New England Genealogy Trip - Part 2 Cemeteries of New England

I am a Catholic living in Chicago. Catholic Cemeteries here are very organized and most of the Catholic cemeteries have an office you can go to with a free computerized kiosk where you can enter a full name or a surname and find the exact location of the person you are looking for. If you print out your entry you even get a map with the exact location of the grave. Simple! Not so in the old cemeteries in New England. During my 10 days there, there was only 1 day it did not rain. All the rain must have caused the bug and mosquito population to grow because several of my cemetery visits were hampered by swarms of flying insects and I have returned home covered in mosquito bites, battle scars of the fruits of my labor. Although I did not complete anywhere near what I had expected, I have come home with thousands of pictures.
Pictured to the left is the twin headstones of 13 year old Jonathan Hunt and his sister Thankful age 7 of Northampton, Massachusetts. According to the headstone they were killed by lightening. I have found many headstones that listed a cause of death like this one although most do not. Northampton is a charming community nestled in the hills an mountains of the area and the road to Northampton is stunning in it's beauty. The only cemetery I visited there was The Bridge Street Cemetery. This cemetery is well taken care of and appears to still be accepting burials. The older graves are in surprisingly good condition, however, time is taking it's toll. I doubt 100 years from now most will be readable. Many are difficult at best to read now. I found my ancestors there neatly along 2 rows of older graves, one row directly behind the other. By the time I found them I had searched the cemetery for 2 hours. I was pleased their headstones were readable and still existed, though I could not read some completely. Some of the headstones were beautiful works of art. The cemetery at Northampton was much larger than the others I visited.
I had been to The Mechanic Street Cemetery (Old Burying Grounds) in Westfield before. This time I knew exactly who I was going for. The cemetery is locked so I got the key and went there with my list. It is a beautiful old cemetery that has graves as far back as 1683 (Elizabeth Noble's stone). There is much open space in this cemetery and many missing headstones. The town has done a great job documenting who is there, whose is missing headstones, etc. As you walk in the gate, there is a Revolutionary War monument that bears the name of my John Dewey and all other veterans of that war born in Westfield. Well manicured lawns make it easy to move through the cemetery to find the graves. It is easy to spot the older graves because of their color. The older stones are brownish or black. White stones seemed popular in the 1800's.
In Connecticut, I began with the ancestral home of the Kent's in the town of Suffield. Suffield is the most beautiful of all the towns I visited. The main street was lined with huge sprawling well manicured lawns dotted with beautiful flowering trees that were all in full bloom when I visited. The First Congregational Church was there with a burial ground in the back. The church has been added onto several times and I learned later all my Kent's graves are now under the church foundation. The graveyard is stretched out over rolling hills some of which are quite steep which made getting to the lowest spot a real challenge in the mud. Suffield has always been a wealthy town and it's graves show that. Many of it's monuments are huge and elaborate. Many of the older headstones from the 1700's are works of art. Although obviously well cared for this cemetery also has many monuments and headstones lying in ruins on the ground. This is true in most of the cemeteries I visited. These treasures of history, both family and national are deteriorating and crumbling and being lost forever. Some have been ruined beyond repair but I found so many with a little loving care that could be saved now and preserved for a hundred years or more longer. It broke my heart to see so many in such peril. It seems to me since most of these towns have historical societies this would be a perfect project for them. The broken headstones could be repaired and the headstones that have fallen over could be returned to their rightful place. Many covered in moss and lichens could be easily cleaned so the writing on the stones can be seen as well as protected from the damage the plant life would incur.
In Plymouth I found they took preservation of the Old Burying Ground there a step further. Not only is the beautiful old cemetery well taken care of, but they have preserved the old headstones in a dramatic manner that I have never seen before.
As can be seen on the image to the left, this grave of John Bartlett has been encased in concrete to preserve it. Although it changes the look of the headstone, it will preserve it for future generations to view. I am still not sure of what I think of this method but it is effective for preservation. It is clear Plymouth takes these treasures seriously as I am sure tourism is a huge portion of their income in this quaint town made famous by the pilgrims that landed on Plymouth rock. I saw no moss growing on the stones here, no broken stones as they are all well taken care of. The cemetery is high on a hilltop and offers a sweeping breathtaking view.
In Middlefield, Connecticut a small hilltop cemetery called Old North Burying Grounds was remote and difficult to find. What I saw as I opened the gate shocked me. The grass was high - past my knees and it was clear no one has taken care of this cemetery. Most of the graves were hidden by overgrown weeds and thick with moss. The cemetery looked fairly bare as far as headstones went until I realized so many were laying on the ground. Chunks of headstones were strewn about everywhere. This cemetery made me the saddest of all. Established in 1735 I knew this cemetery at one time bore the headstones of many of the children who were founders of Middletown as well as Hartford. It seemed a shame that no one seemed to care. I did find a few of my ancestors buried there, however, several were either missing or the headstones were unreadable. If I had the time and money, I would return to New England to preserve these unique treasures for future generations.

