Tracing Roots: Ancestral Journeys and Hidden Histories

Ever wondered how tracing your roots could change your life? Our latest episode promises a captivating journey into ancestral migration and the unique stories of entrepreneurship that blossom from it. Rich takes us on an emotional adventure, sharing how his grandfather transitioned from coal mining in Calabria and Puglia to a thriving hat-making business in Philadelphia's Little Italy. You'll discover the fascinating concept of chain migration, which brought many families from Biccari to the same neighborhood, and learn about the valuable historical documents that illuminate these incredible stories.

Prepare to be amazed by the transformative power of DNA testing and genealogical research. Hear stories of mixed heritage revelations from Evangeline  about her Romani and Irish traveler to Italian and Middle Eastern roots. These revelations are pieced together through historical records, military traditions, and personal anecdotes, illuminating the complex tapestry of human migration and identity shifts. You'll be inspired by the Valillo family’s journey from Campobasso in 1905 and the surprising connections unearthed through tools like My True Ancestry.

In our final exploration, we emphasize the importance of tracing your ancestry, particularly for those seeking dual citizenship or documenting family history. John, Evangeline, Rich and Jeff share invaluable insights into leveraging local genealogy clubs, libraries, and family records. From the noble lineage of the Caracciolo family to Clotilda's inspiring story of overcoming adversity, this episode is a heartfelt celebration of our shared histories. Join us for a meaningful conversation that underscores the joy of connecting with our past and the importance of preserving these stories for future generations.

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Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:13

Hi everyone. This is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Welcome to a special live version of my podcast, and today I have three great guests who are going to talk about their amazing ancestors. I have Rich, john and Evangeline. So welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. So, rich, let's start with you. You know when did your family arrive and you know what got you started, and then what's your amazing ancestor story?

Speaker 1: 0:48

Sure, bob. So I am born and raised in the little Italy enclave of Philadelphia and I am 100 percent Italian-American, meaning on my paternal side my grandparents came from Calabria, settled in Philadelphia. On my maternal side my grandparents came from Julia, so I've got Pugliese and Calabrese roots From our genealogy research. It was like 1902, 1910 they came. Some of my grandparents came in Ellis Island but also Philadelphia, the Port of Philadelphia. So besides Ellis Island, besides Boston, besides Baltimore, since family was already here in Philadelphia, I've got documentation that shows one of my grandfathers, one of my grandmothers, physically came to the port of Philadelphia. And the other interesting piece is that when my grandfather came he started in the coal mines of Western PA but eventually had his own business, an entrepreneur selling hats. So he was a hat maker and there's his storefront where I was born and raised, above that store.

Speaker 1: 2:04

The other interesting piece of our puzzle is that when we did our research we found that it was the typical chain migration, meaning 1902, 1910, there were families from our community, dibikidi, already settled in Philadelphia. And then when my cousin did a little bit more research with census records, he found that there were like hundreds of people from that town, first generation, second generation that were all from Beacony and he wrote a book about it. So our story sort of, you know, solidifies the word chain migration that you might see in a lot of literature, solidifies the word chain migration that you might see in a lot of literature, academic literature that talks about those people that you know set up shop, set up homes, told their family to come here, so on and so forth. Pretty much that's it from that standpoint. From that standpoint, once again, interesting part is once again my grandmother, grandfather, did hit the port of Philadelphia physically as opposed to coming to Ellis Island.

Speaker 2: 3:12

And so now I know you just did your second trip there, right?

Speaker 1: 3:17

Actually third Bob.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Even better.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Yeah, and it was wonderful. We've connected with distant relatives that take us in. There's nothing like walking. You know those alleyways where potentially my ancestors were walking. You know we went to the mother church. We've become very involved with the community. They're very interested in sharing our root stories with them. They want to hear that. So we've had the opportunity to speak as Italian Americans to the residents of BQD that share descendants distantly with me and some other family members.

Speaker 2: 3:59

So just you know. So on the hat shop did they make hats in Italy.

Speaker 1: 4:06

So I don't know the answer to that question. Basically, he started at that large factory in Philadelphia it was the John B Stetson Hat Company, probably the largest maker of hats in the US at the time.

Speaker 2: 4:18

So he started there and then, as an entrepreneur, you know, like anybody else else, he started his own business with his brothers oh nice, so so jeff uh had a comment here that he thinks his business owner came to philadelphia too, but he hasn't able to prove that yet, so rich any insight on on how to help jeff uh find the philadelphia family yeah, you know, the National Archives basically had lists besides Ellis Island.

