Italian Family Tree

New Family Tree - looking for a Volunteer

Hi all, you may have seen my previous post where I have finished off helping the Gervasi family with their family tree.

I'm ready to start assisting anyone else, and so, I'm looking for a volunteer. If this could be of interest to you or anyone else (of Italian background) please send me an e-mail to me at [email protected] and we can assess how I can help.

kind regards

John

Gervasi Family Tree - Part 4 (Final)

This is probably the final post relating to researching and documenting the Gervasi Family Tree that I started about 1 month ago.

My objective since the last post was to find the 6 remaining direct ancestors of Pietro Gervasi (born 1915) that would enable the family to trace their ancestors back to the late 1700's.

The quickest way to do this was to find the marriage record of two couples (Damiano Trua and Anna Comito) and (Domenico Musuraca and Teresa Petrolo).

If I was able to find these marriage records, not only would they provide further evidence that the ancestors previously discovered were correctly recorded, but we would also obtain details of the names of the relevant parents and hence go back an extra generation.

Searching was a relatively simple task of starting from the year of birth of the relevant child then working backwards reviewing relevant marriage records.

So for example, Annarosa Trua was born on 1842. Her birth record indicated her father was 42 and her mother 36. In order to narrow the search I proceeded on the assumption that her mother was at least 18 when she was wed. Allowing for errors in ages "recorded" by the town's scribe, I came to the conclusion that the marriage took place sometime between 1819 and 1842.

The next step then involved working backwards from 1842 towards 1819. Eventually, I found the marriage record in 1823 which specified the names of the parents .

I followed the same approach to find the marriage record of Musuraca to Petrolo which occurred in 1831.

With these people found, the 5 generation fan chart was now complete (see image).

So in the space of a month, we have been able to discover the identity of 28 individuals belonging to the direct lineage of Pietro Gervasi that the family was not previously aware of.

Are there more family members that can be discovered?

In short yes. I have left the family with a project to look for the death records of the oldest generations. The death records for the village of "Riace" commence in 1809 so there is a good chance many of the records can be found.

Finding these death records will provide details of parents thereby enabling the tree to stretch back to the mid 1700's.

There is also an opportunity to try to find birth records of siblings of the ancestors, which will further expand the tree.

I'm quite pleased with the results that were achieved and so was the family that volunteered.

Records for the other side of the family have been difficult to find so there is not much I can do to assist at this time.

So I look like closing off the Gervasi family tree research and look forward to a new volunteer who needs assistance.

If you or someone else is interested, please reach out and we can discuss how I can assist.

John

0208 2021 - What is the best source of Information? Your older relatives of course!

To date I have concentrated on the technical aspects of preparing your family tree and glossed over the best source of information being your older relatives.

If you read an earlier post, I suggested that if researching your family history, think beyond simply preparing your tree.

Assuming you have older living relatives or extended family, not only can they get you started with key information (and save you a great deal of time, they will have stories and recollections that, unless recorded, will be lost forever.

One of the most pleasing outcomes of researching and documenting our family history, was the fact that every family member with whom I shared the results, commented that they learnt something new about their family.

To put things into perspective, I'm talking about 30 to 40 people (aged between 15 to 85) who each said the same thing.

I can provide so many examples of how my family assisted in my research. The following are 2 examples that come to mind.

The examples both relate to old black and white photographs that my sister was storing.

The first example relates to photo of an older lady taken sometime between the 1920's - 1930's. There was nothing written on the back of the photo, indicating identity of this person and my parents were not alive to ask.

By chance, I visited by 84 year old Aunt and showed her a number of photo's including that of this older lady. Without hesitation she told me it was her Great Grand Mother (ie. my Great Great Grandmother )who was born in 1859.

So I was extremely fortunate to perhaps ask the only person alive who could tell me the identity of the person in the picture. This is now recorded for future generations of our family (attached is the photo to which I refer linking us back some 162 years).

The second example relates to one of my grandfathers. Those close to me know that one of my regrets is that I never asked my grandfather about the time he served in the Italian army and as a prisoner of war in the United Kingdom.

