Genealogy at a Family Reunion

I have the good fortune to have a cousin and a second cousin who recently decided we needed to get together. All of us. So my Lanzillotto relatives will be having an impromptu family reunion in a couple of weeks. And I've offered to bring the genealogy! (plus a side dish and a case of beer) Here are a few of my ideas:

1) Make copies of particularly interesting family records for people to peruse.
2) Make copies of family photos to display.
3) Encourage others to bring photographs - and documents, if they have them. (I may keep my printer in the car in case anything shows up that demands being copied and/or scanned.)
4) Put together a family tree to display, with advance help from relatives. I'm definitely going to include the generations from my grandparents to their grandparents, but I don't know whether or not the younger generations will be able to fit on something I make by hand. Off the top of my head, my mother's generation is at least 20-25 cousins; my generation is 42 that I can think of, but probably more; the generation after mine is 8 that I know of, but that's because we're only just getting started!

What other ideas are there for involving genealogy in family reunion?

Personalizing History

If genealogy is good at one thing, it's personalizing history. It gives people today a sense of ownership of yesterday.

This morning, I was browsing TIME magazine, and (being entirely uninterested in the political races which took up most of the issue) read a short article titled "Brief History: Cholera Outbreaks." I got to the line that read "An 1866 New York City epidemic led to the creation of the city's board of health, the first in the U.S.," and my reaction was "That's our cholera epidemic! The one that killed Julia and James Thomas!"

Ownership is probably not the right word, and maybe I shouldn't be using a possessive pronoun. But I felt an immediate sense of recognition, and connection to the epidemic of 1866, as well as a very real awareness that, while an article about historic and current cholera epidemics might seem academic, we're actually talking about real diseases that killed - and continue to kill - real people. Julia was 15 and James Thomas only 2 1/2 when they died.

"Boring"!?

2 Years

There I was, browsing Twitter idly while trying to convince myself that I really should get up and exercise, or do something productive before too much of this day got away from me, when I was surprised to notice that I was reading the name of my own blog without even taking it in. I did a double take. Sure enough, geneabloggers was wishing me a happy blogiversary! I've been paying so little attention to my blog lately that I hadn't even noticed that the 2-year anniversary of my first post was coming up.

A lot has changed since then. This blog was initially public, then was soon made private, because I thought genealogical information was too identifiable to be shared. Then it was made public again, partially as (often successful) "cousin bait," partially because I wanted to be able to be a part of the genealogy blogging community, partially because I was afraid the password protection was scaring off family who might otherwise enjoy it on a casual basis, and partially because I realized I had to trust that my relatives are all too smart to use their mothers' maiden names as passwords. (Right? You're all too smart for that, right?) I've expanded the family lines I research, having started with my father's maternal ancestors and progressed to the point that I'm now researching all of my ancestral lines - or trying to. (Some are easier than others, as always!) I've met cousins online, collaborated, shared what I know and learned from what they've shared. I've finished grad school, moved to NY, started looking for jobs (anyone know anyone who's hiring at a museum/library/archive in NYC?), gotten engaged, and started planning a wedding. And yes, I've gotten so busy I don't devote as much of my time to genealogy research or genealogy blogging as I'd like to. I hope this is a short-lived condition, and that I'll soon be back to posting more than a couple of times per month.

Thanks for a great two years, friends!

"Secrets"

I got feedback on the post Honoring (the wishes of) the Dead, not all of it in the comments, and it seems that everyone thinks I should share. (Of course, everyone who responded is also related to me and the lines I'm researching in some way, and is thus rather invested in outcome.) I have decided that I think I will share  . . . but I will only share something I know. In other words, you'll have to wait until I find a primary source document. (The reference I have is from about 15 years after the fact.) No speculation. It'll take some research, some time, and maybe some money to find the necessary primary source document, but I'll get there eventually. (Maybe not soon. I've got a wedding to plan. Not much of my free time goes to genealogy these days.) I'm also not telling - yet - what branch of my research this relates to. But I promise you, it's not some big scandalous secret. It's fairly mundane, actually. You'll be bored when you find out, trust me. But I'll share.

