Italian Roots and Genealogy
Embarking on an Italian Genealogy Expedition: Abruzzo,Calabria, Campania
Imagine this: you're sixteen, flipping through an old book of remembrance when a dormant curiosity awakens inside you, setting you on a lifelong journey of discovery. This was precisely the catalyst for our guest, Marcus Flansburg, who was captivated by his LDS grandmother's book and embarked on an incredible expedition into Italian genealogy. From uncovering online Italian civil records to enrolling in BYU Idaho's family history research program, and transitioning from a law enforcement career to retirement, Marcus' journey has been nothing short of riveting.
Venturing with Marcus into the heart of Italy, we traverse through his ancestral hometowns, visit town halls and cemeteries, and uncover heartwarming stories like his long-lost great-grandfather and the discovery of an unknown picture. We also delve into the process of building a genealogy business, offering nuggets of wisdom for those also interested in tracing their roots.
As we journey with Marcus, we uncover the rich tapestry of Italian immigration, their regional diversity, and the unique bond formed by these immigrants in their new homes. We discuss the distinctive customs, languages, and even physical traits of Italians, shedding light on the historical event of Verbicaro's cholera riot in 1911. Marcus' incredible story of using DNA research and family records to uncover his great grandfather's identity is a testament to the power of genealogy. This episode is a treasure trove of resources and advice for anyone embarking on their own genealogical journey or seeking to discover more about their Italian roots.
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Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.
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Imagine this: you're sixteen, flipping through an old book of remembrance when a dormant curiosity awakens inside you, setting you on a lifelong journey of discovery. This was precisely the catalyst for our guest, Marcus Flansburg, who was captivated by his LDS grandmother's book and embarked on an incredible expedition into Italian genealogy. From uncovering online Italian civil records to enrolling in BYU Idaho's family history research program, and transitioning from a law enforcement career to retirement, Marcus' journey has been nothing short of riveting.
Venturing with Marcus into the heart of Italy, we traverse through his ancestral hometowns, visit town halls and cemeteries, and uncover heartwarming stories like his long-lost great-grandfather and the discovery of an unknown picture. We also delve into the process of building a genealogy business, offering nuggets of wisdom for those also interested in tracing their roots.
As we journey with Marcus, we uncover the rich tapestry of Italian immigration, their regional diversity, and the unique bond formed by these immigrants in their new homes. We discuss the distinctive customs, languages, and even physical traits of Italians, shedding light on the historical event of Verbicaro's cholera riot in 1911. Marcus' incredible story of using DNA research and family records to uncover his great grandfather's identity is a testament to the power of genealogy. This episode is a treasure trove of resources and advice for anyone embarking on their own genealogical journey or seeking to discover more about their Italian roots.
www.rootsintheboot.com
Free delivery on your first order over $35.
Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Hi, this is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook and check out our great sponsors, your Dolce De Vita, italy Rooting and Abiettivo Casa Rosetto, and I have a great guest today, marcus Flansberg. So welcome, marcus. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. It's good to be here.
Speaker 1:That's great. So I see you know. First thing I noticed when we connect with I see you have a, I guess, a tree with photos behind you there. Oh, yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's great. That's a combination of my family tree and my wife's family tree. I a couple of years ago, when I was at Roots Tech, there was a company that does family trees and I decided that I wanted one up on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really very nice. I think their name is called.
Speaker 2:Chartmasters.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think you're right. I think I've seen them before, actually, or received an ad or it's sort of Roots Tech or one of those three. So, anyway, what got you started in your research?
Speaker 2:Oh well, how much time do you have it all? I think it's. It started way back when, when I was a teenager. I am, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, and our church is very big into family history, as as you probably know. Have you ever heard of a thing called a book of remembrance? I haven't. No, okay, your LDS viewers, your Mormon viewers, will know exactly what this is. These, these were very, very big in the LDS church back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and my grandmother gave me this and it's just, it's full of it's. It's just it's full of genealogy stuff. And I got I got this when I was 16. I think I was about 16. And it's it's more geared towards my LDS side of the family.
