POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Central Texas/Austin
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the monthly PIP meeting Sat, Oct 17, 1998 at 1:30 p.m. at Bank One in Round Rock with 18 members and guests in attendance. A potluck lunch was enjoyed by all before the general meeting began. Lin announced that our PIP chapter is three years old this month.
After minutes of the last meeting were read and approved, Lin passed around minutes written by Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley about the POINT conference, lecture topics and speakers. Lin described the wonderful time had by all who attended, the wonderful preparation by Chuck PANICO and visiting with Dr. Tom MILITELLO. She then announced that the attendees from our chapter offered to talk with the rest of the chapter about hosting the next conference in Austin in the year 2000. Members agreed to host the next POINT conference. Lin will begin the search for the hotel/meeting facility before a date can be set. Lin passed around five POINT pins that she purchased at the conference for our members to buy.
Guests Chick and Gladys CHIAPPORI and Jeanie MARSALIA were introduced. Chick is researching Vittorio CHIAPPORI from Chiavari and Rosa GUARNIERI from Neirone, both in Genova Province.
Jeanie MARSALIA is researching MARSALIA and MARCHETTI, both from Turin, Piedmont, Italy. She is trying to locate naturalization papers and knows that she has relatives in Collinsville, Illinois.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) is waiting for Putignano film to arrive at the FHC and is still extracting MASTRANGELO names from other film and has not received an answer to his letter to Ashville, PA.
Zina VERSAGGI Graalfs (#3336) is waiting for films of Augusta, Siracusa to do more VERSAGGI research.
Frank Henry (IANNARINO) (#3258) said that member Augie Troiani translated a letter for him from English to Italian that he sent to in Termini Imerese, Sicily asking for his parents birth certificates.
Mary Jo Belk (#3845) stayed over in Austin three extra days after returning from Las Vegas POINT conference to attend our meeting before heading home to Gun Barrel City.
Laurie GUGINO Riester has accumulated an amazing amount of information on her GUGINO Family in a short time. She is trying to learn more about her grandparents and their date of immigration from the census records and is also locating other GUGINO'S in the Fredonia, NY area. She received her grandfather's Naturalization paper in this morning's mail from the INS. She has a family web site and is posting her family information there as are several other family members. That site is: http://members.aol.com/lgr111/genealogy.html
Sheila BAYHA Dugosh would like to find a way to get the remaining Italians to America series in the Texas State Library. Sheila's new email address is: sdugosh@hotmail.com
Virginia MACRI Gerick (#2730) received a personal letter from NAIF thanking her for her contribution of information on U.S. cities with statues of Christopher Columbus. She discovered that her father's brother's birth certificate shows that he was born in Southington, not New Haven, CT. This would indicate that Southington, not New Haven would be where her paternal grandparents settled coming from Italy and where she needs to research early records. She talked with a cousin in New Haven, CT who has some family photos and may have some family documents. She passed around photos of both grandfathers.
Jamie CANNONE is sending off to Barcelona for records of his great great grandmother. He has copies of the marriage record for his great grandparents that give other spellings of their name and give another town in Cantania. He received information about the family that is in Australia from a cousin.
Bill Brinkman relayed the information given by Bill Doty of the National Archives at the POINT Conference regarding the passenger list of the s/s Carpathia which lists the survivors of the Titanic who were picked up by the Carpathia.
Marilyn MANISCALCO Henley (#1653) told that the her family reunion on Oct. 4 in Houston was attended by 79 people of the MANISCALCO, MONTALBANO AND WEIDO (GUIDA) members Three MESSINA sisters married into these families in Poggioreale, Sicily and they all settled in Houston. She displayed the reunion book with new photos from cousins.
Marilyn also passed around her new purchase, FROM PALERMO TO NEW ORLEANS, compiled by Mary Ann Riviere, the FHC microfilm lists and the Italian-American Federation of Houston newsletter. She announced that the next Austin Genealogical Society meeting is Oct. 27 with Elizabeth Hicks of Houston's Clayton Library for Genealogical Research.
Lin asked everyone to think about the POINT conference for a future brainstorming session. Our next meeting is Wed, November 18 at 6:30 pm at Bank One in Round Rock. Lin and Bill will host our annual Christmas potluck luncheon for members on Sunday, December 13 at 1 pm.
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