For the first 40 years of working on my “family tree” all of the information that I gathered was from talking to family members. I was fortunate enough to have numerous relatives who were born in the late 1800s who were willing to talk to me.
Shortly after 2000 I discovered the genealogy library in Saline (attached to the Church of the Latter Day Saints), I believe that I found it through an on-line resource, There I was able to get tapes of the civil records (births, deaths, marriages and baptisms) from several cities in Italy. These were Peschici (the town where my grandfather was born) and Teramo (the town where my grandmother’s parents were from; actually my great-grandfather was from Villa Gesso, just outside of Teramo, but the civil records were included with the larger town of Teramo).
By 2010, I had accumulated some 50 or more records of the births, deaths and marriages of ancestors in Italy between the years 1809 and 1901. The earliest document that I have found (so far) is the death of my ancestor Domenico Lamonica in 1812. Prior to 1809 when Napoleon took possession of Italy all of these records were recorded in churches.
In addition to gathering information from these sources I also had records such as birth, death and marriage certificates that my grandparents and parents had. This included the graduation certificate for my grandfather. I found it interesting that they had to cross out 18 to hand write 1901. What is even better is the hand-written note from his mother on the back.
At the same time I started using the Ellis Island website to find ship manifests with arrival information, who the person would be staying with and their relationship, and who their nearest relative was in Europe.
Then starting a few years ago I became of member of Ancestry.com, an Internet genealogy resource which has provided some missing information for me.
Four years ago I did a genetic test with 23&me. My daughter and aunt both did this as well. This has proven to be both interesting and useful in many respects.
Finally, I joined a Face Book group about Peschici, Italy where my grandfather was born, as well as friends and family in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. As a result of posting pictures and asking some simple questions (there is a translation feature on the site) I was able to make contact with a number of relatives there.
Since I have now hit mostly dead ends in searching for more information on my family, I now spend time helping friends search for information on theirs. I find that to be quite rewarding. I think that I just like to solve puzzles for me or others.
That’s about all for family and genealogy for now. Next time I’ll say something about two books that had the greatest affect on me, regarding genealogy…
Michael's Place 