Speaker 2:My, my mother, my mother is LDS. My father is Italian. Flansberg is my father's adopted name. He was born to Giorgio, his stepfather. His parents divorce and his stepfather adopted him. That's, that's. That's how. I'm a half Italian with a German, danish last name.
Speaker 2:But my LDS grandmother gave me that book of remembrance back when I was about 16 or so, so that's what started me into it. I've also always enjoyed puzzles and mysteries and solving things, and so that got me started. And then in the late 80s and the 90s, with the internet, you know, I started doing genealogy. I got an ancestrycom account early on, did a lot of US genealogy, my, my grandmother, who put together that book of remembrance. She interviewed my great grandmother, my Italian great grandmother, but there wasn't too much information, just a couple of generations. So I concentrated on US research for a few decades and then about 10 years ago, maybe less, maybe eight years ago, I'm not exactly sure of the date I realized that the Italian civil records were online. I I I had looked into accessing the Italian civil records before back in the 70s and 80s, but it was all on microfilm and you had to go to the, the, the big library in Salt Lake, and it was just more difficult than I had time to deal with. But as I was surfing around on my family search account, one day about I think it was about eight years ago I saw a record hit pop up and it was it was for Italian civil records, and that's when I realized that the Italian civil records were online, and so that's when I started getting into those. It was difficult at first because I didn't know Italian. The my great grandmother knew Italian, but she never spoke it. You know my, my family, has been in the U? S for several generations. They, you know they, came over in the late 1800s, early 1900s. So I don't have the benefit of being like a first generation Italian, but I started getting into the Italian civil records and then I realized that the verbiage in those records is standardized. So once you, once you learn the basic verbiage, then then it's just a matter of looking for names and dates and places. You, you, you, so you, you don't have to be scared like, oh man, I got to learn Italian to to do this research. I only need to to learn some, some basic things, and there's helps out there. So things just started snowballing.
Speaker 2:I retired from a career in law enforcement about four years ago. I live here in a Cache County, utah, northern Utah and I was a deputy sheriff here in the county. And as I was getting ready to retire, I was trying to think what am I going to start doing with myself? And one day a co worker was on their phone using the app Duolingo I don't know if you ever heard of that app and that's when I realized hey, I can start learning Italian. So then that kind of happened and I I I don't know Italian very well, I can read it better than I can speak it and I've been doing a lot of stuff online. But so I started learning to you know the Italian language.
Speaker 2:Then I retired from law enforcement about just before the pandemic and that's when I decided to go back to school and I got and I enrolled in the BYU Idaho family history research program. It's an associate degree program and it's completely online and the timing was perfect. So the pandemic hit, but I was taking classes online from home, so I didn't have to worry about going out in the community. So so then that happened. Then, about halfway through my schooling, a teacher knew my new of my interest in Italian research and she sent me an email she had from family search they. They had a internship on the Italian records team. So then I applied for that and got it. So then I got.
Speaker 2:I was able to spend a whole year working on the Italian records team on family search, and they're pretty much the people that have been organizing the records for on to notty. They've been, they've had a contract with the Italian government for about 12 or 13 years now and you know it's it's. They're doing it for free, and a lot of the people working on it are either volunteers or maybe a paid intern. That's not getting much, and so that's why it's taking so long. So I was able to do that. I graduated back in April and started working on my, my accreditation. I'm currently working on my accreditation accreditation with ICAP Gen the International Commission for the accreditation of professional genealogists and I'm trying to get my my Italian accreditation. And then I think the big thing that got me into this was back in 2017, when I took my first trip to Italy. I was really fortunate I I found a travel agent. They're called my, my Bella Vita travel. I don't know if you've heard of them there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, in fact. In fact I interviewed. I can't Cherry.
Speaker 2:Cherry yes, I interviewed her.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know. It was probably close to three years ago now.