This regret was my main motivation to research and document our family history. Amongst the various records I reviewed were photographs of my grandfather's time as a prisoner of war, sent as a postcard to my grandmother in Italy.

I'd seen the photo's many times but again, never thought to ask my grandfather when he was alive. When looking at the postcards, I noticed a reference to "POW Camp 60" Great Britain.

I wondered whether I could find where POW Camp 60 was located. Within 10 minutes of internet researching, I found out that POW Camp 60 was the shortened reference to Overdale Camp, Skipton in the County of Yorkshire.

Whilst this may not be particularly significant to readers, it was a significant piece of my family history that I was able to record and partially answered my questions that I thought I would never discover. The second image is one of the photo's (and address details) that I used to discover where my grandfather was interned.

The purpose of the post is straightforward. Hopefully you will be motivated to go and speak to your relatives before details of your family history are lost.

Gervasi Family Tree - Part 3

In my last post I documented a few discoveries that were made in a short period of time. Besides persistence and focused research, as always I had a bit of luck with the right records being available.

My next objective was to try to find the direct lineage of Damiano Gervasi (1867) going back to the beginning of the 1800's, which is the limit of the Antenati Records.

Annarosa Trua's birth record (ie. Damiano's mother) was relatively easy to find. Since I had the name of her father, as well as Damiano's father's (ie. Cosimo) approximate birth year, I concentrated on searching birth records that would place Annarosa being between 18 years old to 4 to 5 years older than Cosimo.

So I concentrated on searching birth records between 1837 - 1849.

Trua was not a common name, which made the search easier to find the correct person. I found what I believe to be the correct match, showing she was born in 1842 (25 years of age when she had Damiano), the record indicated her father was Damiano (which was a necessary criteria) and she was of similar age to Cosimo. Finding her birth record also gave me details of her mother.

Next stage was to work on finding Cosimo's birth record. As I already knew he was born around 1842, this allowed me to narrow my search. I also knew (from experience) not to 100% rely on recorded ages of parents when a child is born. I therefore expanded my research ~+/- 10 years of the anticipated birth year.

The following possible matches were found:

Cosimo Gervasi born in 1830 to Giuseppe and Carmela Luca
Cosimo Gervasi born in 1835 to Giuseppe and Carmela Salerno
Cosimo Nicola Gervasi born in 1840 to Giuseppe and Carmela Salerno

I ruled out 1830 Cosimo as it would make him 37 when Damiano was born in 1867. Damiano's borth record said his father was ~25 when he was born so this 12 year discrepnacy appeared too much.

Then I had to decide which other Cosimo could be the father (1835 or 1840 Cosimo).

It seemed unusual that the parents would give the same name to 2 brothers, so I explored the possibility that 1835 Cosimo could have died before 1840, then the parents had a 2nd son whom they decided to again name Cosimo.

Sure enough my hunch proved correct, I found a death record for 1835 Cosimo. This meant Cosimo Nicola Gervasi (1840) was the very likely father to Damiano Gervasi (1867). As I now had Cosimo's birth record, I now also had an extra generation to add.

Filling in a few more details, the objective of finding the direct lineage of Pietro Gervasi (1915) back to the early 1800's was achieved as shown on the fan chart extract.

Gervasi Family Tree Pt 2

During the week, I thought I would try to focus on the direct Gervasi line and see how we could go back.

In order to do this I needed to find the marriage record of Cosimo to Annarosa. Unfortunately, Antenati do not have Riace records between 1861 to 1865 (which is probably the time range within which the couple was married.

In these situations, sometimes it is a better use of time to focus on a different lineage. So I decided to focus on the family of Teresa Musuraca.

The records were easier to find and I was not only able confirm birth dates and the marriage date of Teresa's parents, but I was also able to identify Teresa's grandparents (born circa early 1800's) but also identify one of her great grandparents who would have been born in the late 1700's.

The journey continues.

Gervasi Family Tree Pt 1

I’m pleased to announce I have a follower who has agreed to allow me to assist in preparing their family tree and document the journey in this blog.

Before I started I needed some preliminary information to determine whether there was sufficient public available information to make research easier.

