POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Central Texas/Austin
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly POINTers In Person meeting at 6:45 p.m., Wed, February 24, 1999, at the Bank One in Round Rock with 18 members attending. Minutes of the January meeting were passed around for approval.
Lin announced our first planning session for the 2000 POINTers Conference for Sunday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at her home. A contract has been signed and returned for the Doubletree Hotel for the conference headquarters. The Conference dates of Oct 6, 7, 8 & 9, 2000 include: a Friday check-in from 3 - 10 pm, Saturday workshops and banquet, Sunday workshops and luncheon and a Monday bus trip to the San Antonio Riverwalk. At the Sunday planning meeting, we will discuss speakers, vendors, publicity, door prizes, and budget.
Lin announced that Dr. Philip Colletta is the speaker on March 13 at the Williamson County Genealogical Society seminar. His topics are Military Pension & Bounty Land Records, Lesser Used Federal Records, Newspaper Research and How to Prepare for Successful Research in European Records.
Laurie GUGINO Riester (#3878) reported that she has documented another generation to her GUGINO family. She received a death certificate from VALLEDOLMO, Sicily giving new surnames of POLVINO, MANCUSO, VACANTI, GERVAS and BATALIA. A new met cousin, sent Laurie an old wedding photo of Laurie's grandparents, that she had never before seen. Laurie made a copy of the photo at HEB on a high powered scanner for $8.00; the copy looked almost identical to the original. Laurie and her family are going to Italy in June. She received a computer program, Italian for Everyone from The Leaning Co, from her mother, to help her practice her Italian.
Jeanie MARSALIA found her family in the 1920 census, which has conflicting information from what she already had. She went to the local church in Eagle Lake, TX. The old church had been a mission, and the records have been moved to another location. Someone in Eagle Lake is looking for those records for her. She’s also waiting to hear about her naturalization request and from a cousin in Illinois.
Maria TONTI Schulze is emailing friends in Italy on her new computer.
Bill Brinkman has located one of his Civil War ancestors in a book.
Chick and Gladys CHIAPPORI just returned from a trip to Florida and were amazed at the large number of Italian clubs there.
Augie TROIANI is continuing his ongoing research on the COSTA family and is breaking it down into three periods: Italy, Arkansas, and Austin, TX. He mentioned that the Handbook of Texas is online.
Jamie CANNONE has installed his new genealogy software. He showed a cookbook that he found at Borders Bookstore called Preserving Our Italian Heritage by the Sons of Italy in Florida, which is one of the organizations that Chick mentioned that sponsored a dinner they attended.
Diana FREI offered to type and print the recipes from the pot luck luncheons.
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) received her grandfather’s official passport from The National Archives. She learned that his passenger ship, in May 1877, that was supposed to dock in Galveston, was rerouted to New Orleans because of storms, and that this practice was not uncommon.
Virginia is corresponding with a woman in Maine regarding the surnames of FESTA, COFRANCESCO, BIONDI and MAGRO. She's also received email from someone in Australia regarding the FESTA name.
Lin reported finding two new people researching one of her Italian towns in the new POINTer directory. She's received email from Richard ONOFRIO, who sent email letters to ONOFRIO'S in Australia and is forwarding one with the surname FAICCHIO to Lin.
Anthony ABBATTISTA (#2641) updated our web page during the Christmas holidays and will add the POINTers Conference information as it's planned.
Zina VERSAGGI Graalfs (#3336) found her VERSAGGI grandfather's passenger ship record on microfilm. Her grandfather was traveling with a sister and a brother and was meeting another sister already here. She also received a photo of the VERSAGGI Family headstone from N. Wildwood, New Jersey. She continues to search AUGUSTA, SIRACUSA microfilm birth records.
Henry Graalfs continues to expand the information on his grandfather that from a cousin in Alaska.
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh located a PIRAINO cousin in Pennsylvania through Lin and is corresponding by email.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) talked to Will Mastrangelo in Houston, but they are from a different area of Bari. He also spoke with a man from West Hempstead, Long Island, New York regarding the RICHADI surname; they are trying to connect families. Joe received the two MASTRANGELO marriage licenses that he had located on microfilm from Westmoreland Co, PA. He can connected that Mastrangelo with Putignano birth records, but has not connected him to his own family. He is still waiting for church records from Putignano and Bari.
Joe is also searching microfilm records for CAMPOFIORITA, Sicily for the VETRANO name and for Maria GUAGLIARDO. He hasn’t been able to prove the records because they are not current enough.
Marie Mastrangelo has discovered more unknown family, this time in Montana. She’s received family information and photos of her grandfather's brother's family.
Marilyn read messages from two absent members:
Francesca Maria Sutton (#3637) is searching for a 14th century Florence family originally named TORNAQUINCI, but in the 1300s changed. The name to TORNABUONI (Sicilian branch uses TORNABENE). Francesca will return in March.
Jeanette Green (#3555) asked if anyone is familiar with the Compaq Printer IJ 700, to please contact her (left@wimberley-tx.com). She's has a question about the blinking yellow light.
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) asked if anyone knows if the names Gary or Douglas translate into an Italian name. She passed around a detained aliens sheet from the ship Duca di Genova that came into New York on July 1, 1909. The disposition line for her grandmother Maria MESSINA is handwritten, "Made O.I." (letters difficult to decipher) and typed "To tel $"; most of the others have names and addresses. No one knew what this meant.
Marilyn received a response and some marriage records from the priest in ALIA, Palermo, Sicily regarding the marriage of Matteo MARTINO to Domenica ALESSANDRA and Rosolino MARTINO to Salvatrice MICELI. Neither record was for the correct parties.
She also received a negative response from the Military District in Trapani, Sicily regarding records for Pietro MANISCALCO and Tommaso ALFANO, both from Poggioreale, Trapani.
Lin reminded everyone about the March 14 POINTers Conference meeting and our next regular meeting is Wednesday evening, March 24, 6:30 p.m. at Bank One, Round Rock.
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