Speaker 2:She put together a package for me and it was great because, you know, Instead of going to the usual tourist trap type things and don't get me wrong, I mean Rome was wonderful. It's a gigantic museum. I love Rome, it's one of my favorite places to visit. But we had just as much fun going to one of my ancestral hometowns, and the tour guide went there a couple of weeks ahead of time and scouted out things. So as soon as we got there we went to the town hall and searched records At the town hall. One of the workers there went with us up to the cemetery to say, you know, hey, yeah, the carlamagnos, they're over in that area, and we found a long lost great-grandfather.
Speaker 2:My great-grandparents had divorced and my great-grandfather moved back to the town of Verbacaro. He remarried. We didn't know that he had remarried, and so we found his headstone and his wife's headstone, his second wife's headstone. And you know how they do that wonderful tradition of putting a picture of the deceased on the headstone, and I got a picture of him that I'd never seen before and I got a picture of I guess she's my step-great-grandmother, and so things like that have just got me going. I'm starting, you know, starting to try to build up my own business. It's slow. I live in the middle of Scandinavia country, northern Utah everybody there's no Italians around here. I got to go to Salt Lake to the Italian-American club meetings to meet up with Italians. I'm surrounded by Christiansons and Jensons and Andersons and Olsons and all these Scandinavians. So starting up my own business doing Italian genealogy is a little bit challenging but it's growing slowly but surely.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we could help with some of that. So I do have a question about, well, actually a statement, but I want to ask you something else. You know, I tell people the same thing when they say that they're making a trip to Italy, and I say you go into your hometown, and a lot of them say, no, you know, I don't know anybody. So I'm glad you brought that up, because I pushed out on everybody you have to go to the hometown. That's where the action is, and then you'll be surprised what you find when you get there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and so I've made three trips to Italy now.
Speaker 2:I have ancestors in Abruzzo, in Cosserta, cossenza and Reggio Calabria, and so far I've been to Abruzzo once and I've been to Cossenza twice and going to the small little towns and walking the streets where your family used to live, and going to the church where they used to live, and going to cemeteries and finding cousins.
Speaker 2:I drag my poor wife around to cemeteries all the time and what I do is I'll bring a camera and I'll just start taking pictures of anything that looks familiar, just kind of a shotgun approach. And then I come home and I slowly go through and research and then, you know, in that time I find out, oh, this is a fourth cousin, three times removed, and I've got the picture off of that headstone and then I can add it to family search and to ancestry and then other people can benefit from those pictures. And then, because those pictures are out there and other people see them, they contact me and then I contact distant cousins that I've never heard of before and then I get information from them and it turns into a big, wonderful snowball of finding information about my family.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great, and I've interviewed several people from family search Boy, I think, it's probably at least I think four about the process and some of those things. But I want to go back to the book of remembrance for a second. Is that only like a family tree or is it actually like things that people did? Their jobs what they were like.
Speaker 2:It's totally customized so you would do it for your individual family. So my grandmother she put in biographies, wow. And then I got my ancestors pictures. I've got one third great grandfather who was a Mormon polygamist, and so you know things like that, only one. Well, on my mom's side, you see, that's the thing. On my mom's side of the family it's LDS all the way back to Kirtland, Ohio, and to the beginnings.
Speaker 1:So how far back does that book go?
Speaker 2:Well, on my mother's side of the family it's been researched. So you can see this is the original tree and up on top that's all my side of the family, but then on the bottom you can see that it was researched very well and then even on to the back. So technically, technically, on my mom's side of the family we have one line that is back to Adam and Eve. Now you got to take those with a grain of salt. Yes, basically, if you can trace your family tree back into royalty, a lot of those royal families they put together pedigrees that tied into famous biblical lines and stuff. So I can show that I have one line back to Adam and Eve. I'm 100% sure that somewhere along the way there's a mistake in there and it's probably not accurate, but it's fun to have in the book just to look at and stuff. So you've got some royal.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I was going to say that I was going to mention that as I was going back, I started getting the same thing and getting back to some people in Rome and Caesars and things like that. But I take all of that with a grain of salt. I treat everything like prior to maybe I don't know 600, 700 AD as kind of for the grain of salt, because the records I mean a lot of it's guessing, a lot of it's composite. People like Ragnar, for example, theoretically he's real. Some people say he's real, but then others people say he's a composite of several other people. And I definitely trace back to Rallo, the Duke of Normandy that I have. But he wasn't really as they portray in the show. He wasn't Ragnar's brother. In fact they came from different times. One other point about that a lot of people say, well, everybody's related to Charlemagne and everybody's related to this guy and I said, yeah, that's true, but to find the link is the interesting part to me and that's what I was able to find.
