MEETING
NOTES
March 25th, 2006
The 25th meeting of PIP #27 POINTers In Person
Chicago- North Chapter was held at the Schaumburg library on Saturday March 25,
2006 with a record thirty enthusiastic Italian genealogists in attendence.
Dan Niemiec opened up the meeting by announcing the up
and coming POINT National Conference that will be held October 6th
thru the 8th in Los Angeles,
California. We read off the list of
speakers and topics and the cost etc.
Our chapter will be giving out some funds from the September conference
to assist members in attending the POINT National in October. This will be drawn at random at the May
meeting.
We had a special presentation by our own PIP member Ray
Mannarelli. Ray has been doing a lot of research with DNA studies. He started
by telling us that his first participation in analyzing his DNA produced some
pretty starting evidence: Ray was Chinese!
In order to confirm this result he decided to do additional tests.
DNA studies can be used for two purposes: confirming
blood relationships between living cousins when documentation cannot be found
in old records, or finding ones ancient ancestry far beyond the civil and church
records we can access. If you are
Italian you could descend from Greek, Arab, Jewish, Spanish, Moor, or German
among others. He advised us how DNA was gathered. There are many sources that will conduct this research for you
but Ray participated in three: Genealogy Foundation www.smgf.org ;
Ethnoancestry, www.ethnoancestry.com
and National Geographic/IBM
https:www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html .
A sample of blood is collected or a small toothbrush with
a scraper instead of bristles collects cells from inside the cheek. It is a
very interesting study and sometimes is used to find out the migration of the
multitudes of people around the world.
It could help you locate where you are originally from.
Larry Pasquesi has also submitted DNA samples and he
mentioned that there are two different tests: the 12 and the 37. The 37 is more accurate but costs about
$250. The 12 test costs about $100 but
is less likely to give clear results.
Ray’s test showed him matching 11 out of 12 patterns with a Bradshaw
from England, and the sampling revealed that there was less than a 2% chance
that they are related to each other 20 generations back!
We had five first timer guests. Dennis Galetano,
researching his Salamone and Galetano ancestors. Christine Ritacca-Lewis , Anna Panvino, Pam Veccher and Rose
Wilchesk. We advised them all how POINT could put them in touch with other
persons possibly doing their research too.
We asked the group for ideas for possible topics for
future speakers at our meetings. We are
also considering holding some multi-week Italian genealogy classes at the
Italian Cultural Center.
Our next meeting will be held Saturday May 13th at our usual location. See our web site for details www.chicagoitalian.org or contact Dan at pipnorth@comcast.net or Rose Ducato at psrmducato@aol.com for more information.