Vincenzo Cianciotta, Caduto in Guerra

Wednesday morning, I went to my grandmother's house, and she shared with me some information about her side of the family. She mentioned that her mother's older brother, Vincenzo Cianciotta, had died "in the war." (The generation made me assume WWI; I was right.) She also mentioned that the town had named a street after him. I'd jotted down all the names she gave me (I hadn't previously known the names of any of my great-grandmother's siblings), and when I got home, I googled the one who had apparently had a street named after him.

The town of Bitetto, Bari, in Puglia, Italy, lists on their website all of the streets in town that they named after fallen soldiers in any war, listed alphabetically. You can find a brief biography of Vincenzo Cianciotta - in Italian - at the bottom of the page for Cianciotta. 

Roughly translated, it says:

Born at Bitetto, 16 January 1884, ID number 11587, deceased 8 October 1916 at Vizintini, dying at 11 am at 32 years of age. Son of Saverio and of Arcangela Scigliuto, married to Antonia Occhiogrosso and father of one daughter, residing at via Barberio 19. Died following a bullet wound to the head. Buried at Vizintini. Soldier of the 9th Infantry Regiment. 

(I hope that's more or less accurate. My Italian was once fairly good, but I haven't used it in 2-3 years now. I should probably brush up if I'm going to start looking more closely at my Italian ancestors.)

From what I can figure out, Vizintini (or Visintini) is a hamlet in the town of Doberdo del Lago in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, which was involved in the Battles of the Isonzo. Vincenzo's date of death falls a couple of days before the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo (10-12 October 1916), so it seems that he was either injured during the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo (14-17 September 1916) and did not die for nearly a month, or he was injured and killed between battles. 

I'm going to see what I can learn about requesting Italian military records.

Honoring (the wishes of) the Dead

I was at the Records Room of the Kings County Surrogate's Court one morning last week. I found a piece of information I'd been wondering about for almost as long as I've been researching my family history. I can't be 100% sure that the fact is accurate, as it's not a primary source - but it's closer to it than anything else I'd come across, so I have a decent amount of confidence in its accuracy.

Now, the reason that this one fact has eluded me is because the person it concerned didn't wish it to be known, but rather, took great pains to avoid revealing it while alive. And this has always left me a bit conflicted. If I were to discover this fact, and know it with any degree of certainty, would I share it? (I'm not sure I've reached that degree of certainty yet, so I don't think I'd be spreading this information yet, anyway.) I've never gone looking for a primary source for this fact, precisely because I wasn't sure what I'd do next. On the one hand, it seems inappropriate to keep it from curious relatives, especially those who have shared lots of information with me over the years. But would that be the right thing to do? I know that the dead have no expectation of privacy, but I wonder if disrespecting our ancestors' wishes amounts to disrespecting our ancestors. If I had no respect for my forefathers, I would not be occupied in the genealogical pursuit, now, would I?

Do I share?

Well, Sweet Heart

I want to highlight a blog that I've been enjoying lately. Charlotte at Well, Sweet Heart is transcribing and blogging the love letters of her great-grandparents, and they make a terrifically sweet and poignant read. I can't think of anyone who would appreciate this project more than geneabloggers and geneablog readers, so do go check it out!

Tombstone Tuesday: Mulvaney Family Gravesite

Last year, I took a trip to Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn to see a variety of family graves.

This is the stone on the grave of my great grandparents, Veronica Mulvaney (d. 1982) and Joseph Mulcahy (d. 1970), as well as my great-great-grandparents, Julia Toner (d. 1938) and Patrick Mulvaney (d. 1919). Also listed on the stone are several of Julia and Patrick's sons, William and Harold (d. 1933, both of them).

My information on the grave had come courtesy of my uncle, John Griffin, who had requested information on the plot a number of years ago. 

