POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (# 1653)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (# 1388) opened the monthly POINTers In Person meeting at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, July 24, 2002 at the Round Rock Library with 14 members attending.
Lin announced a new PBS television series called “Visions of Sicily:
Southern Style”. It will be shown in Austin on Sunday, August 11 at 8:40
p.m. and on Thursday, August 15 at 10:31 p.m. The web site
Lin donated the book, “The Italian 100 – Political Figures Past & Present”
by Stephen Spignesi to the PIP Library. She showed a book she received from
son Bob for her birthday, “Italian P.O.W.’s and a Texas Church” edited by
Donald Mace Williams. The Texas Co-op Magazine ran an article in April 2002
about an opera, Bellini’s War, based on the book.
Pat OXLEY (#3713) passed her BUFFO Family Scrapbook around for all to see.
She and her daughter Suzi Simmons, a Creative Memories Consultant, will
present the program for the Williamson County Genealogical Society meeting
on Thursday, November 14 at the Round Rock Library, 7:30 p.m.
She passed around flyers to the Austin Genealogical Society
Marilyn and Pat reviewed the Austin Chapter members who will be attending
the POINT 2002 Conference October 10 –12 in Salt Lake City
Marilyn announced that daughter, Shelly Kelly is expecting her second
daughter near the end of August.
Scott PATRICK reminded us of his surnames MOTTO and GARAGUSI from
Laurenzana, Potenza, Basilicata, Italy. On a recent visit to New York City,
he obtained his great great grandparents’ marriage record and the signature
matched the one on a Naturalization Record for Joseph Motto. He visited the
cemetery where they are buried. He is trying to determine GARAGUSI is his
correct family name.
The group discussed the difficulty of finding different dates for the same
event, such as births and marriages, and the various name spellings.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) showed photos of the magnificent drawings at the
recent Chalk Festival held at Central Market. Joe is reviewing Italian
records that he looked at several years ago and is gleaning new information
that he missed the first time, filling in blanks and making corrections to
his data base records.
Ernie and Gloria GAMBACCINI SILVA received additional family information
from a cousin at a
family reunion in Cleveland on July 14, such as a cousin’s daughter is
living in her grandmother’s house and about two family priests in Italy. She
showed us the location of another ancestral town, ORSIANO.
Ursula PASSAFUMA Rader (#4467) found 57 relatives on a Montgomery County, TX
GenWeb Site and also searched on the Harris County, TX GenWeb Site.
Jeannie MARSALIA (# 4251) passed around a birth record of her father’s
oldest sister, Margherita MARSAGLIA, born in Italy in 1898. She reported
that Don BOVA, who visited at the June meeting from Tomball, sent her a copy
of the Texas death index for MARSALIA. She has subscribed to the American
Italian Heritage Association, located in Albany, NY
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh told us the sad news that her grandmother, Mary LEONE
SANTO died in Arizona earlier this year. She is trying to locate a copy of
her death notice that appeared in a Phoenix newspaper. Sheila has a
co-worker who searches for the surnames MAIORSI and SAN BRUNO. Sheila showed
us a “little black book” that belonged to her husband’s father in which he
recorded family information until the 1960’s. The family dates start with
1882. His descendants were one of the founding families of Bandera TX.
Jamie CANNONE is researching his grandmother’s family using records of 1838
& earlier and has learned to appreciate the pre-printed forms he is now
encountering. He is currently transcribing some of those handwritten
marriage records. He discovered of a set of double ancestors. He passed
around copies of his great grandmother’s Sicilian passports from 1920 & 1924
trips.
Jamie and Di Frei announced that their October 26 wedding will most likely
take place in Pennsylvania so that family members will be able to attend.
Lynn LE CROPANE sent an email to announce that she found her
great-grandfather's birth records, showing his last name spelled LICROPANI.
As a correction to the June minutes, Lynn’s surnames are LE CROPANE and
COSENZA from TARSIA, CALABRIA.
Marilyn and Lin announced that Elizabeth Johnston, Round Rock Library,
Genealogy Librarian, will feature Italy and Italian Research in one of the
library display cases for August. She will highlight our organization and
the August 25 potluck luncheon with guest speaker Jonathan Galli, as well as
some of the Italian genealogy books that we have donated to the library.
Bill Rader won the door prize, “365 Ways to Cook Pasta”.
Lin, Marilyn and Pat announced the Sunday, August 25 potluck luncheon,
featuring Jonathan GALLI, who’s topic is, "At Home in Tuscany: An Italian
Research Travelogue”. He describes the talk as "Lessons learned from a
two-week plus trip to my ancestral homeland for family history research and
fun. (Along with some tidbits from two other shorter trips.) Examples of how
to be patient and flexible when traveling in Italy for both fun and family
history research, including all the drama and comedy *never* imagined."
Attendees will have an opportunity to receive a beautiful basket full of
Italian items. The luncheon is from 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. and cost $2 per
person.
Lin will be out of town during the next meeting on September 21, a pot-luck
luncheon, and Joe and Marie Mastrangelo will handle the set up and meeting.
Thanks to Carol MAINA Roam (# 4623), the PIP Chapter # 10 web page is up and
has a new address; be sure to change your bookmark to www.main.org/pip10