Entries tagged with family tree

Current Mood: tired

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Climbing my family tree, part 5: Research Trip #1.....

Last week, I took a few days off from work and headed to Buffalo to visit with relatives and friends, and to do some family tree research. While sites like ancestry.com are great for aggregating and researching family tree information, some records are not available online due to privacy concerns.

( The itinerary and trip report. )

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Climing my family tree, part 4: Great uncle Leonardo.....

In this installment, I cover the history of Leonardo Poltrone -- my grandfather's brother, whcih makes him my great uncle, or grand uncle.

Leonardo went by either "Leonard" or "Leo". He was born around 1888 in Brucoli, Sicily. He came to the US three times: in 1905, 1913, and 1925. He worked as a general laborer during his time here. He married a woman named Carmela and they had seven children together: Sebastiano ("Yano"), Salvador ("Sam"), Joseph, John, Domenic, Anna, and Josephine ("Josie"). These are my first cousins, once removed (as they are all part of my parents' generation). Their children are my 2nd cousins.

The story I heard from my father was that Leo wanted to move to Florida, but only got as far as Lorain, Ohio -- about 30 miles west of Cleveland. This was somewhere between 1925 and 1930. The family settled into a house on 17th St.

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Climbing my family tree, part 3: Grandpa Salvatore.....

At this point in the family tree search, I am now focusing on my paternal grandfather: Salvatore Poltrone.

According to his gravestone, Salvatore was born in 1897. And from the Ellis Island passenger records, he emigrated from his home town of Augusta, Sicily to the USA in April of 1914. His initial destination: Oakfield, NY (a small town about 30 miles east of Buffalo and a few miles northwest of Batavia). Why Oakfield and not Buffalo? The records from the New York State Census of 1915 provided an answer: his brother Leonardo was already there, rooming with a family named Saracino. (Another name that Dad mentioned.) Their occupations, as listed in the census record, was "gypsum mill hand". And looking at a current aerial view of the town in Google Maps, it looks like there is some sort of factory a block away from where they were living. Perhaps that gypsum mill is still in operation.

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Current Mood: accomplished

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Climbing my family tree, part 2: Grandma Josephine....

At the recommendation of a few friends, I signed up for ancestry.com and purchased a 6-month membership. It gives me a nice user interface to visually keep track of the people in my family tree, and easily add people -- mother, father, spouse, children (but not brothers or sisters). I wonder which JavaScript framework or library they're using -- Dojo, jQuery, or something else.

The hard part is trying to determine what to pursue first. After my father's family (parents and siblings), and my mother's family (also family and siblings), there are several areas of focus I can choose from -- my paternal grandfather's family, my paternal grandmother's family, my maternal grandfather's family, and my maternal grandmother's family. All four of my grandparents had passed away before my sister and I were born. So for us, "visiting the grandparents" was to go to the cemetery and tend to their gravestones.

Both of my mother's parents emigrated from Poland, so I probably wouldn't get very far if I restricted my searches to US records only. My ancestry.com account only covers US records, so this search will likely be deferred to a later date.

( So, let's start with my father's mother's family, since I know them best. )

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Climbing my family tree, part 1: The beginning of the climb.....

Ever since watching the "Roots" miniseries in 1977, and reading Alex Haley's novel later that year, I've had a desire to research my family tree. And it's something I've thought about doing, and talked about doing, for many years. Conversations with my parents about ancestry over the year gave me a sketchy oral history of their families. All four of my grandparents were deceased before my sister and I were born, so I obviously couldn't ask them for information. But I have surviving relatives in my extended family. Many of them still reside in the Buffalo, NY area.

( An abbreviated family history as I knew it, with last names omitted for security purposes. )