New England Genealogy Trip Part 1

I had decided last winter to make a trip last summer to New England to try to complete the ancestry of my mother's family - the Dewey family tree. My mother's family had deep roots in Massachusetts and Connecticut and I decided the easiest and quickest way to complete her family story was to make this journey and walk in the footsteps of my ancestors. The goal at the time was to each each line back to England and learn their stories as well as their names. The last months of my mother's life I would tell her different stories of her various ancestors as I used to read to my daughter before bedtime. She loved the stories I told her. I admit I embellished a few of them to fill in the unknown and make the story flow better. The childlike joy and anticipation in my mother's face encouraged that. Unfortunately, life threw a few mishaps my way and the trip had to be postponed twice.

Eight months after my mother's death, the trip has finally begun. Yesterday as the pilot announced we would be arriving in Hartford in 20 minutes, I looked out the window. Although I had come here before, the view took my breath away. I was viewing this beautiful virgin landscape with fresh new eyes. It was not simply beautiful countryside,His journey it was the land my ancestors cleared and settled. After obtaining a rental car once we landed, I programmed my GPS for the location of my hotel. As I followed the instructions to follow the exit right, I saw a sign. The sign read, "Windsor, Established 1633". Among others, the first Dewey here helped to establish Windsor. What a wonderful start to my trip! The sign made me think of how easy my trip was. I listen to what the GPS tells me and I arrive at my destination miles away, minutes later. And my journey there is effortless and comfortable. Thomas Dewey's journey would have been quite different, filled with danger and exposure to the elements. So I begin my quest to learn all I can, solve the mysteries and enjoy myself in the process. Although the weather has lots of rain and unfavorable temperatures forecasted, I will not let that stop me. More to come....
















































































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Italian Vs. Early American Genealogy

After years of working on my Dad's Italian family, I have been focusing more on Mom's family over the past year. Researching the 2 different branches of my family are so different! The only chance at learning more about my Italian family was very labor intensive and time consuming. I had to drive an hour to my local family history center, order microfilms, wait for them to come in and sift through the hundreds of Napolitano's in the Montalto Uffugo records to figure out which were mine. To do this, I had to find the only other name I knew in the records, Domenico Garrafa. I knew if I found his first wife, Emilia Napolitano, I could trace my own family. I had to learn enough Italian to be able to read those records. Once I learned enough Italian, all I could hope to find was names, dates and places. But I wanted to know their stories. What made our family dynamic what it was. What their lives in Italy were like. Through my websites, and all that work, I was finally able to obtain many stories, although I had to piece them together from emails I received from other families connected to my own. As I got further back, I was able to extract more stories by reading every document I could find. Very brief stories with little detail. As I searched the records of Tropea, I found much less. Missing documents, family documents that had mold and water damage so bad, it made them virtually unreadable. I was extremely happy to find a website called Tropea Magazine which gave me stories about my Tropean family. Because of their accomplishments in art, music and politics I was able to find information on this website about my great grandmother's first cousins and even information about the marriage of her parents. I thought I would never get this lucky again. I was wrong.
When I finally got to my mom's family, I was astounded! So much information! Then I discovered The Newberry Library in Chicago. So many books on each of my family lines it astounded me. Details on each ancestor and so many stories, I simply could not believe it. I am still sifting through books and stories about her ancestors. Detailed stories that include plots of land they owned, places they had been, posts they held in the town and details of military service and most importantly details about their lives. It seems the number of stories on how they lived and died was endless. Much of this information is from the 1600 and 1700's! To know such detailed information on the lives of my ancestors who lived almost 400 years ago amazed me. I could never hope for this much information on my Italians. In Italy, the records of death (atti di morte) give you the dates and place of death, age of the deceased and the names of his or her parents and last spouse. But my early New England families often offered me a detailed cause or description of their deaths. Several of my ancestors died in attacks by the Indians in the French Indian wars. Detailed accounts of their deaths could be found in many different books. I have found photographs of my great great grandparents, artwork of many of my direct line ancestors homes, photographs of their graves and homes and so much more.


