POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Submitted by: Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388),
The meeting was opened by Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) with 16 present, including 3 guests: Dorothy Taylor, and Cecilia and Gerold Lankes.
Cecilia was born in Italy.
Lin suggested a wine-tasting of Italian wines by the new Grapevine Market in Round Rock for the program for the March meeting. There
was much enthusiasm by all members present.
Dorothy Taylor is researching the names of MENOTTI, ALBONETTI, GAMBINI, CINGOLANI, and BIACHELLI, from the comunes of Ancona, Senigallia, Vallone, and Castelferrato in the Marche region.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) recieved correspondence from Monastero di Lanzo, Italy, with forms to sign and return, along with other documents for her dual citizenship. Her son recieved word that he has also been granted Italian citizenship. They will both soon be applying for Italian passports in Houston, TX.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614 ) continues to extract Morti records beginning with the year 1809. He is currently viewing the records from 1852. The 1851-52
records revealed the deaths of relatives three and four generations back. Joe said the payoff here is that it eliminates tracing these people
forward, since they have been identified as deceased. Joe showed a sample of Morti of an orphaned person, just to show its appearance and content.
Joe has extracted more than 550 Morti records which contain either the Mastrangelo or Pugliese names, and sometimes both.
Joe pointed out that the NARA is opening Military Records from the 19th and 20th centuries, mostly of Navy, Marine, and "'persons of
exceptional prominence", such as George Patton, and Dwight Eisenhower, over 56 million names. Joe recommended the stevenmorse.com website.
Laurie GUGINO Riester (#3878) mentioned that there is a really good series on Italy airing on the Travel Channel right now, entitled,
"Francesco's italy : Top to Toe"., airing on Wednesday evenings. The host is Italian and he covers various cities and areas all over Italy.
Laurie and her brother, Mark Gugino, spent two days in Fredonia, New York this past summer. Fredonia is where all of their relatives from
Valledolmo, Sicily, settled when they came to the United States. Laurie said she and Mark had spent a lot of time there as kids, but it
had been about thrity years since they had been back, and it was a wonderful trip. They spent time with extended family, visited the
cemetery and church and homes which had belonged to their grandparents and other relatives, and came back with quite a collection of
genealogical records.
Maria Mastrangelo, Cecilia Lankes, Rocco Arancia, and Jeanie Marsalia won door prizes of Italian picture books.
The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm.
Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 28 at 6:30 pm.