Speaker 1: 4:48

They do have the list of the Philadelphia arrivals, right. So you got to dig a little deeper. Once again, my grandmother I have the piece of paper that says she hid that in 1910. So you got to dig. I mean, ancestry might have it, familysearch, but I was fortunate to use the National Archives to get that documentation. Yeah, that's great. And how far got you know the lineage from that point, definitely the 1880 when my grandfather was born, and you know we've got the naturalization record so on and so forth. But yeah, we think we've got our roots definitely solidified and we know our family history.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Right, and for anybody listening that's from Philadelphia or Beaker Eric, he wrote a book too about the whole migration right.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, and, like I said, there were just hundreds of people between the first generation arriving and their children, over hundreds of people that could connect with the town of Beekity.

Speaker 2: 6:11

Well, that's great and you know, I have a photograph of my grandfather's store, also with my uncle who was his partner, or my great uncle who was his partner, and my uncle was probably about 13, 14 years old, and it's precious to have something like that. And I have actually beads from my grandfather's shop that are probably like, probably close to 100 years old now or something like that.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Yeah, and we get questioned all the time Do we still have hats of my grandfather? I wish we did, because they it would be museum pieces, artifacts, you know. But you know, when you think of that time period, that photo is probably circa 1920. I mean, hats was part of the haberdashery right Every man that you probably know. So it was a pretty lucrative business at that time. Everybody had a fedora.

Speaker 2: 7:02

Absolutely yeah. Yeah, they made a comeback when I was growing up in like the 60s. We wore fedoras once in a while.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Right.

Speaker 2: 7:09

We didn't look as classy as those guys, though, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:14

So, evangeline, what's your story? I know you come from, your family was in Detroit and you also had some roots in the New York area also, right.

Speaker 4: 7:24

So my story is quite interesting, I would say, just because I come from such a nomadic background. My mother was from the southern United States and came from like a Romani shell kind of a mixed ancestry and that traveling tradition, and she met my father in Canada when she was about 15 and ended up migrating up there and my father's mother actually had ended up in Canada from Detroit and then her mother's side of the family. We found out as time went on around that time period, because so much was happening around this in Ireland with the Protestant Catholic different things that were happening. There was that mass migration that was coming from Ireland into Canada and when her mother was going back and forth to Detroit, when we were going through the Ancestry records, we realized something that was interesting because he had thought that they were Protestant but they were actually Catholic and but when they were in Canada their records would read Protestant and so when we were doing a lot of this research and we were kind of going through this, it was really fascinating because my father didn't know much about his grandfather, because it was just kind of something that was never really discussed.

Speaker 4: 8:53

So as a family we wanted to do all of this ancestry, this DNA testing, right Like that, was really where I think it kind of started up, because we really didn't know too too much, uh, about our ancestry. It was just kind of something that my father was pretty clear on where his father came from in the long agricultural tradition. Um, my mother, like I said, had a lot of those, um, roma, gypsy type of roots. So when we kind of pulled up this ancestry and everything was all over the map for myself and for my daughter and my father got all of his results back, it was shocking to him to find out that his great uncle, who was the only surviving relative, his son, had also done his ancestry because he's been aging. And when we got his ancestry panel back and it was almost all italian and middle eastern and way smaller irish portion than what they thought, that's when we started going down the rabbit hole and so by being able to connect with our dna matches, and then I started getting really into the records because genealogy has always kind of been really fascinating to me. I'm an economist and I'm also in engineering school now, so from a lot of my, I guess, analytical and research, it's always just kind of been something I enjoyed and my father had, you know, always kind of had that missing piece. So as the technology has advanced, we were able to uncover things that I think at the time was not really able to be uncovered my great great grandparents when we found the records coming through New York and they came through Ellis Island and they came and it was 1899. And then my grandfather and his brother. They came with their aunt and their uncle. A few years later they all migrated into Germantown and my great grandfather and his brother, they served in the First World War and that's where all the naturalization records I was able to get that my mother's family also had a lot of military. My veteran, my husband, was in the Marine Corps, so we were stationed in Camp Lejeune for a while too. So this military tradition that I noticed, you know, has always kind of been something strong within the community as you were immigrating. But we had nothing to go off of.

Speaker 4: 11:16

Initially the DNA was the jump off point and then from there we had to really start doing the research and then the Nadeo name, which is the family name, we were finally able to trace. We were able to look at all the DNA percentages. I was able to reach out and contact people. We were able to post some stuff. We were able to trace the time that they were in Detroit when he would have met my great grandmother, and during that time period was how that happened and it started to make sense for my father. Oh well, this is where all these missing pieces have been, and so we're still kind of green in our genealogy journey.

