MEETING
NOTES
front: Laura Heidekrugger, Audrey Allen, Linda Holda, Jan Harms, Roger MacLennan
middle: Jerry Farenga, Gene Veto, Bob Allen, Bob Kurek, Dee Stambazze, Otto Knapp
back: Rich Davi, Blas Costegli, Pat Green, Tom Glatz, Dan Niemiec
missing in action: “Nonna Rosa” Rose Ducato (below, who took the picture!)
SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2001
Fifteen Italian genealogists attended the fourth meeting of
POINTers In Person Chapter #27, at the Schaumburg (IL) District Library on
September 8th.
Members traveled from as far north as Waukegan, as far south as Calumet City,
as far East as the Loop and as far west as Crystal Lake to attend. This was the first time we met on a Saturday
and as a result we had many new members.
Bob and Audrey Allen are long-time POINTers who have been to Italy many times,
have worked with a professional genealogist, and have traced her ancestry back
to the 1500's.
Pat Green is just ready to "cross the ocean" and start working on her
ancestors from the town of Ferrara.
Gene Veto has ancestors in the town of San Lorenzo Bellizi in Cosenza,
and is trying to find out why his ancestors had some of their children in other
nearby towns.
Bob Kurek is very new to genealogy and his ancestors are from Castiglione,
Sicily. There are many Castigliones in
Italy but only one in Sicily, located in Catania. Blas Costegli has been researching for one year, and he says he
hopes to be
finished with his entire genealogy by the end of the
year! We wished him luck and asked him
to write a book on how he did it. He
brought a copy of an original document he could not translate and we all
determined it was a military discharge paper.
Dee Stambazze has been writing to Italy and she also telephoned a relative in
Italy using a company that translates phone calls as you speak. It costs about $3.50 per minute but she felt
it was worth every penny. Tom Glatz has
been researching since 1974, but his Italian line is elusive. His immigrant Italian ancestor came to
Chicago in 1855! Thanks to some name
changes, the Chicago Fire, and vague records, he has been unable to nail down
either the correct name or the ancestral town in Sicily.
Other new attendees who are long-time POINTers were Linda Messina-Holda and
Laura Heidekruegger. Linda brought with
her a book written about her family in Italian. Laura brought some early Chicago maps and books she bought on
E-bay.
A number of members asked about the Certificato di Stato
Famiglia, and how to write to the Ufficio Anagrafe. Jan Harms and Jerry Farenga had both used Italian form letters
for this purpose and we mentioned several web sites that have such letters,
including PIE.
Other attendees included Roger MacLennan, Otto Knapp and Rich Davi.
We briefly discussed how many attendees have ancestral blood
other than Italian. It seems as though
each of us faces many types of genealogical challenges as a result.
Jerry Farenga told the group that there is a new Sony digital camera that saves
the pictures to 3" CD's rather than diskettes or memory sticks.
Dan updated the group on new web site additions, including
an Illinois cemetery address and phone list, plus downloadable maps.
Our group discussed the important features of the National Archives branch
located in Chicago. Rose Ducato had
been working on a daughter-in-law's ancestry and found a great deal using just
census records. Dan explained to
everyone how to use the Northern Illinois Naturalization index to find
citizenship papers more easily without having to know which court they used.
Dan gave out some handouts about recent research experiences using Church
records, death notices and cemetery visits.
Due to time constraints we could not go through these in depth but he
asked for feedback. They will be posted
on the web site at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~itappcnc
Dan showed the group a program he wrote that is used to find the closest
Chicago Catholic churches (by ethnicity) to a particular address. By entering a year they lived there, a
street number and direction (NSEW) and then picking the Chicago street, you get
ten churches ranked by distance from the address. Several members took advantage of this. The intention is to make this available on the internet as soon
as it can be programmed to work in a web page.
Eventually, the census enumeration districts and the pre-1910 addresses
will be added.
We spent the remainder of the meeting discussing specific research problems of
members and we took our picture! Our
next meeting will be Saturday November 10th, at the Schaumburg District
Library, 130 S Roselle Rd in Schaumburg IL.
For more info, e-mail Rose Ducato
or Dan
Niemiec