But the flow of information on my mom's family did slow up in the 1800's and finding information on her more recent family generations became more difficult. Her father's family, the Dewey's moved to a remote part of New York state. Their are no microfilms of records for the towns they lived in. Mom grew up with her grandmother Etta Kent Dewey and the Kent's came from a remote area of Pennsylvania in Susquehanna County where there are no records available to me online or though the microfilms held by the LDS Family History Libraries. It is here it the mid 1800's that my Italian research and my American research become similar as I search for any bits of information to piece together to find the stories and the ancestry of my families. And so my search continues for both my Italian and American families. As I move forward in time, I cannot help but wonder what future generations will find on us.

Surname Saturday - Kent

The family of my mother's grandmother, the Kent's have had me stumped for years. I have ignored them for years hoping records would be made available to assist me. There are no records available for the area the Kent's lived outside of Pennsylvania, however there are several books regarding the history of the area. My mother's grandmother was Etta Kent Dewey. A number of years after the death of her husband, Charles Marion Dewey, Etta came to live with her son, Dix Dewey and his young family. Mom often talked about her 2 "Victorian" grandmother's that she grew up with living in her home. Etta Kent Dewey, according to my mom, was proud and very proper. Her ancestry went back to the early days of this country and she was well aware of this and very proud of it. She established herself in the household as the dominate female. It was always clear Etta's final years must have been difficult and she was destitute after the death of her husband and had to live with her son and his family in her final 30 years of life. The things I have uncovered this week are heartbreaking and explain much about Etta Kent Dewey and the woman she was. I only wish my mother were here to hear her grandmother's heartbreaking early years. To uncover the full story of this family and their ancestry, I will have to travel to Pennsylvania to obtain records. But for now, this is what I know.
I will begin the story of Etta Kent with her father, Abel Kent.
Abel Kent (pictured here) was born on October 16, 1816 to Carlton Kent and Sally (Griggs) Kent in Bradford Township, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania (formerly part of Luzerne County). How long the Kent family spent in Bradford is unclear. What is clear is, it could not have been too long. Carlton Kent was born in Massachusetts according to the censuses he appears in for 1850 and 1860. Unfortunately, it does not say where in Massachusetts.
Abel Kent married Maryetta Snedeker in the late 1840's. Maryetta was the daughter of James Snedeker and Elizabeth White. Maryetta Snedeker's Dutch and German roots go back to the early days of the new colony called "New Amsterdam", presently called New York City. Together Abel Kent and Maryetta had 7 children. Able was a farmer in Herrick, located in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. On September 16, 1868 Abel Kent died leaving his children fatherless and his wife a 41 year old widow. One year later, on October 8, 1869 Abel's wife Maryetta Snedeker Kent died leaving their 7 children orphans. The youngest child Adella was only 3 years old. My great grandmother Etta was only 4 years older. What happened to their home is unknown. The next record of the family is the 1870 census which has all the children living together with an "Abram Kent" in Great Bend, Pennsylvania. Who Abram Kent was, I do not know, however, he did take all the 7 Kent children into his home. I cannot find other records for an Abram Kent and at the time, he was not married.
By 1880 all the Kent children were scattered throughout Pennsylvania and nearby Broome County, New York. The 1880 census shows the 19 year old Etta Kent with the Leet family in Binghamton, New York working as their maid. Her older sister Helen was also in Binghamton at the time, listed as a servant of the Harris family. Both sisters married men from Binghamton. Later in 1880 Helen Kent married Andrew Crandall. On New Year's Day, 1884 Etta married Charles Marion Dewey in Binghamton, New York. Charles' father, Milton Dewey was a resident of Binghamton. In October 1884, Etta gave birth to her first child, a son they named Dee Darius Dewey. However, on Christmas Eve the following year her young son died. This must have broken her heart. Several months later in April 1886 Etta gave birth to her second child, also a son she named Don Durand Dewey. On June 1 1887 her last child, Dix Darius Dewey was born. Don and Dix were born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Over the next few years the couple moved to Ames, Iowa and St Louis, Missouri. I can only assume the many moves the family made were the result of Charles' searches for employment. This could have been a result of the depression Charles suffered from. On May 25, 1904 Etta sent her 2 teen sons out to look for their missing father. Each day for a week the boys went looking for him. On May 31st, my grandfather found his father dead in a pasture. He had died by his own hand having taken a fatal dose of carbolic acid. At the age of 43 my great grandmother was a widow in a strange city far from family or friends with no income and 2 teenage sons to feed. What happened to Etta and her 2 sons after this, I am not sure. I do know Don Dewey was in Seattle, Washington by 1910 where he lived out the remainder of his life. In 1910 Etta Dewey shows up in the census living with her late husband's sister Francis and her husband James Guernsey in Binghamton, New York. By 1918 she was living with her son, my grandfather, Dix Dewey and his wife Myrtle. From that point forward my grandfather supported his mother. There is a happy ending to this story though. Etta Kent Dewey lived the last 30 years of her life with her son and grandchildren as an integral member of the family. She died in Elgin, Illinois at the age of 86. Although the first half of her life was filled with uncertainty, insecurity and tragedy, the last 30 years were filled with home, family and security.
Dix D. Dewey, Dix Dewey Jr., Dorothy Dewey, Myrtle (Schmitt) Dewey
and Etta (Kent) Dewey in 1919.