Speaker 4: 11:52

But we were able to get our records going all the way back, pulling also from Italy as well, from that Salerno region San Gipriano, pesentino and then Saigifonia, I think, is the other small commune that they were from and that's actually exactly where the ancestry DNA was actually able to pinpoint. So that was even more interesting, that they were able to get that precise, that when we went and started digging deep into the records that that was exactly where they had came from. So now we've been able to go several generations back. But it's challenging when you only have kind of one elder generation relative. But I'm very grateful that his son had the foresight, because my uncle, eugene, is 95. So you know, it was something that I think has been a family journey and my father and I are hopefully going to be able to start planning to take some of these trips and kind of go and get some deeper information.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Yeah, and that's when you really feel connected when you make that trip. So your dad didn't really, he didn't know that much, huh no he didn't know.

Speaker 4: 13:03

He didn't know and I think because, like my mother's ancestry was such a mixture, right, I mean she had, you know, ancestors that were passing for white at a certain point in Juncture in American history.

Speaker 4: 13:15

She had this kind of Romani child is gypsy type of background and then even my father's great grandmother it seems that they were also Irish traveler and that was the reason why that migration that was going back and forth between the border. I mean, when you start looking at the historical context of the things that were happening at the time, I think here we are in 2024. And, you know, we look at the way that the world serves identity on a plate as something that's very binary and you start to understand that the world has always been very complex. And I think that that's been the most fascinating thing for me and the thing that makes me most proud to have that ancestry to that region, because I think Southern Italy shared so much as a connection point for, you know, sciences and religion and sharing of information, and so much evolved from these places and there's so much fascinating history when you really get to dig into it yeah, that's, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Um, and you know, when you, when you go there, you kind of see that you see all these, this, this whole mixture of everybody, just out of of curiosity, which DNA test did you do? Did you do ancestry?

Speaker 4: 14:27

So we did 23andMe initially, but because I have access to a lot of like you know a lot of these like kind of like other genetic tools and like looking at these other things and that you're able to like upload your panels from, we did 23andMe as a family, collectively, right, so it was my brother, my mother, myself, my um, my oldest daughter, who she's about to be 19 and you know, when we were looking at it there were some things that you know. I think it got really precise, but then there was some really broad categories. So by using some of these other um like ged, match or other dna um like dna genix is also good too when you start kind of working with your raw dna, because the majority of these add mixture tests, right. I think that sometimes people can, you know, question like, what are you really seeing and why is it really showing up that way? But a lot of it is all math and how they triangulate, like that percentage.

Speaker 4: 15:25

So I think 23andme is a really good tool, um, but I think everybody has to kind of think about their own background because some of the, some of the services are better for certain groups, like if you're, if you have a lot of mixed ancestry. It can be challenging depending on what you choose. But if you have like a strong, 100 or close 100 ancestry, I think ancestrycom can be challenging depending on what you choose. But if you have like a strong, 100 percent or close to 100 ancestry, I think ancestrycom can be good for that. But so, but 23andme was able to get really precise, um, at least for the italian community, and that's the thing that I've been realizing, like whatever dna samples that they have at 23andme for the italian community in the diaspora, they know what they're doing because it seems to be as accurate as what I've seen.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Yeah, I'm trying to remember if I sent mine off to them. I think I probably did, but I probably haven't looked in quite a long time. I also sent mine to a living DNA, which I thought, because they're based in Europe, that they would have a lot more of Italians, but Italians don't do DNA. So, yeah, yeah, it's nothing, uh, but what's interesting about them is that they give you the the mother line and father line yes, we did that as well.

Speaker 4: 16:33

We got that that's really interesting.

Speaker 2: 16:35

So what did you find there? I'm curious what did you find with your would, your mother line?

Speaker 4: 16:39

so my maternal from my mother was this it's H41A, of course. My father, because it was through his mother, he wasn't able to know kind of what his you know what his paternal haplogroup was. But with my uncle, eugene, that's actually how we were able to confirm that his father, his biological father, was who he was through the other male direct ancestors, because they shared that paternal haplogroup. And it was matter of fact. I think I actually have, because I pulled a lot of these records and what we've been doing is we've been compiling almost like a picture book for the rest of the family so that they can kind of go down their own rabbit holes whenever they feel like you know doing so. Let me just see if I remember what it was for my paternal, for what that was, but I think that here it is. I believe this Yep, here we go. So for the paternal haplogroup, it was the IL801. 01. And that kind of gave us everything that we needed to know to be able to match up with kind of the origins of the rest of the family. But I feel like I'm still green in this research because there is so much conflicting information with some of the DNA stuff. So I think that it can be a good jump off point.