Speaker 2:Well, now you bring up Charlemagne. One of my lines that I have documentation back to the 1620s is the Carlemanos, and Carlemano is Italian for Charlemagne, so I got a pretty good. There's other ways you could get that name, but yeah, so in verbiccaro I'm related to the Carlemanos all the way back to the first Carlemano in verbiccaro, who was Paolo Carlemano and he came from Lauria. He must have been a rich guy, because the poor people didn't get around.
Speaker 2:But he came to verbiccaro We've got the marriage certificate he got. He married a local young lady and about six months later they had a child, so you can do the math on that one. And he stayed in verbiccaro. Verbiccaro is in Cascenza, it's just up the mountains between Scalia and Diamante, and Paolo he came from Lauria, which is about an hour drive north of verbiccaro. So yeah, so back to your original question. A book of remembrance can have anything that you want to put in for your family. So my grandmother she did this back in the mid-80s typed it on an old typewriter, made photocopies of things and put it together for each one of her grandchildren, and back then that was kind of the thing that grandparents did. They would put together these books as kind of a heritage to hand down to their grandchildren.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's. I mean, that's fantastic, that's really fabulous. I mean I was lucky because you know my dad's mom, all of these people are documented in the Libo di Oro and the nobility of Naples. And I get more pushback, believe it or not, from some people in Italy than I do in America about you can't possibly have this. But I have the birth records going back to well as early as you can, on the Antonati anyway. But from there, you know, supplementing that, and I also had a check with you know professional genealogists and then talking to my cousins in Italy, obviously we were able to make the linkages. But it's funny, I've had a couple of people oh, you Americans always think you're nobility or you think of this and I'm like I'm not thinking.
Speaker 1:I could send you the birth and death records of my great, great great grandfather and all of that stuff you know.
Speaker 2:And that's the nice thing with the family search, the Italian civil records and the Antonati civil records, I've got documentation now To me it's really important to document. So I've got documentation back into the 1700s on just about all of my Italian side of the family now, and then if I go beyond the late 1700s it's with church records. Those church records are a little bit harder to get, as you probably know. Unfortunately the Catholic church isn't centralized in its record keeping. You know, each parish is totally different.
Speaker 2:I know that on my last trip to Italy just last month, when I went to Verbicaro to look at those church records, I brought a man with me. His name is oh no, I've gone blank Walter, walter. Oh, I gotta say his name, right? I always butcher his last name, zanofarana. Let me pull up his last name. He is in charge Zaffarana, walter Zaffarana. He is in charge of all of the family search record preservation teams in Italy and he works for Family Search and Family Search has these volunteer record preservation teams and I brought him with me to Verbicaro to meet the archivist and the priest in the church there. I've got my fingers crossed that, you know, it'll bear fruit. Maybe someday he'll be able to digitize those records. But Walter, or Walter he goes all over Italy trying to get contracts to get records digitized and put onto Family Search. You know Family Search is doing the Italian civil records and they're trying trying to make friends with the different you know parishes and dioceses in Italy to get those records online.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a long process but Walter's doing a great job, I hope and I think because I spoke to somebody not that long ago from Family Search and I think they may have already started, but I'd love to speak to Walter about it. You know, if you want to give him my email or something like that, I'd love to interview him because you know that information is great to know and how he goes about it and all of that. I mean the person I talked to who does the indexing.
Speaker 2:Was it.
Speaker 1:Nizia. No, his last name is Joel Cole. Joel Cole, OK yeah, and he's funny because his name is Joel Cole and he's got a very heavy Italian accent.
