Italian Family Tree

Gervasi Family Tree Pt 2

During the week, I thought I would try to focus on the direct Gervasi line and see how we could go back.

In order to do this I needed to find the marriage record of Cosimo to Annarosa. Unfortunately, Antenati do not have Riace records between 1861 to 1865 (which is probably the time range within which the couple was married.

In these situations, sometimes it is a better use of time to focus on a different lineage. So I decided to focus on the family of Teresa Musuraca.

The records were easier to find and I was not only able confirm birth dates and the marriage date of Teresa's parents, but I was also able to identify Teresa's grandparents (born circa early 1800's) but also identify one of her great grandparents who would have been born in the late 1700's.

The journey continues.

Gervasi Family Tree Pt 1

I’m pleased to announce I have a follower who has agreed to allow me to assist in preparing their family tree and document the journey in this blog.

Before I started I needed some preliminary information to determine whether there was sufficient public available information to make research easier.

Essentially I needed:

The name of a least one village or small town from which an ancestor/s originated; and

I needed ancestor/s name/s and an events (eg. birth, marriage or death) that occurred on around 1900 or earlier.

I was provided with the following information:

One side of the family originated from a village called Riace; and

An ancestor called Pietro Gervasi was born in 1915 to Damiano Gervasi and Teresa Musuraca.

Step 1 – What is the relevant Province?

On a simple google search, “Riace” is in the Province of “Reggio Calabria”.

This information is needed to determine relatively quickly whether the Antenati website has civil records for the relevant village/town and if so, how many records (what years) are disclosed.

I found Riace disclosed on the Antenati site and quickly established there are civil records available between the period 1809 to 1903.

Step 2 - Where do I start?

As Pietro was born in 1915 (after the 1903 cut off), I needed to focus on his parents Damiano Gervasi and Teresa Musuraca.

I quickly assessed I should try to find the following records:

• The birth records of Damiano and Teresa;
• The possible marriage record of Damiano and Teresa; and
• Possible birth records of other children Damiano and Teresa.

I was fairly confident that I would find possible "name" matches for both Damiano and Teresa, but less confident that I would be able to find their marriage record.

As Pietro was born in 1915, I naturally assumed there was a strong chance Damiano and Teresa would have been married between 1900 to 1914. This meant I had only four years of available marriage records to review (ie. 1900, 1901, 1902 & 1903).

In order to use my time effectively, I therefore decided to concentrate on finding the birth record of Damiano.

Initially, I decided to review the birth records between 1880 to 1899. My simple logic was that there would be a good chance Damiano became a father to Pietro somewhere between the ages of 18 to 35.

I discovered two possible matches being a “Cosimo Damiano Gervasi” born in 1899 and another of the same name born in 1894.

The 1894 record became the initial leading contender despite a slight name difference to that provided by my blog follower.

Despite this initial "possible match" I learnt a long time ago to set aside presumptions and persevere with research until all possibilities are exhausted.

As I didn’t have an exact match for “Damiano Gervasi” I decided to continue searching birth records starting from 1879 and going backwards in time (Just in case I found another match).

This persistence paid off when I came across an 1867 birth record for Damiano Gervasi (see image).

If correct, this would make Damiano about 48 years old when his son Pietro was born in 1915. My initial thought was that although unlikely, it was still possible the 1867 record was the correct person I was trying to find.

It quickly became apparent the 1867 record was in fact the correct person.

I have previously posted that, on occasion, when a couple is married, there are marriage notes annotated to each of the birth records of the couple.

Sure enough, in difficult to read script on Damiano’s birth record, there is reference to a marriage in February 1895 between Damiano and someone that could possibly have been “Teresa Musuraca”.

The next step was to try to find the 1895 marriage record, which took me about 10 minutes to find (once I knew where to look).

The marriage record indicated that on 3 February 1895, Damiano Gervasi (aged 27) married Teresa Musuraca (aged 17). See image.

Although I don't have Pietro’s birth record to confirm the age Damiano when he was born, I am very confident "1867" Damiano is the direct ancestor.

In order to be 100% sure we would need to source these civil records that may take months to hear back from Italy.

As the risk is quite low, I believe we can proceed with these people as the direct ancestors. The 1867 birth record of Damiano also makes mention of the two grandfathers and these can be entered onto the family tree, but would need subsequent verification.

I also took the time to see if any children were born to Damiano and Teresa between 1895 and 1903. I found birth details of two girls and these were also entered on the family tree.

So we have been able to make a start to the family tree (see attached image).

Needless to say my follower is very happy.

I will continue to work on the family tree and post what has been discovered.

John

Who would like assistance with their Family Tree?

I mentioned in my previous blog that it would be interesting to actually build a family tree for someone and document the journey on this blog.

So I'm looking for someone (or a family) who may be interested. If you or anyone you know (with some Italian heritage) is interested or could be interested, either e-mail me or message me.

Ideally the family will have originated from a village or small town (it makes research easier) and the "volunteer" has some family information from which we can start. I am hoping we can use the antenati website to extract actual civil records concerning births, deaths and marriages.

This could be an exciting project for your family and perhaps you will be able to create a cherished gift for your parents, grandparents, children or grandchildren.

Hopefully, there is a good candidate out there?

John

0507 - 2021

Display your Family Tree / Other Information

Before I start this blog, I thought I would share with readers that I had a follower reach out to see if I can assist in finding some ancestors.

Using the tools described in these blogs, it looks like I may have found the people she was looking and opened up a new lineage to research.

