POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Submitted by: Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly meeting of POINTers in person, Chapter #10 - Austin/Central Texas on June 23rd at 6:30 pm at the Round Rock Library with 19 people in attendance including one visitor. Lin brought a picture of her cousin, Pasquellina MANCO, with her newborn grandson, Donilo CICCONE, in San Angelo in FORMIS, CASERTA.
Dolores BARNABEI was our visitor and she is researching the surnames: BARNABEI, MARAGGIA and SISTI from ASTI. And the names ROSSI, POSSI, RIGAMONTI, GIANOTTI, MARTIGNONE from LOMBARDI. Dolores is doing the research for her grandchildren so they'll know their family history.
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) has started corresponding with a person who shares, and is also researching, her maiden name, i.e., MACRI. Although both sets of grandparents came from different parts of Italy, there still could be some connection. Her correspondent was brought up in Paterson, N.J. where Virginia spent many summers in her early years with her mother's relatives. She has since lost contact with them, but she hopes her new friend may have some knowledge of these relatives, named CERTARO, and can help in reestablishing the relationship. Jim Gerick displayed an article from the CATHOLIC SPIRIT (June 04) "Fayetteville Parish Finds Lost Spiritual Treasures" The article is about religious paintings that early Czech immigrants of the Community of Fayetteville, Texas in the 1850s who struggled and endured hardships to obtain paintings from the old country for their parish. Through the years changes in tastes for religious art as well as other factors lead the paintings to be retired to attics and storerooms almost to be forgotten. In the summer of 2002, the parish priest uncovered some of the paintings, being an art major, he took interest in the paintings and had them cleaned. The parish learned that the artist was Ignaz Johann Berger (1822-1901) from Moravia (now Czech Republic). The paintings are now restored and available for art lovers to see at the St. John the Baptist Parish in Fayetteville.
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) attended the meeting after her move to Houston last month and was happy to be back with old friends. She passed around a 1924 photo of the wedding party of her maternal grandparents Lillie MARTINO and Frank ALFANO, which included Joe CATALYNE, who played the sax with 1940's big bands in California and New York. He was her mother's god father as well as a cousin. Marilyn's mother had never seen the photo before it was given to her by a VIVIANO cousin. Marilyn talked about the upcoming Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference that is being held in Austin September 8 - 11 and is co-hosted by the Austin Genealogical Society and the Texas State Genealogical Society. There will be more than 70 different speakers presenting over 130 lectures during the four days. Volunteer opportunities are also available before and during the conference. This is the first national genealogy conference held in Austin.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) told us that her son, Shane Mahon, and his wife, Catherine, were in Rome from June 3 - 10. They rented a motorcycle and traveled to a small town near Florence to see motorcycle racing. Upon their return, Jeanie received two bottles of Italian wine, one red and one white and a Gatti Di Roma mini calendar. Jeanie is still researching films at the LDS library seeking information on Caterina MARCHETTO who was related to her grandmother.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) is continuing to extract the MASTRANGELO and PUGLIESE birth records from PUTIGNANO. He has reached 1884 now (he began at 1809). He's exceeding 2900 records at this time in the Access data base.
Joe circulated flyers from the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society. The flyers are on:
Italian Research
NYC records
NY State (non-NYC)
Immigration and Naturalization
Catholic Research
Scandinavian Research.
Joe brought the lovely pictures he took at the Austin Italian Chalk Art Festival. He also brought the current edition of Comunes of Italy
surname directory.
He also passed around an article which appeared in the Austin American Statesman on June 6th about the Italian sculptor, Pompeo Luigi Coppini, whose statues of George Washington, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Woodrow Wilson, James Stephen Hogg, John H. Reagan and Albert Sydney Johnston are being moved from their present locations at the University of Texas to be placed at Littlefield Fountain which was one of the sculptors best-known Texas works.
The fountain (also at the university) is a memorial to U.S. participation in World War l and was named for Austin banker George Washington Littlefield (1842-1920), a Confederate major who was a UT regent and the project's principal donor.