Essentially I needed:

The name of a least one village or small town from which an ancestor/s originated; and

I needed ancestor/s name/s and an events (eg. birth, marriage or death) that occurred on around 1900 or earlier.

I was provided with the following information:

One side of the family originated from a village called Riace; and

An ancestor called Pietro Gervasi was born in 1915 to Damiano Gervasi and Teresa Musuraca.

Step 1 – What is the relevant Province?

On a simple google search, “Riace” is in the Province of “Reggio Calabria”.

This information is needed to determine relatively quickly whether the Antenati website has civil records for the relevant village/town and if so, how many records (what years) are disclosed.

I found Riace disclosed on the Antenati site and quickly established there are civil records available between the period 1809 to 1903.

Step 2 - Where do I start?

As Pietro was born in 1915 (after the 1903 cut off), I needed to focus on his parents Damiano Gervasi and Teresa Musuraca.

I quickly assessed I should try to find the following records:

• The birth records of Damiano and Teresa;
• The possible marriage record of Damiano and Teresa; and
• Possible birth records of other children Damiano and Teresa.

I was fairly confident that I would find possible "name" matches for both Damiano and Teresa, but less confident that I would be able to find their marriage record.

As Pietro was born in 1915, I naturally assumed there was a strong chance Damiano and Teresa would have been married between 1900 to 1914. This meant I had only four years of available marriage records to review (ie. 1900, 1901, 1902 & 1903).

In order to use my time effectively, I therefore decided to concentrate on finding the birth record of Damiano.

Initially, I decided to review the birth records between 1880 to 1899. My simple logic was that there would be a good chance Damiano became a father to Pietro somewhere between the ages of 18 to 35.

I discovered two possible matches being a “Cosimo Damiano Gervasi” born in 1899 and another of the same name born in 1894.

The 1894 record became the initial leading contender despite a slight name difference to that provided by my blog follower.

Despite this initial "possible match" I learnt a long time ago to set aside presumptions and persevere with research until all possibilities are exhausted.

As I didn’t have an exact match for “Damiano Gervasi” I decided to continue searching birth records starting from 1879 and going backwards in time (Just in case I found another match).

This persistence paid off when I came across an 1867 birth record for Damiano Gervasi (see image).

If correct, this would make Damiano about 48 years old when his son Pietro was born in 1915. My initial thought was that although unlikely, it was still possible the 1867 record was the correct person I was trying to find.

It quickly became apparent the 1867 record was in fact the correct person.

I have previously posted that, on occasion, when a couple is married, there are marriage notes annotated to each of the birth records of the couple.

Sure enough, in difficult to read script on Damiano’s birth record, there is reference to a marriage in February 1895 between Damiano and someone that could possibly have been “Teresa Musuraca”.

The next step was to try to find the 1895 marriage record, which took me about 10 minutes to find (once I knew where to look).

The marriage record indicated that on 3 February 1895, Damiano Gervasi (aged 27) married Teresa Musuraca (aged 17). See image.

Although I don't have Pietro’s birth record to confirm the age Damiano when he was born, I am very confident "1867" Damiano is the direct ancestor.

In order to be 100% sure we would need to source these civil records that may take months to hear back from Italy.

As the risk is quite low, I believe we can proceed with these people as the direct ancestors. The 1867 birth record of Damiano also makes mention of the two grandfathers and these can be entered onto the family tree, but would need subsequent verification.

I also took the time to see if any children were born to Damiano and Teresa between 1895 and 1903. I found birth details of two girls and these were also entered on the family tree.

So we have been able to make a start to the family tree (see attached image).

Needless to say my follower is very happy.

I will continue to work on the family tree and post what has been discovered.

John

Who would like assistance with their Family Tree?

I mentioned in my previous blog that it would be interesting to actually build a family tree for someone and document the journey on this blog.

So I'm looking for someone (or a family) who may be interested. If you or anyone you know (with some Italian heritage) is interested or could be interested, either e-mail me or message me.

Ideally the family will have originated from a village or small town (it makes research easier) and the "volunteer" has some family information from which we can start. I am hoping we can use the antenati website to extract actual civil records concerning births, deaths and marriages.