Anyway, today's blog is about a couple of the tools and features that a genealogy site provides. Since I have written previously about familysearch, I thought I would share some useful features and tools that are available on this site.

Firstly, as you populate your site, you will be able to display your family tree. You have 3 view options:

1. A vertical style tree
2. A horizontal style tree
3. A fan style tree

The attached images show each of the three styles. Personally I find it easier to move around ancestors with the horizontal style format. however from a visual presentation, I think the fan style tree is the most appealing.

If you wish to produce/develop an attractive tree (eg. for professional mounting onto a frame), these sites don't seem to give you a quality document.

For my family tree presentation, I purchased on-line, a 7 generation "pre-formatted" template and then physically entered names, years of birth and death. I also added some photo's to give the family tree a bit more of a personal touch.

Purchasing a quality template, will enable you to print a larger copy (eg. A2 size) whilst maintaining a decent resolution.

Adding more ancestors to these sites will open up the possibility of matching (and/or linking) to other ancestors.

I made this point in an earlier blog. Genealogy sites do not necessarily give you the name of every ancestor with the "click" of a button.

These sites are essentially large databases that rely on users to research and enter information so they can be shared by others searching the same ancestor.

The sites typically provide various forms of "notifications" to users to suggest there could be a match or an possible additional record that can be entered (eg. additional children).

The point I'm trying to make is simple. The more people that participate and contribute, the more useful these sites become to everyone researching their ancestry.

Before I finish off this blog, the last couple of images are examples of the notifications that are displayed to give the user some information that may be relevant to a particular entered ancestor .

Hopefully, some of you have been inspired to get started.

Next blog, I'm thinking about writing about interpreting old Italian writing styles.

0407 - 2021

Let's build your family tree (Part II)

The post is a continuation of a previous post where I introduced readers to a subscription free Genealogy site to build your family tree.

If you have not read that post or previous posts, can I suggest you take time to read them as they will give you the necessary background information.

Proceeding on the basis you have entered your first record you can start to add evidence of the data you have entered (eg. if you have a birth date, familysearch.org allows you to create a link of the actual birth record). In addition, you can start to add details of parents, spouse/s and children.

Don't get too concerned about having to find every record that exists for the individual before you move on. You can come back to the individual and add more records later.

You can add the evidence supporting the information entered by clicking on the "Sources" Tab.

The Source's page allows you to enter the following information:

1. The Date of the Event - For consistency, I record the date of the record rather than the event date. So for example, if document date is say 8 December 1852 to inform a birth occurred on 6 December 1852, I enter the event date 8 December 1852.

2. Source Title - This should be 3 or 4 words describing the record (eg. Birth Record of Giuseppe Rossi).

3. Web page - This is where you can link the specific page on Antenati (eg. the actual image of the 8 December birth record of Giuseppe Rossi).

4. Where the record is found - You will notice that when reviewing the relevant microfiche images on Antenati, there may be 4 or more separate records on the same image. You can clarify which particular record of the scanned image is relevant to the person identified.

5. Describe the Record - This is where you set out what the record states. You have quite a lot of information than can be included, however I suggest just entering the key data (eg. for a birth record, the date of birth, name of parents, the age of parents and an other relevant information.

6. Reason to Change Source - I dont tend to sue this except perhaps where I have misread something and need to edit it.

Once entered you can save the record.

The next point is important. I strongly suggest, you enter the same source record for every other person that has connection to the main person/persons specified in the document.

So for example, if you have found the birth record for Giuseppe Rossi and you have confirmed Giuseppe's parents were Giovanni Rossi and Isabella Picabasso, I recommend you enter Giuseppe Rossi's birth record also as a source record in both Giovanni's list of source records as well as Isabella's.

Essentially what you are doing is to build a list of evidence that you have the correct person as a direct relative.

***Tip*** When I first started populating the same source document for multiple people I thought I had to re-write the same information for each person I was adding. So in the above example I would manually enter Giuseppe's birth record 3 times (Giuseppe's page, then the father and mother).

I friend of mine showed my a short cut. After you enter the 1st source record, you can essentially copy the source record onto another individual by choosing the "Attach from Source Box" option under Add Source. This will save a lot of time not having to rewrite important information.

Give it a go and the next post will be expanding on using the familysearch.org site.

The images below are screenshots of what you will encounter when entering "sources".

Let's build a Family Tree for someone!

Taking a quick break from writing about the technical aspects of building a family tree I have been thinking about how I can make this blog more interesting for readers.

I'm thinking about helping someone on their journey to create their personal Italian heritage family tree.

The idea is simple, I'll help someone with set up, ongoing research, direction and ideas on how to document their family history. In return, the person agrees to allow me to share the journey with followers of this blog (subject to maintaining privacy of course) .

I think it will be fun, informative and will hopefully inspire people to give it a go.

As of July 17, I have 71 followers. When I get it to a milestone of 100 followers, we can start.

I'm hoping everyone can help me build up the number of followers by providing a link or recommending this page to anyone of Italian ancestry it will help with this first milestone.

If readers find it of value and there is sufficient interest, I can look family tree No 2, No 3 etc etc

I don't have an end goal with numbers of followers, however the bigger the following, the more things can be introduced and be talked about.

My desire is teach and inspire people of Italian heritage to document their family history before it is too late.

For those not familiar with my own journey, shortly after I first started I was fortunate to be befriended an older lady in Texas, who helped me in my research and this inspired me to help others.

regards

John Miniello