As of today, I have over 2300 people in the family tree. I don't know how many generations, but thanks to my sister-in-law's Christman family I have traced them back to the 1500's in Switzerland. That tribe came to the USA before the Revolutionary War, settling in Pennsylvania. Grandmom Lena was born in Connecticut. I wish I was as successful with my own Italian ancestry.I teased my brother that his granddaughters were eligible to join the DAR but their mothers had no clue as to what the DAR was!
Through Ancestry I have matched with various distant cousins. Several are descendants of my great-grandfather's older brother, Joe Maggiore Lumia. Since my great-grandfather was Joe Minore their similar names was source of confusion in the beginning. Not only was it common to reuse a name if the child died but in Sicily there is more than one family in my tree that named 2 brothers, Joe and used the clarifier Maggiore and Minore!
I also matched with the family of my father-in-laws first wife and was able to clear up a small family mystery about who was the little girl in the photo. We knew that the girl danced with John but had no idea who she was. Well, she was his sister-in-law, the baby sister of his wife Mary Daley! We don't know about the dog!
Names themselves are interesting. Carmelas became Mildred. Salvatores became Samuel. Calogero and Calogera became Charles and Catherine. But why Vincenzos became James is a mystery to me! The Italian habit of naming children after grandparents was even stronger when they came to America. That tradition however, died as the immigrants became Americanized.
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