to speak English – brush up on your Italian
-
Learn how to
ask in Italian “May I please stay and continue my research?” and other phrases
that may help you stay longer
-
Learn also
how to understand when they are telling you to leave, because you do not want
to appear to them that you are refusing to go.
Don’t let a linguistic misunderstanding cost you a return visit.
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Bring
ancestor charts with you, lots of them.
Show the priest that you are a serious researcher. Find out what town the priest’s surname
comes from and ask if he is from that town.
It shows you’ve done your homework.
-
Get a hold
of a street map of the town so you don’t need to rely on others to drive you
around.
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Ask for
permission to take digital photos of a “few” records, in order to handle the record
books as little as possible. (This
shows that you care for their records.)
-
Explain to
the priest in your initial letter and when you visit that you will not need his
assistance in reading the Latin records.
They’ll be relieved that they won’t be bothered by you too often and
they may leave you alone too.
-
Bring a
laptop with lots of free hard disk space.
Burn your existing research documents on a CD or DVD so the hard drive
will be free for photos.
-
Back up all
images acquired on the trip. I used an
MP3 player with a USB connection and a 20 Gig hard drive. I carried it in a separate bag from the
laptop in case the bag OR the MP3 player was stolen at the airport or train
station, I would still have the images.
-
The digital
camera was 4.1 megapixel, which could be set to large pictures for family group
shots and smaller size to take pictures of documents.
-
Bring an
electric adapter for every item you need to charge a battery for. When 6 items run low on battery the same
night, you need to charge them all or you may be in trouble.
-
Make sure
your laptop and other accessories can handle 230 volts (many can, some
can’t). If not, take a volt converter
with you also.
-
Borrow as
many memory sticks as you can before going to the church. You don’t want to spend your limited time
downloading from memory stick to computer.
-
A tripod can
be used for taking steady photos of church records but it sends the message to
the priest that you are a photographer rather than a researcher. Leave the tripod home.
-
Bring extra
batteries for the laptop and digital camera.
You may not have a place to plug it into in an old church building that
is not well wired.
-
Priests AND
Cemeteries are not too thrilled with you taking too many pictures. Be discreet.
-
When taking
pictures of documents, you will be up close, so use the fine focus feature (the
little flower symbol) on your camera.
-
Learn your
camera’s manual light settings in case you are in a dark room.
-
If you are
looking for a specific person in the church records, the names are usually
written in the margin, occasionally with the name of the person’s father. You may not find an index, and the name may
have been spelled differently back then and thus does not appear in the index
where you expect it.
-
Early church
death records (pre 1750) list the parents OR the spouse of the deceased but
rarely both)
-
Baptism
records list the birth date in the middle of the record. Don’t trust the date at the top of the
record. “die 27” on the 27th
day, or “d’o die” dicto die, this same
day.
-
Deaths of
infants and children may be in a separate book from the regular adult deaths.
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Recent
records may be off limits. Don’t push
it.
-
When the
lunch bell rings, the world stops and eats for 3 hours. If you are persuasive, and look desperate, they
just MAY lock you in the church and let you continue to work. (Yes they locked me in while they ate!)
-
Local or
even national reputation as a genealogist means nothing. Being co-chair of a POINT chapter did not
impress my priest I’m afraid. Knowing the
surnames of the town and knowing which families married each other frequently
does impress the priest.
-
I do not
recommend that you go to do research during the patron saint festivals. If you want to watch them carry the statue,
have fun. If you want to research, go
another time. The priests are extremely
busy preparing for the fests.
-
Go back a
day after you complete your research and bring some money for the saying of
Masses for relatives. You know what the
money is for. So does the priest.
Mary Ann Fitzgerald was a first-time attendee.
She was a guest of Sharon Pinio Smith. Mary Ann is just starting
her quest of her Italian ancestry. We gave her lots of tips how to get
going. Jim Vito was a first timer, he is looking for the passenger lists to
New Orleans and we gave him the good news (there are lists and indexes) and the
bad news (there is no web site). Ron LaPenta is trying the find the marriage
documents of his Italian grandparents. Linda Messina is doing work on
Italian prisoners of war. She is gathering stories of the Italian
soldiers and how they lived their lives in the American prisons. Michael
F. Dizzonne’s father (Francesco Di Zonno) came to the US in 1912 but is not on
the Ellis Island site. Several
first cousins from the same town and about the same age were on the Ellis
Island site but supplemental info on each entry (mother or wife’s name) proved
these were not the right Francesco.
Michael will have to try other ports.
Roger Mac Lennan #2835, wanted to know about the graves in Italy. He heard that
the graves were only rented for a few years. It is sad but true that if
you go to Italy you would be lucky to find graves of your ancestors over fifty
years. Paul Douglas, Peter Ducato #1812, Nancy Colby, David Cella,
Terry Jackson, Mariann Fitzgerald, Toni Garofalo #1701, Frank Scalise,
Diane Kinn #1816, and Prudie Marose, Robert Tunuta were all present to
hear the great presentation from Dan Niemiec #2304. We all adjourned and had
our annual lunch banquet at Lou Malnotti's for pizza, pasta, and had more
lively discussion about what else "Italian Genealogy".
Our tentative meeting dates for 2004 will be Saturdays, March 13, May 8, July
10, September 11, and November 13, 2004, 10:30am-12:30pm followed by informal
lunch at Dominick’s. Please check our
website for further information and details on our meetings agenda and notes.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~itappcnc/index.htm