This could be an exciting project for your family and perhaps you will be able to create a cherished gift for your parents, grandparents, children or grandchildren.

Hopefully, there is a good candidate out there?

John

0108 - 2021

Reading old Italian script

This blog sets out some tips in reading (deciphering) old Italian script. I do not profess to be an expert in reading old handwritten text, but rather I'd call myself a "self taught amateur who continues to learn".

So I thought I'd give readers some tips and tools in trying to understand and translate the old Italian handwritten civil records you will come across when researching your Family Tree.

Tip 1 - Cross your fingers and hope you have access to clear script.

This is not so much tip but rather a hope for you.

In researching our family history, I had to access records from 3 different Italian regions covering approximately 100 years. I not only encountered many missing records, but also copies of text that was too faint to read as well as records that showed significant signs of water and smoke/fire damage.

So I hope in your journey of discovery you will not encounter many of these problems. I have attached extracts of examples of a difficult to read (faint text) document as well as a clear written document you may encounter.

Tip 2 - Tool for commonly mentioned terms.

If you have no knowledge of the Italian language, your task in translating key information to english will be harder. Not only are you trying to translate an unfamiliar language but this will be compounded by written script that differs from the hand writing style of today.

If you are able to access an Italian speaking older relative or friend of the family who comes from the same region in Italy, this could be an invaluable source on information.

Besides being able to read Italian, these people would know the common surnames of the particular village / town. This proves useful when trying to decipher difficult to read script as they will be able to look at the letters in the script and relate it back to the people they know or knew.

I also recently discovered that Family Search has entered English translation of some commonly used Italian text in civil records.

Readers may wish to bookmark for future reference (or see the attached images)

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Italy_Handwriting #/media/File:Sample4.jpg

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Italy_Handwriting #/media/File:Sample5.jpg

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Italy_Handwriting #/media/File:Sample6.jpg

Tip 3 - If unsure look for other references in the same record

As already mentioned, when you first start our reviewing old Italian records, you may encounter difficulties in reading (and translating) the writing style. The more you read, the easier it becomes.

If you are unsure what letter of the alphabet is used (especially for names), try to identify similar text in the same record to try to establish a "clear word" that makes sense. In addition, refer to the index of names (assuming there is one) to assess whether this assists in interpretting / translating what you have read.

Attached as an image is an example of a possible error in trying to apply writing styles of today to historical Italian records.

Image 5 - On first observation, if you are not familiar with the surname, you could come to the conclusion that the person specified on this record is "Giovanni Beale".

However, the surname is actually "Reale". If you review the index of this birth record under surname beginning with "R" you will be able to deduce the surname to be Reale.

I hope these tips are of some use will help.

Before I sign off, this blog is just about to close in on its first 100 followers.

As promised I'd like to case study a volunteer who would like their Italian heritage family tree completed and are happy to share the journey with followers to this blog.

If you are interested or know of anyone that it interested, e-mail me at [email protected].

Keep searching and discovering

John

0507 - 2021

Display your Family Tree / Other Information

Before I start this blog, I thought I would share with readers that I had a follower reach out to see if I can assist in finding some ancestors.

Using the tools described in these blogs, it looks like I may have found the people she was looking and opened up a new lineage to research.

Anyway, today's blog is about a couple of the tools and features that a genealogy site provides. Since I have written previously about familysearch, I thought I would share some useful features and tools that are available on this site.

Firstly, as you populate your site, you will be able to display your family tree. You have 3 view options:

1. A vertical style tree
2. A horizontal style tree
3. A fan style tree

The attached images show each of the three styles. Personally I find it easier to move around ancestors with the horizontal style format. however from a visual presentation, I think the fan style tree is the most appealing.

If you wish to produce/develop an attractive tree (eg. for professional mounting onto a frame), these sites don't seem to give you a quality document.

For my family tree presentation, I purchased on-line, a 7 generation "pre-formatted" template and then physically entered names, years of birth and death. I also added some photo's to give the family tree a bit more of a personal touch.