Calabrian Records

I own several websites including Cosenza Exchange. I began working on getting the records online for my grandfather's home town, Montalto Uffugo and also put some records for other Cosenza towns there several years ago. Since the Cosenza Archive is doing the same, I will probably not be adding further stato civile records on Cosenza Exchange as soon as I get all the available years of marriages for Montalto Uffugo online. I will not take the site down, I just will not be adding further stato civile records.
Plans for Cosenza Exchange
I am looking at other records the archive has available to see what I may be able to add that will not mirror what the archive is doing. The Catasti of Montalto Uffugo, San Fili and San Vincenzo La Costa were generously donated by Francesco Fullone. I had spent several months extracting the Catasto of Montalto and alphabetizing it and adding the html code. A recent virus to my computer has wiped out most of this work so I have been working on that again along with adding missing years of marriages. I hope to be adding that shortly after the holidays. I will not be extracting the catasti of San Fili or San Vincenzo anytime soon. I will be adding to the extractions of the baptisms of Santa Maria La Castagna also generously donated by Francesco Fullone. I am planning a trip there this year and am hoping my life will not obstruct these plans. If I can go, I am hoping to visit the churches and obtain permission to copy the church registers.
Catanzaro Exchange
With my impending trip to Italy planned, and once the final year of marriages from Montalto Uffugo have been added to the Cosenza Exchange, my focus will return to my grandmother's town of Cortale and her mother's town of Tropea. I need to complete my work on my families in those towns before I go to Italy. So, I will be adding marriage records, birth and death indexes to those towns very soon. At some point, I will be adding the comune di Filadelfia, where my great, great grandmother Caterina Cipollina was born. But that project will probably not begin until later in 2010 or 2011.