Speaker 2:Well, and he's from up north and so he looks like he's German, but he he's. I think his father had a was big into gathering records and I know who Joel is. I don't know him but I know who he is. But yeah, he works for Family Search. So I was kind of a couple of levels below him so I knew of him but never really got to know him. But but yeah, Family Search is doing a great job over there and it's a big job. It's going to take them a long, long time, but every record that they get and they get it online is wonderful.
Speaker 2:What people don't realize is that Family Search has millions of records but only a small percentage have been indexed. So you know, for your viewers that don't know this, when they do a word search or a date search or a place search, it's only searching the indexed records, the records that somebody has gone through and extracted the information and typed it into a database. There are so many more records that are available but not indexed and that's kind of where I'm trying to market myself is I know how to research those records that are not indexed and find the information that you can't just get from a simple word search and the cool thing about Family Search and those records preservation teams, the way the technology is now, when they digitize those records, then they download them and then they send them via the internet, the ethernet or whatever, to Salt Lake City. That stuff is online and at least available to dig through within days.
Speaker 1:It's just a wonderful process and you know a lot of people don't realize that they could you know, if there's researching at home that they could volunteer to do the indexing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so me, I'm big into the research. Some people don't get into the research like me, but if you wanted to help and you went on to Family Search, and if you went on to Family Search, go to the main page and you'd want to click on the tab that says Get Involved, and if you click on that Get Involved tab and you can index records and you can help get those records online for people to research. But I will, when this is done, I will definitely send you Volter's contact information. I think he'd be a great person for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he'd be a super guest. So now, with you know, with all this research, and whether it's from the Italian side, the LDS side or whatever, I mean, what have you come across that like really blew you away? What did you find?
Speaker 2:The first thing I've learned about Italian research about Italian heritage. Not every Italian American has an ancestor from Sicily and they didn't all immigrate to New York and New Jersey.
Speaker 1:I'll go along with you on that one.
Speaker 2:Well, because all of my family went straight to San Francisco. So when I was growing up and I'd see TV programs or I'd read about stuff and I'd hear you know like someone used the phrase Gabagool what the heck is that? I've never heard that phrase. But then I learned that it's an East Coast. It's. You know, it's an East Coast thing, it's distinctive to that area, or you know, if your family didn't do this, you're not Italian.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what that is and why I bring that up and why I think it's really important for people to know is Italy is so diverse. Italy is not just one monolithic country, and so when you're doing your research, you're going to need to learn a little bit of the history for your ancestral home town or ancestral area, because the languages can be different from town to town, the customs can be different, the records can sometimes be different from town to town, and so it's going to be different. The whole country is just so diverse. The other thing where that is important is when immigrants were coming over from Italy and you probably know this they would stick together, and so you're going to find not just your ancestors in a city, or even in a in a city block, but you're going to find people from their same hometown.
Speaker 2:So, for example, with San Francisco, verbicaro down in Cascenza is. You know, a lot of people from Verbicaro went to San Francisco. I read an article in a San Francisco Italian newspaper from around the 1900s it was like 1905 or 1910 where the writer of the article estimated that in the Italian portion of San Francisco these days it's called North Beach. Back then they called it the Latin Quarter. He estimated that there was 2,000 people from the town of Verbicaro in that, in that portion of the town. So you know, whereas other people and other places of the country have probably never heard, you know, other people who have Italian heritage have probably never heard of Verbicaro.
Speaker 1:So do you know why? That you know why they went to San Francisco, was it?
Speaker 2:you know, I think it was because part of it has to do with the, the language, the, the dialects and and so like. If one person went there, then the next person wanted to be next to a friend, a family member, someone, and so then it they kind of just clumped together because, you know, maybe they were all Italians who you know, the who were immigrating here. But you know, family and friendship ties are just so powerful in the Italian culture so that as soon as one went there then then they all kind of grouped together. So you'll probably find I'm sure, I'm positive you find that anywhere where there were Italian enclaves in this country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they all, and and not all, but a lot of them. You know they all had a similar background, whether it was fishing or stone carving or, you know, tailoring or those kinds of things In.