There's additional information in this letter. The plot was purchased by Patrick Mulvaney and his brother John, and I believe that the Gertrude Mulvaney, who died in 1890 at 1 year old, was John's daughter. (John later had another daughter named Gertrude, this one living to adulthood.) Mary Hughes is a mystery; no one has any idea who she was. Raymond Mulvaney was Julia and Patrick's young son, who died as a toddler. (He shows up on the 1905 NYS Census.) I believe Patrick's entire body is buried here, not just his leg. The date of burial corresponds with his date of death, and it's been suggested that he went into the hospital to have his gangrenous foot amputated, but the surgery ended up killing him. Arrangements would have been made to have his leg buried, but, sadly, his entire body needed to be buried instead.

Recently, though, one of my new Mulvaney cousins called Holy Cross, and got information that indicated that neither the gravestone nor the letter pictured above is complete. Holy Cross told her that there are four additional bodies interred in the plot, as well. These, it seems, were initially interred elsewhere, and were moved to this plot after John and Patrick bought it c. 1890. Thus, the information on most of them is spottier, but they were listed as:

Bridget Mulvaney, 53
James Mulvaney, 60
Thomas Mulvaney, 27 (3-1-1889)
James Mulvaney, 8

We've yet to find death certificates for anyone besides Bridget, although I'm looking.

You Might be a Genealogist if. . .

. . . you've ever gotten a message from a significant other that reads "Happy early anniversary- I renewed our ancestry.com subscription for another year!"

Bridget Mulvaney Death Certificate - 8 February 1883

Even though I've been far too busy for genealogy lately (there's not much time for genealogy when you're finishing grad school, planning a wedding, and hunting for a job!) I had the good fortune to be contacted, separately, by a couple different Mulvaney family researchers. I benefitted greatly from their research, and gave them everything I knew, even though I haven't had time to put much new effort in lately. Then I put them in touch with each other.

As a result, I have some new material to post - for which I can't claim any credit - from the Mulvaney side of the family. Sometimes, genealogy finds you!

This is, we believe, the death certificate of Bridget Rothwell Mulvaney. She died on 8 February 1883, in her 50s; the age given reads either 53, 55, or 58. The age she most often gave in census years corresponds with a birthdate of around 1832, which would put her at 51 in 1883. She's female, white, and married, which means that her husband James must have died after 1883. I've been unable to find him in the 1892 NYS Census or the 1900 Federal Census, so I should probably be looking for his death between 1883 and 1892. She's Irish-born and has been in the US for what appears to read "30" years. (That corresponds with immigration around 1853, which is feasible, as their oldest son, Thomas, was US-born around 1855. (However, I just reminded myself, there was possibly an older child, a girl named Mary Ann, who was baptized in NY in 1852, and seems to have died before 1860.)) She has lived in NYC those entire 30 years. Both of her parents were Irish-born, unsurprisingly. Her place of death was 135 King St., Ward 12, Brooklyn. The only address we ever had for the Mulvaneys was 194 King Street, which is mere blocks away. Had they moved? Or was one of her children living nearby, and she died at his house? If the latter, she'd probably been there for some time. We see from the remainder of the certificate that she'd been ill - with paralysis and asthemia - for 4 months before she died, since October 7, 1882.

More later on where Bridget went next!

Baby Pictures

My cousin John just sent me this picture of my great-grandfather, Joseph Mulcahy, and his younger brother Michael.

Joseph is on the left, slightly older and with the adorable curls (so that is where my sister Anna gets her curly hair!) - and is that a riding crop he's holding?! Joseph was born 3 September 1896, and Michael was born 11 March 1899, so I'm guessing this picture was taken in late 1899, maybe right around when Joseph turned 3.

Joseph and Michael were the 4th and 5th in a family that, at the time, included 5 children. I'm not sure where their older siblings are in this photo - in 1899, Margaret would have been about 9, James 7, and Matthew 6. The picture includes only the babies of the family.

What's most interesting to me is that Papa's face really seems never to have changed. Even at the age of 3, you can see the very strong resemblance to his pictures as an adult. (Examples here and here.)