Purchasing a quality template, will enable you to print a larger copy (eg. A2 size) whilst maintaining a decent resolution.

Adding more ancestors to these sites will open up the possibility of matching (and/or linking) to other ancestors.

I made this point in an earlier blog. Genealogy sites do not necessarily give you the name of every ancestor with the "click" of a button.

These sites are essentially large databases that rely on users to research and enter information so they can be shared by others searching the same ancestor.

The sites typically provide various forms of "notifications" to users to suggest there could be a match or an possible additional record that can be entered (eg. additional children).

The point I'm trying to make is simple. The more people that participate and contribute, the more useful these sites become to everyone researching their ancestry.

Before I finish off this blog, the last couple of images are examples of the notifications that are displayed to give the user some information that may be relevant to a particular entered ancestor .

Hopefully, some of you have been inspired to get started.

Next blog, I'm thinking about writing about interpreting old Italian writing styles.

0407 - 2021

Let's build your family tree (Part II)

The post is a continuation of a previous post where I introduced readers to a subscription free Genealogy site to build your family tree.

If you have not read that post or previous posts, can I suggest you take time to read them as they will give you the necessary background information.

Proceeding on the basis you have entered your first record you can start to add evidence of the data you have entered (eg. if you have a birth date, familysearch.org allows you to create a link of the actual birth record). In addition, you can start to add details of parents, spouse/s and children.

Don't get too concerned about having to find every record that exists for the individual before you move on. You can come back to the individual and add more records later.

You can add the evidence supporting the information entered by clicking on the "Sources" Tab.

The Source's page allows you to enter the following information:

1. The Date of the Event - For consistency, I record the date of the record rather than the event date. So for example, if document date is say 8 December 1852 to inform a birth occurred on 6 December 1852, I enter the event date 8 December 1852.

2. Source Title - This should be 3 or 4 words describing the record (eg. Birth Record of Giuseppe Rossi).

3. Web page - This is where you can link the specific page on Antenati (eg. the actual image of the 8 December birth record of Giuseppe Rossi).

4. Where the record is found - You will notice that when reviewing the relevant microfiche images on Antenati, there may be 4 or more separate records on the same image. You can clarify which particular record of the scanned image is relevant to the person identified.

5. Describe the Record - This is where you set out what the record states. You have quite a lot of information than can be included, however I suggest just entering the key data (eg. for a birth record, the date of birth, name of parents, the age of parents and an other relevant information.

6. Reason to Change Source - I dont tend to sue this except perhaps where I have misread something and need to edit it.

Once entered you can save the record.

The next point is important. I strongly suggest, you enter the same source record for every other person that has connection to the main person/persons specified in the document.

So for example, if you have found the birth record for Giuseppe Rossi and you have confirmed Giuseppe's parents were Giovanni Rossi and Isabella Picabasso, I recommend you enter Giuseppe Rossi's birth record also as a source record in both Giovanni's list of source records as well as Isabella's.

Essentially what you are doing is to build a list of evidence that you have the correct person as a direct relative.

***Tip*** When I first started populating the same source document for multiple people I thought I had to re-write the same information for each person I was adding. So in the above example I would manually enter Giuseppe's birth record 3 times (Giuseppe's page, then the father and mother).

I friend of mine showed my a short cut. After you enter the 1st source record, you can essentially copy the source record onto another individual by choosing the "Attach from Source Box" option under Add Source. This will save a lot of time not having to rewrite important information.

Give it a go and the next post will be expanding on using the familysearch.org site.

The images below are screenshots of what you will encounter when entering "sources".

Let's build a Family Tree for someone!

Taking a quick break from writing about the technical aspects of building a family tree I have been thinking about how I can make this blog more interesting for readers.

I'm thinking about helping someone on their journey to create their personal Italian heritage family tree.

The idea is simple, I'll help someone with set up, ongoing research, direction and ideas on how to document their family history. In return, the person agrees to allow me to share the journey with followers of this blog (subject to maintaining privacy of course) .

I think it will be fun, informative and will hopefully inspire people to give it a go.

As of July 17, I have 71 followers. When I get it to a milestone of 100 followers, we can start.