Speaker 2:San Francisco. It was boot blacks, that, the, the Shoe Shine guys. Yeah, my great, great great grandfather, biazio Papa. He was one of the founding members of the boot black union in in San Francisco. I've got a picture of him in front of his shoe shine stand and I got the newspaper article. He was the. He was one of the first vice president of the union and I want to say it was back in 19 oh, I'd have to look up the date, but it was like 1905 or 1906 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I think it was because over in Italy they were all just farmers and peasants. So they came here and one guy figured out a way to earn a living, and so then, when the next guy could, oh I do, pretty good, being a boot black, you should be a boot black too. And and then, so now in in my family tree I've got all these guys, I've got multiple guys who all of a sudden were boot blacks, and so I don't know definitively why that is, but my suspicion is is that they were just helping each other out and they were just taking care of each other, and and family and and and community was just so important to them, I, and I think that's why they did so well in this country, is they? They banded together and they took care of each other and and they built each other up, and I think that's why us Italians do pretty good.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and and you know, here in New York City at least, the bodies. They were ice men. Don't know why, I still haven't been able to figure out why, but, like you said, you know one probably did it and then the others did it. And you know even my, some of my, my uncles, you know they were. They were young men delivering ice in the the 30s, even into the 40s in Manhattan and people don't realize these guys are carrying 50, 75 pounds of ice more even on their back up five flights upstairs.
Speaker 2:Well, You've been there. You only have to go and visit Italy once and go to one of these little towns up in the mountains. And so, yeah, they were able to do that because they were used to climbing up and down and up. And you know, and that's my opinion, that's why Italians over time developed short but stocky physiques because they were hiking up and down those mountains.
Speaker 2:In Verbicaro they had a cholera riot in 1911. And I was reading some newspaper articles about that and it was difficult to get the authorities up into this town because even by 1911, they didn't have an established road where they could drive cars or trains or anything up to this home, up to this town. One of the occupations I see a lot on records for this town is mule-tear, or, you know, a mule driver, and they had to get everything up to this town on packed mules on little tiny trails as late as 1911. And so, yeah, that's why Italians are doing these hard, you know, carrying 50-pound blocks of ice on their shoulders, because they're built that way. For generations, your ancestors, my ancestors, were tromping around these towns in the mountains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, we were in Schiele in Calabria last year and, to your point, we took the elevator down. We should have done it the other way around and walked up. But you're walking up these and these are now steps, and you're thinking to yourself, my God, how did these people, how did people get around back then? And so you know, when we went to some of the places in Calabria from Naples, I mean it was, or even Capricota, when we went from Naples, it was maybe an hour and a half by car. But you know, my family, the noble part of the family, who had places there, they would go to these places once or twice a year from Naples.
Speaker 1:And I didn't realize, I didn't know this till not that long ago, that the nobility all lived in Naples. They lived in Naples and they would travel in these towns. And I'm thinking to myself, in the 1800s, 1850, 1860, this must have been a monumental trip every time they went to one of these mountain towns. Yeah, I mean the people who work there and live there and are farmed and did all that. They didn't, like I said, they didn't go any place. Yeah, but the people who had money, they moved around.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the nice things about doing the research is you can trace your lineback multiple generations in this town and it's all in the same town. Now you got to be careful about the names because you're going to find multiple people with you know you're going to find multiple Giuseppe Carlamagnos or Viaggio Papa and so you got to be careful to distinguish. You know one from the other. But that's why the records are wonderful, because in order to distinguish people, they often included you know Viaggio Papa, son of Guy Attano, and so sometimes you can find records that will give you two or three generations worth of information. And so the other thing I love that I didn't know about Italian research I love how the Italian women keep their maiden name throughout their life.
Speaker 2:If you do American research, you know you're going to be working with census records and you're going to find a woman on the census record and you're going to find her married name, but you're not going to know her maiden name, and sometimes it's going to be really hard to find those maiden names. Italian research is great. The women kept their maiden names so birth, marriage and death. That makes it so much easier. And the other thing I love about Italian research is the records go all the way back, at least the civil records go all the way back to, you know, 1806 or 1809, depending on a part of Italy.