Speaker 4: 18:04

I think that it helps people to kind of get a general area to know where to go looking for the records. But you're really going to want to lean on those records. Like, I was really grateful that I got a lot of assistance and being able to find, pull records from Italy directly, you know, utilizing those tools that are available now online, and then, of course, the US Census records. Ancestrycom is good for those records, but it can be a bit pricey. I always advise people like, if this is what you're trying to do, try to block off a couple of months so that you know like you're going to get these records, you're going to pull them, you're going to really go through them, try to match them up, because if you, you know you kind of just wait.

Speaker 4: 18:51

Next thing, you know your ancestry bill is going to be a little out of control, but these are also available in different free databases as well. So the technology is there, but going back to basics is really, I think, the only way, because most of these records are not even going to necessarily be available unless you go directly to that, and I think that that's the reason that we've hit the wall and so we go back to Italy. But the good news is is that the Nadeo family name is pretty concentrated and the other, that particular region of families, you're able to kind of see that it seems like the more common names. When you go to those names it can get a little bit more challenging because you're seeing it all over the map, but when you get some of those regional names that can also help also.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Yeah, and what I found most amazing about my mother's haplogroup she's U1, and it's almost 100% from the Caucasus. I never would have expected that. You know, because you know, I know they've been in Italy for a very long time, so that was really a shocker to me to find out that. You know, going back, you know 10,000 years or whatever it was, there's no Italian.

Speaker 4: 20:24

You'd be surprised how much you know. 10,000 years or whatever it was uh, there's no Italian you'd be. You'd be surprised how much you know, even with my particular maternal haplogroup. Like there's a mummy sitting in a museum in Ulster that has our you know, that has our haplogroup. And that was one of the first times that they'd found that when they were doing some of the um archaeology in Egypt with those particular haplogroups. So you know, we start to see the human story a little bit more. We had a lot of cyprus and north africa and a lot of algerians who that came up. My uncle, eugene, had way more touch points. That was kind of that algeria tunisia region and then um cyprus. But then I found out that when I traced one of the great grandmothers that we were able to get in Italy, I believe she was born on Capri, so that could also potentially be how some of that was introduced. But a lot of this migration is it starts to, I think, connect us more as a human family when we do that.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Yeah, absolutely. And if you haven't heard of it, try my True Ancestry. They do charge, but I think they let you do it for free. What they do is they go to archaeological digs, back you know 10,000 years, 20,000 years, who knows how far, and it's more directional than anything else, but it is really pretty interesting. So, John, how about your story? When did the family come and what did you find? So, John, how about your story? When did the family come and what?

Speaker 3: 21:42

did you find? Well, the story with the Valillo family started in about 1905 when my great-grandfather, giovanni, came from Campobasso in the Molise region, and I actually and we've talked about this before on your podcast is that I didn't get since early in my life when we were exposed to the Italian traditions. And you know, life got in the way after that and I tried to rediscover that, did find that Giovanni came over in 1905 by himself, find that Giovanni came over in 1905 by himself, and I looked into his history in my research and he was born in 1870. And his father died. His father was Paul and he died about 1878, when Giovanni was eight, and then his mother died when he was 14 in 1884. And so I was wondering who raised him after that point. There's no records that really tell what happened after the age of 14 until I got married in 1896.

Speaker 3: 23:35

And the picture is my great-grandmother. It's Clotilda. Now she had had four children after they got married in 1896, two of which survived. There were two that had died early in their lives and I would imagine that, with the difficulties that they were having economically and with things that were happening with the family, that was the reason that Giovanni decided to follow a lot of the other people from Campobasso to Cleveland, ohio, and so he came over in 1905. I didn't know if he would be one of the what's the term? Birds of passage that would come over and go back and come over, but apparently he decided to stay and Clotilda, his wife, came the next year with the two surviving children and then had two more here in the States in Cleveland my grandfather, antonio, and my great aunt Annunziata, which became Nancy, and so she came over in 1906. Antonio was born in 1907. And the picture the younger Clotilda was in 1917 when Giovanni died of tuberculosis and there were no support programs like Social Security or anything to support surviving widows. So she had to quickly remarry, found somebody in Cleveland to get married to, basically three months after Giovanni died, and so that picture of her as a younger woman she was born in 1875. This was 1917, for the picture was with her new family and then the picture of her holding the baby is her holding me in 1956. So they had a tough life. They had a tough life. She was born.