Coppini's plan was to show how the American effort in World War l brought about the final reunification of our nation after the rupture of the Civil War. As Coppini put it "to prove that in World War l both North and South were solidly welded in one great nation, without Dixie Line distinction". But, his original plan was underfinanced and unrealized.
Pat Oxley (#3713) shared photos of her first granddaughter, Katherine Elizabeth (Katie) Simmons who is now 7 months old. Unfortunately, she's only 1/16 Italian, but Pat's already suggesting to her that she might want to marry an Italian to get that good blood back in the family! Pat and Marilyn Henley shared the work they've been doing on the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference which is being held at the Convention Center in Austin on September 8 - 11 of this year. Marilyn is one of the local co-chairs and Pat is the co-chair of the Exhibit Hall. They have signed up 86 vendors which includes 140 booths sold thus far. They have about 38 more booths to sell. They have a wonderful variety of exhibitors and would love to see a POINT booth, manned by local POINT members. They passed out brochures and talked about some of the speakers and other networking opportunities at the Conference. They also encourage folks to volunteer. Pat mentioned that she had been to Salt Lake City with Lynn LECROPANE in April and had lunch with their dear friend, Ruth MERRIMAN. The Austin Genealogical Society is hosting another trip to Salt Lake City April 13 - 19, 2005. Pat is the Coordinator of that trip which will be 7 days/6 nights and includes airfare, hotel, dinner with speaker, transportation to/from the Salt Lake City airport and a hospitality room for the group for $650 per person ($25 discount for AGS members). All are welcome to take advantage of this trip.
Scott Patrick (#4819) found the marriage record of his third-great grandparents, Vincenzo GARAGUSO and Aurora ASMUNDIS, in the town of ANZI, PZ., BA. Vincenzo was from the neighboring town of PIETRAPERTOSA. He also found birth records for 9 children in a 12 year period and knows of another child 13 years after the last of those nine. He has not gone through the films for the 12 years between the final two children he has found, so there are sure to be more. He also found many death records in Anzi, including those of both third-great grandfathers, Giuliano ASMUNDIS and Vincenzo GARAGUSI. Scott has also continued to correspond with several recently discovered cousins here in the U.S. and is sharing information. He received several photographs from one cousin and a partial family tree from another. He is now trying to work out some of the differences in the new data to what he had previously. He also learned some of the details about the murder of one of his cousin's grandfather who was Scott's great-uncle.
Ursula PASSAFUMA Rader was unable to locate a marriage certificate for her grandparents Rosolino PASSAFUMA and Rosalia GANCI after searching through one microfilm roll. Joe MASTRANGELO helped with her search. Ursula's cugino, Mark VETRANO, returned from his visit to ALIA, SICILY with the sad news that their cousin, Francesco GANCI'S wife, Giuieppa LINNINO had passed away just before he arrived and their cugino Rosolino GANCI, Francesco's brother is very ill. He said that all the relatives from Europe were there and they were so happy to see him. They visited all the special places in ALIA, including their ranch in the hills where they grow olive trees, grapes, other fruits and lots of vegetables. They had dinner there in a small house that had been on the property for a very long time. He said that they were all very pleased that he had come to visit and was looking forward to having all the other family members visit.
Carol MAINA Roam (#4623) has been reviewing the Boschetto church records through LDS researching the CAMBURSANO surname. She also located two of her mother's sisters in the 1930 census through Ancestry.com. They both resided at the same address, but both of their surnames had been misspelled in the census index (and on the actual census form) so it took quite some time to locate the record.
Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883) received the interment record from Calvery Cemetery in Woodside, New York for her great-grandfather's (Antonio PACELLI) grave. There are six others in the grave. All six are the children of Sherry's great-uncle, Tito PACELLI.
The meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM. Our next meeting is July 28, 2004 at 6:30 PM in the Round Rock Library.