POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Central Texas/Austin
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly PIP meeting Sat, June 18 1998 at 1:00 p.m. at Bank One in Round Rock with 24 members and guests following a delicious pot luck luncheon. Minutes of the last meeting were distributed for approval. An envelope was circulated for members' dues. Lin announced that the Austin Italian Cultural Club is hosting pizza nights at Reale's Restaurant on the third Tuesday of the month and that the organization is working on a cookbook to sell.
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) reported that NIAF (National Italian American Foundation) was trying to locate cities having statues of Christopher Columbus. She has sent in the information for New Haven, Connecticut and encouraged anyone who knew about a statue to contact NIAF with that information. Lin showed the NIAF publications and has membership applications. Virginia also has a list of the Catholic dioceses in Italy. Jim Gerick passed around proofs of the chapter directory and surname list for corrections.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) reported on the new hourglass report feature of Family Tree Maker 6.0 . He is continuing to research the MASTRANGELO family in microfilmed records at the FHC.
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh found her Antonio LEONE in the Index to Declarations for Naturalizations in Washington Co, PA but has not located the same for the PIRANO family.
Jeanette Green (#3555) had bad news and good news regarding her research. Her bad news was that the Italian Consulate in Houston referred her to the Italian Consulate in Italy and they in turn referred her to Marzo del Valle and sent her the names of Italian researchers. Her good news was that Marilyn Henley located the birth records of her (Jeanette's) CUCCIO grandfather and his brother in the FHC film of Mezzojuso Sicily records and together they located two additional siblings. Marilyn mentioned that Jeanette still needs to obtain a marriage record for the uncle to prove that they found the correct family.
Janet Green brought a copy of Fordor's Las Vegas travel book. Some of the members who will be attending the POINTer Convention anxiously looked up their October destination. Janet mentioned that her church is supporting the campaign to keep the Austin City Council from cutting back on the funding, hours and staffing of the Austin History Center.
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) continued the news that the Austin City Council is proposing to reduce the budget for the Austin History Center by 40%, cut the staffing and shorten the operating hours by almost half. She asked everyone to please take the information she brought and to contact the mayor and city council requesting that this proposed budget be defeated. She mentioned that this cause is circulating nation wide among archivists, genealogists and people who are interested in helping Austin continue to be able to preserve past and more recent historical records and keep them accessible to the public.
Marilyn reported that David Baskin from the Texas State Library Genealogical Collection will speak at the Austin Genealogical Society meeting on Tuesday, July 28. His topic is "The Paleography of American Census Records". She reported that her family and mother and mother-in-law are taking a western Caribbean cruise in August.
Laurie GUGINO Riester joined as a new member. She has just begun researching the GUGINO surname. The family originated in the Palermo, Sicily area but Laurie does not know the name of the town. The family settled near the Buffalo, New York area around 1905. Her brother has been receiving some email messages from others interested in the Gugino name.
Anthony ABBATTISTA (#2641) brought his mother, Florence to the meeting and luncheon. Everyone offered their condolences on the recent death of his father. He reported that he's not worked on his genealogy for a while, but that he did have some family extracts from Corato, Bari that he had not told us about.
Don VILLONI and wife Shirley just returned from a 6,000 mile trip that led them to an overnight stay in Salt Lake City. They took advantage of their free evening to do a little impromptu research. Shirley found two VILLONI's who arrived in the U.S. before Don's family. Don brought the group some Salt Lake City research information for anyone planning to go.
Don read a passage from a book member Augie TROIANI loaned him called Italian Americans in the Community of Cleveland, pg. 191 where his grandfather Dominic VILLONI, a music composer, was mentioned as part of the cultural programs for Hiram House, Cleveland's Settlement House for immigrants. Don is going to Norristown, PA in August to hear 5 of his grandfather's marches performed in a Sicilian procession. Don also noted that a cousin in Cleveland has connected with a man whose father played in a band in NILES, Ohio. This man is looking through his sheet music to see if he has any of the marches written by Dominic Villoni. Don only needs 2 more marches to complete all 30 of those written by his grandfather.
Mary and Louis ONOFRIO (#3556) drove in from Dallas for the meeting. Mary is continuing her search to connect with other ONOFRIOs. She has found 10 out of the 14 in the di CAPRI family. Mary will be attending a NEY Reunion on her father's side which includes ancestry with the famous Austin sculptor Elizabeth Ney. Mary has become active in the Genealogy Friends of Plano (TX) Library and announced their October 10 seminar about Family Photographs.
Augie TROIANI gave us an update of his research about the COSTA family, the first Italian settlers in Austin. By reading original court records on microfilm, he discovered a discrepancy about Joseph COSTA that was written in a book he has been using for reference.
New Member Carol MERLINI ALGABBANI is researching the surnames MERLINI, DIELEUTERIO, RAPAUNO and MAIORINI from the cities TERAMO, SCAPRIANI, and SAN GABRIEL in the ABRUZZI Province. She told everyone about credit cards that are offered with Italian American logos from NBMA, Wilmington, DE.
Next meeting will be Wednesday, August 26, 1998 at the Bank One in Round Rock.
Visit our homepage at: http:www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3752/index.html