Speaker 3: 26:13

Clotilda was born in a village close by to Campobasso and abandoned. She was one of the babies that were taken to the what's the term ruoto, the wheel that would rotate through a wall and the mother would deposit her on this wheel. The nuns at a church would move the wheel, take the baby and then notify the mayor of Capabasso that they had a baby to be given to a family, that possibly the mother was still able to provide nourishment to a young baby. So luckily she did find a family to raise her. And then she grew up and obviously married Giovanni and they came to the US. And then she grew up and obviously married Giovanni and they came to the US.

Speaker 3: 27:10

The records, as many of you know, they came with maybe $10 to their name. If you see the immigration records through Ellis Island, that column that shows how much money they came with would show a lot. Most people, five dollars, ten dollars, that's all they brought with them, and so it also would show if they could read or write. And neither of them could read or write. So they come here with very little.

Speaker 3: 27:42

They come here with no ability to read or write and the generations following them continued to grow not only in knowledge but in economic status. And finally, you know, three or four generations down, we have the American story, we have the success stories that many of us have been able to experience this many years after they arrived. Just like Rich said, I've been able to research my family back to early 1600s, late 1500s a lot of it with professional help by hiring people in in italy to go to the parishes and get the records and and, uh, put it all together for me. So it's, it's been an amazing journey to find out exactly what your roots are and how far we've come.

Speaker 2: 28:53

Yeah, that's super. That's a great story, john, and I remember you talking about that. So we were joined by Jeff D'Amelio. So welcome, jeff, and I'm sure you joined because you have a great ancestry story yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 5: 29:09

Well, maybe oh they're all great.

Speaker 5: 29:16

We're Italian, but we're not Italian. My only ancestor is my great-grandfather, who married a woman around the corner around 9th Street, south 9th Street in Philadelphia, who was of English, irish, anglo-saxon, protestant background background. So my grandfather, who was the oldest, in 1891, he was raised mostly by his mother, whereas his three sisters and his brother were all raised Catholic and so we were all my grand, my father's and his sisters and us are all Protestant and my grandfather never talked about being Italian. He very rarely, ever said. He never volunteered any information we always had to to ask.

Speaker 5: 30:25

Well, it turned out that he was disowned by his father because he didn't do what his father wanted him to do. So, uh it, his father was a musician, slash taylor. So we know how he got his money, but we know how he wanted to get his money. But my grandfather wanted to go to school. He wanted to become an accountant. He got a job with a meat distributor down by the river, became the president and retired as the president of the company. He went to school at Wharton in the evening to get his degree.

Speaker 5: 31:14

My great grandfather would have paid for his tuition at any of the Catholic schools, but he didn't want to go to any of the Catholic schools. So at some point my great grandmother was buried in the Catholic cemetery, although she was Protestant, and somehow my great grandfather got away with that. My grandfather didn't like that, so there was another rift. Turns out there was a another woman and a baby, and that's another point of disagreement. So there's a lot of things that we're learning that we never knew, because no one ever told us. My father didn't know, or he never bothered to tell us some things his older sister seemed to know and told my cousins, but they never told me. So it's just been a struggle to say to a certain extent, and the stories that we were told. I'm learning as I've gone through research that it's not necessarily true either.

Speaker 2: 32:23

Well, that's not unusual. Yeah, I've heard several people say the same thing. They heard all of these stories and then, when they did research, none of them were true or they were either enhanced or significant pieces were left out.

Speaker 4: 32:40

A lot of omission. I think I completely empathize with Jeff, with your journey, because there's certain things that weren't talked about and certain things that you know. The times were so different, so it's challenging when you're trying to navigate that and still be sensitive to everybody's feelings too.

Speaker 2: 33:01

Yeah. So, jeff, you had said that you're like kind of Italian, so I kind of got lost on that a little bit.

Speaker 5: 33:08

Yeah, we're Italian in our name, d'amelio. I'm a 10th generation Michener. The Micheners go back all the way to John and Sarah, who worked for William Penn, came to the United States, came to Philadelphia in 1686. Settled. Eventually the family settled in Bucks County, which is where we grew up, outside of Doylestown, and eventually that family went to Ohio, which is so this is my mother's side of the family. So in 1976, my grandmother made that connection with a woman in Doylestown, pennsylvania, that we were, that our missionaries with a T were connected to the missionaries without a T. And lo and behold, we're. Now we know that we're the same missionaries that we grew up with around Doylestown. So that was the impetus for me to find out. Why don't we know this about the D'Amelios? So that's what I got started.

