POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly meeting of POINTers in Person, Chapter #10 - Austin/Central Texas
on March 24, 2004, at the Round Rock Library with 19 people in attendance, including 3 guests.
Vincent & Theresa TASSONE PORTERA are interested in researching MISTRETTA in Messina and VIZZINI in Catagna. Vincent
and Theresa recently moved to Austin from Brooklyn, New York.
Another guest, Carol Holden, wants to locate her IPOLITI and PIGLIAPOCO relatives possibly around Rome. She told us
about a trip to Italy that she made with her grandfather when she was a teenager. He taught her how to speak Italian
when she was a child and she has very fond memories of him.
Bill and Ursula PASSAFUMA Rader (#4467) were recently contacted by the daughter of Bill’s second cousin whom Bill
had never met; it has been over sixty years since he saw his cousin. Her daughter located Bill through a surname he
posted on a website that focused on the Irish who settled n Iowa while working on her genealogy.
The cousin’s daughter filled in a lot of family information he did not know, including that several of their
great-grandparents’ relatives were in the catholic clergy in both the USA and Ireland. One of the more prominent,
an uncle of his great-grandmother, was a Monsignor. Father Flavin was, at the time of his death, the oldest priest
in Iowa. His obituary in the Des Moines newspaper indicated he was born in 1811 and died in 1920, making him 108 years
old. However Bill has established, through other obits and census reports that he was born in 1841, not 1811, and that
he died in 1926 living to the ripe old age of 85, not bad for 1826, but certainly no record. Bill also determined that
Monsignor Flavin had at least two nephews who were priests and both of Bill’s great-grandparents had brothers who were
priests. The Diocese website in Waterford County, Ireland lists Phelans and Flavins who are currently priests. Bill says
that, hopefully, he is blessed by distant association!
Jim Gerick announced that he and Virginia will be attending the State meeting of the Czech Heritage Society of Texas on April 3rd in West, Texas.
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) reminded members of our POINT library. She is the custodian of the varied collection of more than 25 books and tapes relating in some way to the Italian experience. Members have a list of these items and call Virginia to bring to the meeting a title they would like to borrow. Virginia brought to this meeting the following three books from the collection and gave a brief review of each: "The Leopard", by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa; "Papa, My Father", by Leo Buscaglia; "An Italian Education" by Tim Parks.
Sherry PACELLI Haddox (#4883) wrote a letter to the military archives in Naples. Her cousin from ROME, Alessandra GESUALDI, translated it for her. At the February meeting, Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) said that her grandfather, Dionisio PACELLI, should have registered with the military before he left Italy in 1899 when he was 20 years old. If they do have his registration it should include the exact location of his birth.
Warren Luken told us that his cousin’s son sent him a copy of a journal written by his grandfather of his life as a youth in Greenwich Village, New York City back in the late 1890’s. This is before the telephone, electricity and the things we take for granted today. Warren is also getting information on the maternal side of his family (Martin) as far back as his gg-grandparents.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) received a letter from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security acknowledging the receipt of her request to find her grandfather’s naturalization papers. The envelope made her think they wanted her passport back! The logo inside said "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services". She has not received an answer to the letter she mailed to Caterina MARCHETTO in late January. She has found several other listings for the same name in other areas of Italy on Websearch.com. With Maria TONTI Schulze’s help, she called one of the listings but it was not her. Maria suggested that Jeanie mail the same letter to all of them. Jeanie has also ordered film but it has not come in yet.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) has extracted civil records from Putignano, Bari for the names MASTRANGELO and PUGLIESE. He’s now at 2750 births, and 950 marriages. Each of these records has associated names with them - spouses primarily. The date range so far is from 1809 - 1876 for the births, and 1809 - 1879 for marriages.
Joe also reported on a portable data base - PAF for Palm - for those folks with a Palm Organizer, this program is
downloadable (free) from the LDS, and will down load a PAF Version of your family tree information to your hand held Palm,
for convenient reference.
Joe is beginning preparation of his 2004 POINT Conference presentation on Italian Civil Records. He has received copyright
permission from the LDS copyright administrator for several pages from the LDS reference outline to be included in the
handout.
He gave an update on the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation project - the same DNA project we participated
in at SLC in 2002. There is limited availability to the male searcher at this time, but one needs to have their own Y
chromosome genetic marker profile (the cost is approximately $150) from an independent laboratory.
Scott Patrick (#4819) found a death record for his great Aunt Rosa GARAGUSI in Laurenzana from 1871 as a seven year old, but no other deaths through 1879 by which time he knew the family had immigrated to the U.S.. Subsequently he found a passenger list from 1876 arriving at the Port of New York that included five of the other children including his great-grandmother Giovanna GARAGUSA. It also appears his gg-grandmother Carmela MANZI was on board, thus indicating she had not died in Italy as previously thought. Scott plans to check for their death in American records, most likely before 1880 since she did not appear in the 1880 U.S. Census with the children. A further search found a passenger list that appears to be the father, Giuliano GARAGUSI, and the two oldest boys arriving at the Port of New York in 1872.
Carol MAINA Roam (#4623) has added to her surname list:
In Boschetto/Torino/Piemonte the surname CAMBURSANO and
In Chivasso/Torino/Piemonte the surnames GIULIANO and SAVINO
Marily MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) and her daughter, Shelly Henley Kelly, is presenting a genealogy workshop on March 27
at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.
She is working on the many details for the national 2004 FGS Conference
being held in Austin in September, including visiting various genealogy societies.
Her house is finally on the market and
she will move back to Houston when it is sold.
The meeting adjourned at 8:45pm.
Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 28 at 6:30 pm to 8:55 pm at the Round Rock Library.