Strange names through time

When I first began reading the records from my Grandfather's town I had a difficult time with some of the Italian names. Giuseppe, Concetta and Raffaele were not strange to me as I had heard these names as early as I can remember. My father often called me "Caterina" which is my name in Italian. However, there were many names totally unheard of by me that I had to try to look up because they seemed so strange, I could not tell if I was deciphering the old handwriting correctly. I have worked on transcribing the records of several Italian towns but these names were so rare I thought I must be wrong. Here are some of the rare and more unusual first names I found:
Dorosilla, Remigio, Massimina, Columba, Pampilio, Fiorigga, Florindo, Conazioni, Delfino (and the female version Delfina), Dorina, Egisto, Erterina, Ettori and Stanislao.
Working on my mom's family, I found even stranger names, mostly in the 1600's used by the Puritans. Many of them I could not even figure out if they were male or female names. Here are some of these names:
Achsah, Supply, Preserved, Benoni, Experience, Hopestill, Wait, Waitstill, Unite, Return, Thanks and Mindwell.
The one thing I found in common in both Italy and the United States was these unusual names seemed to run in families. There were just a few couples on both sides of the ocean who seemed to prefer different names for their children. Perhaps it was a way of giving them a unique identity or expressing themselves in a unique way.

An Italian American Thanksgiving

My early American ancestry on my mother's side should be what I am writing about on this Thanksgiving day. One of her family lines came into this country to Plymouth, Massachusetts and brought supplies and food to the pilgrim colony before going on to other parts of Massachusetts. This is my first Thanksgiving without my Mom and words cannot express how much I miss her now. For that reason, I prefer to write about my Dad's mother's first Thanksgiving in America. It is one that she never forgot.
My grandmother lived in Cortale in Catanzaro Province with her mother Natalina Scrugli, her brother Francesco and her sister Maria. At some point when she was a child, her father Giuseppe Maiuolo died. Life for them in Cortale was pretty good. The family owned properties in Upper Cortale, employed dress makers to make their clothes and owned a shop among other things.
Natalina was very close with her sisters Carmela and Maria. The three sisters and their brother Gaetano were all born in Tropea to the noble Scugli family. Their father was a lawyer and held political posts which brought the family to Cortale. Since their life in Cortale was good, they did not have to come to America to seek a better life. On the contrary, I believe their life here was much more difficult.
In April, 1904 Natalina said her goodbyes to her sisters Carmela and Maria as they left Cortale for Chicago where their brother Gaetano had moved previously. Gaetano had negotiated the marriage of his youngest sister Maria to Teodoro Bertuca in Chicago. It must have been so painful to say goodbye to the sisters she loved so much.
On September 8, 1905 a horrible earthquake rocked Calabria and Cortale. The largest town near Cortale was Nicastro which was totally destroyed by the powerful quake. A little more than one month later Natalina packed up her children bound for the Port of Napoli to leave Italy forever. We will never know if the earthquake was a deciding factor.
In 1905 the journey to Napoli would have been long, difficult and treacherous. The jouney would have spanned over 245 miles. Their ship The Sicilia left the Port of Napoli on November 16, 1905 and arrived at Ellis Island in New York on November 30, 1905. It was Thanksgiving Day. After 14 days on the ship in confined quarters, the family was anxious to get off and make their way to Chicago. Especially Maria my grandmother's sister who spent the entire 14 day journey with a horrible case of sea sickness. But Ellis Island was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday so everyone on the ship had to spend one more day in the port on the ship. My great aunt could not understand why they had a national holiday for a chicken! So the family spent their first Thanksgiving in the United States on a ship looking at Ellis Island and Lady Liberty! How very appropriate.
From that point to this day, Thanksgiving dinners have included Turkey with Italian style stuffing, Italian fried meatballs, "basta in the oven" (bow ties baked in the oven with hard boiled eggs sliced thin, sausage, meatballs and plenty of mozzarella and imported Romano cheeses, an Italian style roast, several vegetable dishes which always included fresh cooked green beans and Yams cooked in Grand Marnier Liquor. As if all that was not enough, next came the fruits and nuts which always included roasted chestnuts. Then came coffee and all the Italian cookies and pastries, a ricotta pie along with other pies and goodies. Ah, it's good to be Italian during the holidays!
Happy Thanksgiving.