Speaker 5: 34:28

Unfortunately, my grandfather never really said anything. His aunt, who was an old maid, came with his great grandmother, great great grandmother, in 89. So they were here when he was born. So she was his aunt, was about 13 or something like that, and she never said anything and she died in 60. So we were I was nine years old and she never really said anything. She lived with her, with my grandfather's old maid sisters all three of them and they never talked about that. My grandfather and his sisters didn't seem to have a great close relationship and I think that's because of the rift with his father and their father, so we didn't see them very often. My father said that when he learned to drive all he did was drive to cemeteries, and so he drove probably to Yadin to see that cemetery and then to the German cemetery up in North Philadelphia for his mother's side of the family. So we just we didn't have a lot of interaction on the Italian side.

Speaker 2: 35:51

And none of that information was ever given to us.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Yeah, that's a lot of detective work, I guess. Hey, bob, if I can add, there was a story that came to mind. So my cousin, eric, as you know, traveled to the Kamuni years ago and he runs into this lady that says, hey, I know your family. So she takes him in her house, opens a shoebox with all these photos right, my cousin's calling me from Italy. He says, hey, I'm in this lady's house that we think is a relative, and these photos she has are of our family. And the bottom line was my grandmother had sent all these postcard-type photos of her children, my mom, my uncles, to this lady. And here it is, 70 years later, the shoebox is open, miles away in the town of Bikiti, and it's my grandmother, you know, showcasing her children that were born in America, the second generation. And Eric's calling me from Italy.

Speaker 1: 36:55

And you know, I don't know what to say, except that you know our stories. Our stories are what the academic people write about, right, this diaspora. And if it wasn't for what you just said, the amazing ancestors that we all share those stories wouldn't be written. But here we are, you're allowing us to tell it on this platform, and it's a wonderful experience. I know everybody can share in that because our stories are amazing. They really are, and some of them are unfold.

Speaker 1: 37:25

Still there's gaps along that line, there's holes. We talk about it, but what if were they part of the Padroni? Were they birds of passage? Was it chain migration? You know all of those words that are in those academic journals that I love, I kind of love reading, you know, because I'm saying you're telling the story of each one of our ancestors, the ones that took that, that journey, that 14 day, 12 day journey, and we know the history of the steamships and the conditions and when they hit the Ellis Island or the ports of Philadelphia or New Orleans. So here we are telling our story and I think that's great that you're allowing us to do that.

Speaker 2: 38:04

Ah, my pleasure. I live for this now.

Speaker 1: 38:09

So I could ask maybe of you, bob, right Roots and genealogy, you've got to have some roots too in a story to tell.

Speaker 2: 38:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, I have lots and lots of amazing ancestors and if I put this one up here, hopefully it's not sideways but it is. I was trying to fix it so it's not sideways. Let me try another one. Let me see if this one's still side. Yeah, they're both sideways. Uh, anyway, if you turn your head you'll see. You'll see 5c, amelia, uh marrying. Uh, nicholas, count, pure malo and um, this is kind of what led me on to like one of the most fantastic journeys that anybody could possibly have.

Speaker 2: 39:02

My growing up I was always told in fact we have his what I refer to as his calling card mygrandfather, my paternal grandmother's father, and it had his crest on it and it said that my mother would tell me that he came from a noble family and all of that. And I never really expected to find that much. But as I started to dig into this, what popped up was this record from the Libro d'Oro, which is kind of like the golden book of Italian nobility. And I came across this record and the names matched, because my father was Nicholas and his grandfather was Nicola and my oldest aunt was Amelia, emily, and her grandmother was Amelia. The date of the marriage matched up and everything. But I couldn't find my grandmother listed. And then it dawned on my girl. Of course she's not listed. They didn't list the females, right. Once you hit a female, that was the end of it, right, it was all the males. So I called my cousin that lived with my grandmother and I asked her if she ever heard the name Caracciolo and she said well, of course that's grandma's name. I said did you know how famous these people were? And she said oh yeah, she used to mention things here and there, but you know, we thought that she was just, you know crazy old lady. And telling us about you know her cousin was a princess and all of that kind of stuff, and telling us about you know her cousin was a princess and all of that kind of stuff. So you know, in this book and anybody who's lucky enough to find what I found you could trace this Italian heritage through these families all the way back to, in some cases, the 900s, and it's the case in the Scaracciolo family. So as I started digging through, I found out that Amelia's father was the son of a prince although there were lots of princes in Italy at the time and he married a woman from Switzerland. And I said, boy, how did he wind up marrying this woman from switzerland? And I said, why? Why, you know, how did he? He wind up marrying this woman with the one.

