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 June 28, 2000 at the Bank One in Round Rock. Twenty-one
members and guests attended. Lin welcomed newcomers Bill and Ursala PASSAFUMA
Rader. Member Pat Oxley sent Joe Mastrangelo an e-mail with a photo of
her and POINT Conference vendor and supporter Bianca OTTONE taken in Rome
a few days ago. Lin announced that she is searching for a new
meeting location and will announce it next month.
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh (#4365) mentioned that her mother's brother, Frank E. Santo, died on May 30 in Farmington Hills, MI.
Louis SCOPEL (#4250) attended the June 2 Thurber Reunion. As he was telling about the old bandstand being located and moved back to the town, Marilyn showed a photo of it in the book, The Italian Texans by the Institute of Texan Cultures. Currently, there is a search for original bricks from old town buildings.
Frank and Bert HENRY (IANNARINO) (# 3258) are getting closer to moving into their almost completed home in San Angelo.
Gloria and Frank SILVA welcomed a new grandson, Jacob Paul Silva, on July 10, born in Houston.
Joyce TIANELLO Snodgrass finally caught up reading several days of PIE e-mail. She found the proper spelling of her grandmother's ship, Pascalone. She is planning a trip back to Ohio to visit her father and try to get more family information to help with her search.
Angie CLARK (#1538) mentioned that she learned that the DAL MOLIN airport in Vincenza, Italy was named after her father's family. She is corresponding with relatives in Italy trying to get more family information.
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) is still searching for her missing passenger list that she had at an earlier meeting.
Jim Gerick mentioned that the books about the ethnic groups in Texas, published by the Institute of Texan Cultures, is being reprinted in an all-in-one book with condensed information, including the Italians and Czechs. Joyce confirmed that the book is called Texans All and has 3-6 pages devoted to each ethnic group, but that it is not intended to replace the pamphlet books about each ethnic group.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) received a death certificate for Domenico Marsalia, who died in 1910 in Thurber. She still is not sure if he is her grandfather s brother. She is waiting for a copy of a ship list from NARA and for a response from INS about a naturalization record.
Di Frei was happy to get out of work early enough to get to the meeting.
Joe MASTRANGELO (# 2614) found Rosalia MASTRANGELO in the 1843 Putignano records. She is the daughter of the son of his great, great, great grandfather. He mentioned that Global Link Translator, which he uses, has a new 7.0 version that is being offered for $49.95.
Don VILLONI (#3985) went through a box that his mother had given to Don's daughter many years ago and discovered old baby clothes that belonged to his father, including stockings and a pair of eye glasses. He also found in an envelope dated October 27, 1927 her long hair that she had cut off. Also, he found old photos. He sent copies of 13 of the photos to an 85 year old cousin, who was able to identify almost all of them. ALSO, (we are all squealing by now) Don found a bundle of sheet music, which he was hoping would be his grandfather's compositions. They were not - however, they were music that his father played during his musician years - mostly Slovak polkas. Jim Gerick is checking with a Czech museum in LaGrange to see if they would be interested in having the music donated.
Tony ABBITTISTA (#2641) announced that the chapter web site is updated with the latest POINTer Conference information.
Bill BRINKMAN is contacting lots of cousins asking for information and stories for his book on his family.
Bill RADER introduced himself and has German and Irish ancestry. His paternal grandfather is from Clearfield County, PA and Hamburg Germany. His maternal grandparents are from Ireland.
Ursala PASSAFUMA Rader and husband Bill moved from Houston several years
ago. Her family comes from Alia, Sicily and includes the names GANCI (ANGIE),
PASSAFUMA, TAORMINA, and MATTALIANO. She is just beginning her
research. Marilyn will send her some information about Alia research.
She and Marilyn are both related to the MORTELLARO family in Houston.
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) announced that Juliet VIOLA, the Italian translator who translated the History of Poggioreale book and will be a vendor at the POINTer Conference, was recently married. Marilyn and her husband Arthur and Marilyn's mother, Lily ALFANO MANISCALCO, recently returned from five days in New Orleans. Besides visiting ALFANO family, Marilyn had several finds at the Orleans Parish Courthouse and NO Library. The most exciting was discovering that on April 10, 1893, her maternal grandfather's first cousin, Lorenzo ALFANO was the first person killed by an electric streetcar in New Orleans. There were three days of newspaper articles that were very detailed and descriptive.
Marilyn and Arthur are taking his mother to Germany at the end of July, via Zurich. She reminded everyone about the Austin Genealogical Society annual seminar on August 19 with speaker William Dollarhide.
Next meeting is a potluck luncheon on Saturday, July 15, at 1 pm at the Bank One Building.