MEETING
NOTES
May 14th, 2005
On Saturday, May 14, 2005, ten enthusiastic genealogists
joined POINTers In Person, Chapter #27 in Schaumburg, IL.
Dan Niemiec #2304,
spoke of our up and coming “Discover Your Italian Roots”, conference
that will be on Saturday, September 17, 2005.
It will be held at the Italian Cultural Center in Stone Park,
Illinois. The conference will be for
all levels of genealogists from beginners to experts and everything in
between. You can check out our website
for further details at http://www.chicagoitalian.org
. You can email us at italianroots@comcast.net. No internet? Call 1-763-201-3186.
Suzan Stern, first timer is pursuing her Italian heritage
but is hampered by a series of surname changes including 3 during her father’s
generation. She is searching for her
father’s ancestry. She found a photograph of her Dad’s sister. She is having difficulty tracing the
migration of her father. He first went
to New York and then to Oregon. She
found death certificates in Ventura , California. She is in contact with her
grandfather’s sister’s daughter who is still alive at eighty- four years. The
name she is researching is Sericko, but she feels that the spelling of this name is incorrect. It could possibly be Sericco!! Her immediate relatives have been
closed-mouthed but she has distant cousins in Oregon that want to meet her and
exchange photos and info.
Diane Dolan first timer. She is looking to do some
research at the Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Diane is looking to find her English, as well as her Italian
ancestors as to their arrival in the U.S..
Our group advised Diane to
attend all the local genealogy seminars and workshops in the area. This should
put her on the right road to help her in every aspect of her genealogy
research.
John Markey, a first timer advised his name was changed
from Giovanni Marchese to John Markey. He is researching in Basilicata. He has
been to Italy and visited his father’s birthplace. Dan checked the Family History Catalog and found the town in
Basilicata has plenty of films. We
advised John to contact Dr. Tom and join P.O.I.N.T., to help in his quest of
his Italian genealogy.
Jo Ann Tufo-Benedetto came to the March meeting looking
for info getting ready to visit Italy with her grandson. She is just back from
a wonderful experience in Italy. She was in Rome at St. Peters Square for the
Easter holiday and had just left right after the Pope died. Her grandson did not know one word of the
Italian language. But after all the pretty Italian girls he saw there, he was
looking in a Italian dictionary for the words to speak to all these beautiful
Italian girls. The town she is researching in is called “ Apice”. The old town Apice was destroyed by several
earthquakes. There is a new Apice now. She brought many photographs and
memorable stories to share with our group. She plans on going back there next
year. She will bring another one of her grandchildren. How lucky they are to
have a grandmother to take them to Italy.
She gave an excellent presentation about her trip and the people she
met, though her time for genealogical research was limited.
Dan Niemiec #2304, had just returned from his tenth
research trip to Salt Lake City, Utah.
In his short presentation, Dan went over a number of aspects for
preparing for a trip and how to handle your research while there. Dan advised that you don’t need to go there
if you only have one or two towns you are researching, but if you have several
towns and several countries and a lot of US research in many cities, you should
go to Salt Lake and take advantage of the films available. Prepare a list of films you will need based
on the records you need to find. Look
these films up in the catalog and if they say “Vault” then you need to order them
ahead of time from Salt Lake because they are not on shelf yet. Dan keeps track of his missing dates by
entering the film number on each record in a custom field in Family Tree Maker
and then searches for that film number when he uses the film, finally deleting
the film number when the record is found.
Bring all your data with you in case you need it, but it would be better
to scan the data and have it on the laptop hard disk or on CDs or DVD Roms. Make sure you can back up your data so you
don’t lose the data you acquire on the trip.
Bring your digital camera and take pictures of images at your microfilm
reader, especially if you have a lot of them.
The quality is not as good but it saves a lot of time waiting in line
for the copiers.
Our next meetings will be held July 9th, no
regular meeting will be held in September due to our “Discover Your Italian
Roots”, conference in September. Our
final meeting of the year will be changed from November 12th
to November 5th due to conflicts at the Schaumburg Library
meeting place. For meeting info,
contact Dan at italianroots@comcast.net
and for conference info, visit www.chicagoitalian.org