Finding Achille
Alistair Goold came to me with a desperate plea for help. With the help of an Italian lawyer he had exhausted all known avenues to locate the birth record of his GGFather without which he could not get his Italian citizenship. He sent me a list of the archives they had searched without success. Filomena … Continue reading
Connecting families in San Donato Val di Comino
Susan writes: Thanks, Ann, for all your help. If not for you identifying Pasqualino as close a relative, we wouldn’t have been able to connect. Facebook also made it easier since I was able to chat with him beforehand and let him know we were visiting. When we got to the square where we were … Continue reading
Finding Maria D’Ambrosio
Breaking down a genealogical ‘brick wall’ can be exhilarating but it often happens completely unexpectedly. A brick wall in any project leaves Angel Research always with a name in the back of your mind. We don’t always realize it but in every research we do we are always looking out for those names that stick … Continue reading
Clerical (or other) errors on civil records.
Often there is a story behind it all. Here is my interpretation of events on a recent research puzzle covering several towns and the associated document errors. ‘His legitimate wife’ or was she? This week I was researching a family in the early 1800’s; Carmine, his wife Giovanna and their son Angelo. I noted that … Continue reading
Black Friday in LAZIO!
Everybody is getting in on this Black Friday theme so I thought it might be a good time to offer some special help to those researchers who prefer to do their own research but are lacking a couple of records to get them back to the LDS records that are on film or want to … Continue reading
Making the connection….with a document from an ancestry contact
David’s family had been to Trasacco many years ago to find the origin of their family and had obtained several certificates and documents that told only a part of the story. It was apparent that his ancestor Raffaele was not born in Trasacco but there was no indication of where he might have been from. … Continue reading
Brick wall in Santa Maria Oliveto – torn down!
Whenever one is presented with a ‘brick wall’ it’s important to scrutinize every document collected so far. Do some historical research of the area and then go out there and break it down. I did the first part and realized I could not go ahead without finding the death record of Tomasina. It was a … Continue reading
A brick wall in Santa Maria Oliveto
Sometimes a brick wall just doesn’t come down easily, even for the professionals! Michele was born in Santa Maria Oliveto (Isernia) according to the family. When I eventually found the birth record, he was actually registered in Conca Casale but they had declared themselves residents of Santa Maria Oliveto. Michele was baptized in the Parrocchia … Continue reading
Sharon’s search for an explanation?
When Sharon started researching her ancestral line in a small town in Abruzzo she was a little shocked at the apparent comportment of her ancestors. She remarked ‘the women in my family certainly got around!’ After studying the records she found I saw a potentially different story. It all began with Maria Proietta who gave … Continue reading
A Foundling or a Love Child?
In researching our genealogy it’s hard to accept that our ancestor was a foundling. A ‘throw away’, a child whose mother abandoned him. We grasp at straws to discover that he was loved and cherished. We don’t really want to believe he was truly alone. Wendy was sure her Grandfather was the secret love child … Continue reading