Speaker 2: 41:17

And one day, just digging around the internet, and I tell people all the time, just start, you know, type stuff into the internet. You never know what's going to find. I found, um, this website. They said, if you have swiss ancestors, write us in German, italian or English and we'll answer you. So I said, well, my great-great-grandmother was Elisa Moore. She married, her father, was in the Swiss Guard in Naples in the 1850s, but I can't find anything else.

Speaker 2: 41:50

And they sent me the history of all these families in Lucerne, switzerland, and they had hand-drawn genealogy charts going back in some cases to the 1300s. And, sure enough, elisa Moore was on there and it's all in Latinin. So I kind of had to feel my way through there, um, and you know, going back in time through these, this family, um, they were a mainstay in naples and one of the things that I learned was the nobility in southern italy, this kingdom of the two sicilies, did not live in their hometowns, they lived in Naples and they would go visit their hometowns every so often and once or twice a year, and they would collect, and they also didn't pay taxes. They would collect taxes but they didn't pay taxes. So, as a result, these you know, these people were extremely, extremely wealthy. Unfortunately, it didn't make any. None of it made its way to me. When we were there, my wife kept asking me you know, so where's your share? I'm sure that's long gone, but both my grandmother's families came from here. But the most amazing thing that I found was this, and that's Prince Marino Caracciolo. He was the prince of. I'll give you all his titles, let me see where he is. He was the prince of Avellino. He was the Duke of Atropalda, the Count of Torello and the Baron of San Severino. He owned much of what's currently Campania.

Speaker 2: 43:57

And when I saw this photograph, I said I have a picture of myself that looks like this guy. I was facing the other way, so I had to flip it. I made it black and white and my sounding board was my wife and I said what do you think about this picture? And she said oh my God, you look like him. Who is that? And I said it's you think about this picture? She said oh my God, you look like him. Who is that? And I said it's my ninth great grandfather.

Speaker 2: 44:19

So through this family I've been able to connect to, just, you know, all the houses in Europe for the most part, and never in a million years did I ever expect to find something like that. You know people say, well, you know there's millions and millions of people that are related to these. You know people. And I said, well, yes, of course that's true, I know that's true. I said, but be able to be lucky enough to find it, especially through an Italian family.

Speaker 2: 44:52

You know, we always think of the gateway ancestors to America that lead back to England and the kings of England and all that kind of stuff. So it's been an amazing journey. Conversely, my mother's family were farmers in Torito Barri and had they never came here, they never would have. Even if they lived in the same area, they never would have been connected because of the socioeconomic differences. They were so far away from each other. It never would have happened. But you know, that's the blessing of coming to, is that you know we don't have any of that kind of stuff. So before we go, I'd like to ask everybody, if anybody listens and wants to start whether they're starting their Italian research, or any other nationality.

Speaker 1: 45:51

What should they do first, rich, I mean you've got to get on Ancestry, familysearch, start a file. You've got to have some organizational skills going and, like I said, pieces will come together, pieces won't come together. You've got to keep digging. I've heard the word journey. It is a journey, it's a fabulous journey.

Speaker 1: 46:16

Sometimes you uncover I call it skeletons in the closet. Good things, bad things. The next census they don't show up. So you know. Then you find a death certificate maybe, and then you say where is that person buried? I mean, it goes on and on and on. You know where you want to search for records. So, um, it's, it's, it's a journey, but it's a, it's a fun thing. But you know you can trace your ancestors and that's that's what we're fortunate to do, especially if you want dual citizenship. I know John's done that. Or you can write a book about it, like my cousin Eric did. The New Paisa Once again, chain migration. Hundreds from that same town come on over. We've established ourselves, we can live on the same street, the same house, we know where you can get a job, you know were they part of a padroni, you know where there was contract labors and we know how all of that played out. So you know our ancestors are the ones that you know built America, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 47:28

Absolutely, John. How about you?

