POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Central Texas/Austin
Diana Frei, filling in for Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) who was absent due to illness.
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly POINTers In Person meeting
at 6:38pm, Wed, March
24, 1999, at the Bank One in Round Rock with 18 members attending.
Minutes of the February meeting were
passed around for approval.
Lin asked the members to extend get well thoughts to Louis ONOFRIO in
Richardson,TX and to Maria
TONTI Schulze. Also our sympathies go out to Mary Jo Belk, who
lost her brother recently, and to Jeannette
Green, who lost her mother.
Lin then passed around a list of names for members to review.
These were obtained at the genealogy
workshop she went to recently. She also handed out POINT business
cards from Dr. Tom.
Next was a short review of the first planning session for the 2000 POINTers
Conference. Lin read the text of a
form letter that she prepared for use in soliciting donations and other
support for the conference. Jamie
CANNONE is working on a logo for the conference.
Bill Brinkman spoke about the Williamson County Genealogical Society
seminar on March 13th that a number
of members attended. Dr. John Philip Colletta was the speaker.
Lin wrapped up the conference part of the meeting by mentioning that
Tony ABBATTISTA has set up an
additional webpage devoted to the conference, which is linked to our
main page at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3752/index.html . She
also mentioned that hotel rooms for the
conference can be booked now (mention POINT Conference).
Jamie CANNONE passed around a new book that he found at Borders bookstore
titled Italian-American
Family History , A Guide to Researching and Writing About Your Heritage,
written by Sharon DeBartolo
Carmack.
Diana Frei passed around a book of genealogy charts and family history
put together by her late husband's
family so that members could see a sample of what can be done with
that information.
Don VILLONI mentioned that he has been inactive recently due to
multiple eye surgeries. All wished him a
continued speedy recovery. He has finally collected the final
two marches that he was missing that were
composed by his grandfather Dominick VILLONI. He also mentioned
an upcoming trip to New York where
he will visit Ellis Island and contact a Manhattan attorney that he
may have a connection with.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) is still waiting for responses to his requests
for church records from Italy and
Pennsylvania (he's been waiting 2 months now). He mentioned that
Family Tree Maker 6.0 is out. He got his
copy today and is testing it. Joe is trying to determine parents for
his GUAGLIARDO and VETRANO
surnames from marriage records. He needs to contact CAMPOFIORITA,
Sicily for these records.
Tony ABBATTISTA (#2641) has been busy answering emails and updating the web pages.
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh showed a newspaper article about the LDS church
putting files on the web. She has
found a first cousin once removed that she has been corresponding with.
He sent her a photo of her grandfather
with her cousin and a photo of her half-aunts. She now has some
new names to work with--NOTARIANNI,
CARIO, and PUTERI. She's trying to sort out the connections.
Lin Brinkman showed some Italian flags and colored ribbon that were
donated by the TROIANIs, as well the
cookbook Secrets of Fat-Free Italian Cooking that they donated for
the conference.
Bill Brinkman mentioned that they will be attending a Brinkman family
reunion in Connecticut in July. He also talked about an upcoming
trip to Houston to the Clayton Library.
Jeanie MARSALIA received a response from the Department of Justice and
Naturalization Services saying that
they couldn't locate information on her grandfather. Her next
step will be to go to the LDS library in Austin to
do further research.
Kay and Louis SCOPEL have joined the group. They heard about it
from their cousin Angie Clark. They are
researching the SCOPEL, BIONDINI, ANDREI and MUSSI names.
Frank and Beth Henry (INNARINO) (#3258) are planning a trip to Pittsburgh
in April. Frank said that he
received confirmation that his parents names will be inscribed on the
Immigrant Wall of Honor. He also talked
about a program that he recently purchased called Ultimate Family Tree
that comes with one free research
request.
Augie TROIANI mentioned that writing to Italy for documents may become
more difficult due to a possible
Italian law prohibiting photocopying of church records.
Lin reminded everyone that our next regular meeting is Saturday afternoon,
April 17, 1:00pm, at Bank One,
Round Rock. It will be a pot-luck meeting, so everyone should
bring a dish and $1 to defray expenses.
Visit our homepage at: http:www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3752/index.html