I have been able to trace my ancestors who have resided in this country for over 200 years, with many living in Pennsylvania. My paternal lines settled in the early 1800s in Lycoming and surrounding counties while my maternal lines settled in southwestern Pennsylvania counties before 1800. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to visit these counties and collect information on them and their descendants. Being a native Pennsylvanian myself, I can often name relatives who are buried in cemeteries that I pass.
When this occurs, my husband Victor will usually say how lucky I am since my ancestors could be found in a short drive. See, his grandparents arrived in America from Italy around the turn of the 20th century and only one set of his great grandparents are buried in this country. He has names that were collected from his grandparents about their families, but Victor kept hitting a brick wall when he tried to find something online to document that these names were accurate. Even ancestry.com didn’t have records that helped. He was a bit envious that is was so ‘easy’ for me.
On our 2014 trip out west last June, however, that changed. We first traveled to Idaho to visit his sister and her family. The first few days they took us around to see the many beautiful sites, like Yellowstone and Grand Teton area. We even stopped at their local Mormon library in preparation of our 3 day trip to Salt Lake where they found the first Italian record of one of their great grandparents. Then it was off to Salt Lake City. His sister came with us just for our first day at the Family History Center and slowly, but surely, they were finding documents. I on the other hand was not having much luck at all. In fact, Victor was having so much more success than I was, that I started to assist him with the microfilm reels of Italian birth, death and marriage records. By our last day I was able to easily read the records for the critical information, and was getting good with Italian numbers. We found many of the names he had come to verify and he was elated.
Victor always had an interest in genealogy, but it was our trip to Salt Lake City that hooked him on it big time. Last summer and fall Victor worked with his sister in locating documents on Family Search for one area of Italy, locating about 40 ancestors and their descendants; there are so many new names—close to 200—that he started a blog to share the information with his family. This past winter and spring he ordered microfilm from the Family History Center and visits the library when he can to search the borrowed reels for more ancestors. Those Italian records go back to almost 1800, they keep the woman’s maiden name as her surname so she’s easier to locate, and some marriage applications (processetti in Italian) even include death certificates for a father and grandfather of the bride and groom, providing 4 generation of names in one place! Now, who’s the lucky one? All I know is, I’m envious.
Relatively Speaking Blog 