Speaker 3: 47:31

Well, we have an Italian genealogy club in Cleveland called CHAW Cleveland Italian Ancestry Organization, and Rich has started one in Columbus too, also conveniently because Columbus starts with a C it's also CHAW. We like to tell new members, if they're lucky enough to have another generation older than them, to please sit down with them and get as much information as they can. Get the stories now while they're still alive, stories now while they're still alive. And even if you have siblings who are not that interested in genealogy or researching your history, talk to them, see if they know of any other family stories, family stories to get the basic information so that someday you can pass it on either to you know, your kids and grandkids or your nieces and nephews. But that information needs to be put together as as soon as it can.

Speaker 3: 48:46

And then take, take that and, like Rich said, get started in the free genealogy sites like FamilySearch, and you can go to a local library and they have subscriptions to Ancestry and MyHeritage and many other genealogy website that you can get on for free at your local library. So it shouldn't be holding you back if you, if you cannot, purchase a membership to any of these websites. Um, and then, like I did, uh, take it further a lot of times. Um, the information stops in the early 1800s because that's the secular records that are available on. It's a website called Antonati. It's the Italian website for historical records and you would have to actually either go yourself, like Rich and I have, and gone back to Italy a number of times, to do this research, or hire somebody that's a professional to go to the churches, because the churches will have information back to perhaps the 1500s.

Speaker 2: 50:08

And John, you know you're the first person I never heard that, or anyone who thought about it that the libraries would have these descriptions. That's a super piece of advice, for sure, for anybody who's getting started and just want to check it out. So, Evangeline, how about you?

Speaker 4: 50:23

I want to echo what Richard said about being organized, because I had to really create like Google Drives and kind of you know. You know I had so many screenshots in my phone by like halfway through, it was crazy. So I think that the best thing that anybody can do is approach this from wanting to bring life. Especially as a woman, I've learned that a lot of the stops that we find as women as we get married, as we migrate, as our children get older, you know, we evolve and as a society and as a culture, we're now able to bring life and new perspectives to new stories. And when you talk about the class systems also, some of our ancestors, you know, came from places where the records even with the burkard records, you know, it says uh, you know, the peasant from the town of this and you know you, you see that we're finally in a place where now we're able to bring these things to life. And I think that just go down all the rabbit holes right. Like you know, take a break if you need to take a break, because I know you know you can have a, spend a lot of time, but try to keep good notes. I'm still very green.

Speaker 4: 51:44

We've been, you know, working to compile. We've got some photos, we've got our documents and we're planning to put put together a book. My uncle, lauren, had done a phenomenal one for um, the elder family which is um my father's paternal line, and so I and he had gone back to, you know, back to scotland and back to all of these places and he did that same type of journey, so I was able to kind of take um, pick up where he left off, um, and use a lot of, you know, those formats he left off and use a lot of those formats. So get organized, get with a group too. I'm very grateful to Bob for creating spaces and, like what John and Rich are talking about, creating these communities.

Speaker 4: 52:24

And just, you never know what you're going to find. Keep your heart open, but also don't be upset if not everybody else in the family is as interested about this stuff as you are. So, you know, that's why we have these discussions, because you know we can all get excited. Because sometimes, you know, you rush home and you're like did you know that? I just found out? And they, you know, they're like, yeah, yeah, okay, well, the game is on, but that organization is key definitely.

Speaker 2: 52:56

That's great. Yes, yes, I've run across that. My wife's asking me are you looking for dead relatives again? Yes, I am. I'm afraid I am, Jeff. How about you?

Speaker 5: 53:05

Well, to echo what John has said, talk to your cousins, because your cousin might have a letter that was written in 1876 from Italy to Philadelphia asking how they were. And don't forget your, your parents, and if we didn't have that letter, we would never known what town we were from. Uh, and that that was probably the biggest clue that we have. And my cousin had the original, has the original, and I never knew this until the 90s. And so why hadn't anybody said anything for the previous 50 years about having this in our possession? And our grandfather never actually knew where his father was from, and yet we had this letter from his grandparents to his uncle and we knew where it was from. So you never know.

Speaker 2: 54:10

Yeah, I mean all all super advice. Um, I have a book about my research and a little bit about you know, both my families and kind of a little bit of a primer on, uh, how to start some research. And I'm certainly no expert I don't claim to be but, but it is a lot of fun and I would definitely relate to Evangeline's comment about the crazy people looking for their relatives again. Well, listen, guys, this has been fantastic. The hour flew by. I had no idea it was going to go by this fast. Thank you all very much.

Speaker 3: 54:51

Thank you, bob, thank you.

Speaker 2: 54:52

Thanks, Thank you.

Speaker 1: 54:52

Bob. Thank you, Thanks everybody. Nice meeting everybody.

Speaker 3: 54:55

Yeah.