I'm hoping everyone can help me build up the number of followers by providing a link or recommending this page to anyone of Italian ancestry it will help with this first milestone.

If readers find it of value and there is sufficient interest, I can look family tree No 2, No 3 etc etc

I don't have an end goal with numbers of followers, however the bigger the following, the more things can be introduced and be talked about.

My desire is teach and inspire people of Italian heritage to document their family history before it is too late.

For those not familiar with my own journey, shortly after I first started I was fortunate to be befriended an older lady in Texas, who helped me in my research and this inspired me to help others.

regards

John Miniello

0307 - 2021

So let's start building your tree!!

My previous posts to date have been associated with getting you to a position where you can now start documenting your ancestors on your own family tree.

Whilst you could handwrite your family tree on a large piece of paper or use a simple application like Word or Excel, I strongly recommend you use the functionality on a genealogy site to document your tree. It will save you a lot of time and will provide a lot more flexibility later on.

As you may not know at this stage how successful your research will be my first big big tip would be to set up a free account with Familysearch.org.

Other sites will typically have a subscription fee of say around $US150. These sites will typically entice you with a free 14 day trial period but will require you to provide your credit card details upfront and then you simply cancel within 14 days (don't fall into that trap as you may forget to cancel).

The fee paying sites may have better functionality provided you use what they have to offer. However to start off , I would recommend a free site and if you are successful you can move over to a subscription site.

I started this way using the following sites

familysearch.org (the free site); and
Myheritage.com (the paid subscription site).

If you wish to explore using Familysearch.org, there are a couple of important points to mention (in case you are wondering).

Firstly, you will see the site was created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. I am Roman Catholic and I can assure you there is no religious angle or push.

So if you are concerned you will be bombarded with religious information / propaganda, I can verify that in the 18 months I have used the site, there has not been a single instance where I have been sent any religious information.

Secondly, some people have expressed concerns to me about security of information (ie. storing an access of personal details). A few points in relation to this, firstly, you will have a unique user name and password, so its good practice to keep that information secret.

The next point is that if you read the site information about security, you will see that someone cannot search details of people that you have entered if the person is still alive.

So whilst the power of these site is gathered from the collective research of other people that share a common ancestor (eg. a distant relative may be able to search the name of a deceased great great grandparent), they will not be able to search your details.

If you are still concerned about disclosing too much information about a living relative you can always limit the amount of information to record (eg instead of a full date of birth, perhaps just enter the year). Its up to you and no real rules apply.

I'll proceed on the basis you have decided to use Familysearch.org.

When you have created an account you will be able to work out fairly quickly how to set up a starting individual (start with yourself).

See images of the record entry page. I don't tend to insert a title (eg. Mr, Mrs, Dr etc) but up to you. For consistency you should decide what approach you will take with all your naming conventions. For example, I applied a simple rule with recording the name on the birth certificate rather than the name by which person was typically called by family and friends (eg. if someone was born with the name Francesco, but known as Frank, you need to decide which naming convention you will apply).

In addition, whilst it may be common in places outside Italy for the wife to take on the surname of the husband, for consistency and to aid in research, I suggest you always enter the maiden name of the wife.

When entering dates of birth / death / marriages, in order to ensure the data can be stored entered correctly on the database , you need to ensure you record it in standardised format, which I use as date month year (eg. 15 August 1825).

When recording place of the event (eg. birth) again you should work out the convention you wish to use. My suggestion would be ViIlage (or Town), Province, Region or State. So for example someone born in Oratino, could be recorded as Oratino, Campobasso, Molise, Italy. This process is up to you, all I suggest is that you follow the same process for all those individuals you enter.

Once you have entered a person, Family search will allocate a unique ID Number. This unique number is that which allows you to compare what you have found to another contributor who has entered a similar person allowing you to see if there has been a match.

That matching is the true power of these sites. The more people that research and add to the database the bigger and faster you can build your tree

So there is a bit to absorb. The best thing is to give it a go and get started.

If you have any queries between now and my next post, feel free to contact me. In my next post, we will continue with the steps to populate your family tree (using familysearch.org).