Speaker 2:In the US there's some states that didn't, you know, didn't start keeping like birth records until 1900. So I'm to the point now where, excuse me, where I prefer doing Italian research over US research, because the birth, marriage and death records are just, you know, very plain and simple and all the way back to the early 1800s. And then you get those proceceti or oligarchy, those marriage application packets, packets where you could have information that takes you back into the 1700s. And then, if we could just get better access to those church records, when I was in Verbo Caro, I had a book in my hand that had baptisms back to the late 1560s. So you know, I just I love Italian research. I'm to the point where I like it a lot better than US research.
Speaker 1:I know what you mean and in my case, you know everybody came in 1915. So there's nothing here from either, none of my families. Everybody's everything's over there prior to 1915. But I, you know, I lucked out with because I found out that I had a, my great great grandmother, great great grandmother. She was from Switzerland, oh and. But she married, you know, an Italian in Naples. And I'm thinking to myself I'm never going to find anything on this woman, right? She wasn't, she wasn't at all. She married into a noble family, but she wasn't a noble and she's from Switzerland. And I tell people this too don't give up. You know, just Google around. You don't know what you're going to find.
Speaker 1:And I came across two books that listed the officers of the Neapolitan army in the 1850s, and I found my great great grandfather, filippo Cracciolo. He was a lieutenant in the Calvary. And then, just a little bit further up, I found Bernardo Moore, same spelling as my great grandmother, because I had that record. And so now I go back to the record and I see that matches that. And I'm like Wow. And so it said he was a captain in the Swiss Guard. And so now that confused me, because you always see Swiss Guard right away, you think about the Pope, right?
Speaker 1:And so I found out that the Swiss, the Catholic cantons, especially Lucerne, would send mercenaries throughout Europe to be in the army or to serve in their army. So you know, the Neapolitan's were paying this, some Swiss people, to be in part of their army or whatever. And so I just said, you know Swiss ancestry, help me with Swiss ancestry. On Google, and I found the website and they said write us in German, english or Italian and we'll you know, we'll see if we could help. And so I said my, my grandmother, or my great grandmother or great great grandmother, was Alisa Moore. Her father was Bernardo Moore and they sent me a link to it. Probably there were, I'm going to say, 20 or 25 families in Lucerne going back from the 1800s, back to the 1300s, that were either the mayors or more Government people, and they had links to handwritten family trees going back from when my great great grandmother was born, someone back to 1600, someone back to 1500. I think one may have even gone back even further, all handwritten In Latin, by the way.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, but it was like mind-blowing to be able to find this. So there's a family called Amarine which I'm part of and I found somebody from there. I contacted somebody from there and he actually sent me a photo of my second-grade grandparents, two family names with his crest on it both families. And that confuses me a little bit because you know, the Swiss didn't have nobility, but somehow they must have had some kind of designation. And in Latin, again, the two names, the date they were married and the two family crests side by side. So you know, that's how you tell people when you're doing your research Sometimes, walk away for a little while. Yes, clear your head, you'll come back and somehow somewhere somebody up there is going to make you find what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Because I'm a true believer when things don't happen by accident.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, in the LDS church we call that the spirit of Elijah, but I definitely believe in that.
