POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Submitted by: Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the meeting with 18 present.
Lin was happy to report that the profit from the 18 students at her Italian cooking class for the Italian Cultural Association has been donated to NIAF for earthquake
relief in L'Aquila, Italy.
Betty THOMASELLI Glaser reported that she sent a copy of her birth certificate, her father's birth certificate and his death certificate to one of her four half brothers. This will prove to him that she is definitely his half sister. She's hoping to hear from him soon as she would love to develope a relationship with each of her brothers.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) reviewed a film that she has on permanent loan at the Family History Center and found a birth record for Giacomo MARSAGLIA, her
grandfather's brother.
Jeanie's son, Shane Mahon, and his wife, Catherine, were here for a visit in March from their home in Belgium.
One of Shane's coworkers has family in Rome and invited them for a visit. They were in Rome when the earthquake hit L'Aquila. He said he awoke to the whole apartment
shaking at 3:30am that morning.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) is continuing to extract death records from 1809 on.
He has reached 2500 records extracted and just in excess of 1800 recorded in the Morti Data Base. (The Nati Data Base contains 4217 records, and the Marriage Data
Base has 1383 records)
Today Joe completed the year 1886 that contained just short of 800 reported deaths. This number is approximately 200 - 300 in excess of the norm that Joe had been
recording. This caused him to think, retrospectively, about the records he has been extracting. Several "trends" have become apparent to him.
Mike Hardin is researching the Giuseppe & Rosalia (PERCACCIOLO) IMMORLICA and the Giuseppe & Vincenza (ARRIGO) RIZZO families, who came to the United States from MESSINA, SICILY in the early 1900s. Mike brought a paper titled Photographs and Family History1 by Thomas Rogers and shared copies with the group. The paper provided instruction on the use of clues contained within the subject matter as well as the medium itself for dating photographs.
Don and Shirley VILLONI told about their upcoming trip to Italy. They have rented a home in the town of Gioia Tauro, Italy. It is about an hour north of Reggio
Calabria, on the west coast. Their son and daughter-in-law will meet them there. After a week at that location they will spend a week traveling in Sicily.
Don's grandmother was born in the city of Termini Imerse. She is the RIZZO, DI DOMENICO part of his family. He recently found some photos that were taken in 1937
when his grandparents were having their first vacation back to Italy and they took Don and his brother. Don is hoping to find some relatives on this trip.
Patricia COLACINO sent a letter to her cousin, Carmilina COLACINO, in MOTTA SANTA LUCIA, ITALY. She had sent Patricia some information regarding her
paternal great-grandparents, Don Carmine COLACINO, Donna Maria and a great uncle, Don Giuseppe COLACINO, who was a priest. Patricia asked if she could clarify
some information and if she knew anything about her grandmother's family, the NOTARIANNI or DE MEDICI families.
When she was in New York in January, she found a letter sent from Nonna Teresino GENTILE to her father. She's hoping her cousin can tell her who she is. Patricia and
her husband, Joe MELOMO, are planning to visit Carmilina is September and perhaps go to the cemetery where some of these people may be buried.
Patricia also sent information to Joe MASTRANGELO in hopes that he can help her determine the next steps to identify the correct town in Sicily where her maternal
great-grandparents were from.
Scott Patrick (#4819) mentioned finding a record for his great-uncle, Larkin T. Patrick, in a new database, the U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers
1866-1938, on Ancestry.com. These records list the dates of service in the armed forces and medical conditions of the patient. Scott found it very interesting and
informative.
Scott also mentioned finding records in the 1883 and 1884 city directories for Pittsfield, Massachusetts (also in an Ancestry.com database) for his great-grandfather
Giuseppe MOTTO. He was listed as "Joseffe" and his brother, Gaetano, was also there. This is the first instance where Scott has found his great-grandfather living in
Pittsfield but it confirmed his grandmother's story that her father had first lived in Pittsfield before moving to New York City.
Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883) reported that Tom Priscilla (originally Pacelli) found her on the Comunes of Italy site and contacted her about the research he's been doing on the PACELLI family from SAN SALVATORE TELESINO for about 3 years. He has compiled a database for about 1600 people with the PACELLI surname from 1570 to 1860. The list includes birth, death and marriage records, including spouse names. Tom explained that when his grandfather first came to the states in 1888 his name was listed correctly as PACELLI. The second time he came through Ellis Island he was still identified correctly as PACELLI but between 1901 and the 1910 census in New Jersey he was listed as Priscilla. All of his children are listed as PACELLI on their birth certificates and a deed to a house he bought in 1930 was listed as Pacelli. No one in Tom's family has ever been able to identify why it was changed. He said his grandfather took the mystery to his grave. Tom sent Sherry her direct PACELLI line for 5 generations beginning with her great-grandfather, Antonio Maria; gg-grandfather, Tito Maria; ggg-grandfather, Dionisio (who her grandfather was named after); gggg-grandfather, Crescenzo and ggggg-grandfather, Matteo. He copied all of her family's documents, including birth, marriage and death records and put them on a flash drive and is mailing it to her. Sherry feels so blessed to have been given all this information!
The meeting adjourned at 8:30pm. Our next meeting will be May 27th at 6:30pm at Merrill Gardens, Round Rock.