Speaker 2:I've had some really miraculous finds, and part of my schooling at BYU, idaho, I took a DNA class. I know just enough about DNA research to be dangerous, but I've been able to solve one of my Italian lines down in Reggio Calabria with the help of some DNA research. I had a great grandmother who was born Padre in C'era I can't remember how to pronounce it, basically father unknown but when she came to America she hung out with this guy that she always referred to it as her brother, but with the different last name. Her last name was Garefa, his last name was Zappia, and after taking this DNA class I got looking on my ancestry DNA tree and I found some Zappia names that were matches, and I got a hold of the people and through process of elimination they knew who their grandfather was, and so it allows me to theorize that he is that father unknown, and so now I was able to solve that one with DNA. But that was that. Just kind of all fell into place a little too nicely for me to call it coincidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know exactly what you mean and I've heard several stories like that and it's just so interesting, it just blows my mind. I know there's only a handful of us in the world that like to do this kind of stuff, but it's fun Go ahead, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say here in Logan, utah, I volunteer at the local family search center and we see that happen all the time. People come in and I volunteer on Fridays and I have people come in and sit down with them and they've been looking for for you know, a clue for years and years and years, and they just happen to come in on the day that I'm there and they just happen to need help with Italian research and I'm the only guy in the center who does Italian research and and we find something for them and solve a mystery. And it's, it's just I. I think our ancestors are very much aware of us and very much aware of us and very much want to connect with us, and and I believe that they, they help us. I don't know how, how to explain it, but there's just just way too many coincidences that that happened for me to to just call it a coincidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree, I agree 100%. And you know the start of my book. I say that. You know there, there is some kind of intervention there that guides us along the way, and some of us, I believe, have chosen to do that because not everybody wants to do it. So, before we go, my last question that could, and this kind of segues into that what advice do you give to somebody just starting out?
Speaker 2:Okay, kind of go through the steps and you probably know all of this. First thing, gather what you have and find some way to organize your information. You can get a free account on family search. You can get a paid account on ancestrycom. There's other programs out there like ancestral quest, roots, magic legacy tree. Start organizing your information and then, before they die, interview your grandparents, if you're fortunate enough to have a great grandparent. Interview them, ask them questions, get, get the stuff and and record it. I know down at our family search center we have a room where you can reserve it and you can bring people in. You can bring your grandparent and sit them down and and video record the conversation and then we give you a copy of it. Record that information and and you I know you're aware of this the big thing you're looking for is trying to figure out that hometown, because there's tons of records out there on onto naughty and family search. But it's like finding a needle in a haystack until you figure out that hometown. And once you find that hometown, then it's it's time to, you know, jump over the pond and start doing the Italian research. Also, I would tell people, don't restrict yourself to just your immediate family tree, you might want to consider doing descendancy research, going up your tree a few generations and then coming down and looking for those cousins out there, because there might be cousins out there that have a piece of the puzzle that you don't have, or vice versa. That's why when I find stuff, I love to put it on to family search and on to ancestry for other people to see, so that I can make those connections with those cousins out there. Sometimes I have a picture that they don't have, or they have a picture that I don't have, and and so if you, if you make those connections, you're going to have better success.
Speaker 2:It's sometimes it can seem overwhelming, but just just do it one piece at a time. It's, you know, it's how I sometimes use the phrase how do you, how do you phrase, how do you eat an elephant? You know, one bite at a time. You just just do it one bite at a time. But do do those steps, don't be intimidated. You know, because you don't know the language.
Speaker 2:There's family search or not family search. There's Facebook groups out there, and when I first was starting out, I joined several Italian genealogy Facebook groups and when I had a question on you know translating something, or what did this word say? Or you know, google, google translate doesn't recognize this word. I put it out on the Facebook group and there's lots of people out there that want to help. And then, last of all, I mean, if you really want help and you want to hire a professional, you could go to rootsinthebootcom and, and I'm available, I'm I'm not doing this to make a ton of money. I remember years ago I, as a young man, I was a scuba diving instructor and I never made a ton of money, but I usually made enough money to pay for my trips and my equipment. And so that's kind of what I'm trying to do now with my genealogy business. If I can, if I can make enough money to pay for a plane ticket once a year, I'll be happy.
Speaker 2:And I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, yeah, and so you know, I know that I'm not going to be making tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if I make a few bucks and pay for that plane ticket and pay for that rental car, and if I can go to Italy on a business trip once a year, then then I'll be happy, and you know so I'm available If you need a little bit of help.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great, that's perfect. I'm going to make sure we put the links out there. Well, it's been a lot of fun. We really appreciate you taking the time and we'll be sure to get the message out there.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.
