Navigating the Tapestry of Italian Ancestry

We set sail on a fascinating voyage through time, guided by our guest, Heath Orcutt-Abert. With Italian roots running deep, Heath unveils enthralling tales of her family's immigration from Castagna, Calabria, Italy to the U.S. in the 1880s. We venture through their journey of adaptation and survival in a new country, reflecting on the gripping tales from the novel 'Umbertina',  authored by none other than her mother's first cousin, Helen Barolini. 

As Heath peels back the layers of his lineage, she uncovers unexpected connections that will leave you spellbound. Imagine discovering that your 9th great-grandparents were on board the Mayflower or that one of your great-grandmothers was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. From the tense dynamics between Italian and Irish communities to enchanting tales about her Italian grandmother's grudge against the Irish, we navigate through time and history together. 

In the final leg of our journey, we step into Heath's shoes as she takes us through the intriguing process of tracing her great-grandfather's lineage. Imagine uncovering family journals and letters that reveal stories infused with charm and mystery. From arranged marriages to century-old grudges, every turn reveals a new chapter in Heath’s family saga. The quest for one's roots is a path filled with joy, challenges, and unexpected discoveries. So, tighten your seatbelts as we explore family history, ancestral origins, and the astounding narratives they encompass.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:10

This is Bob Sarrantino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out our great sponsors Yodolce Vita, italy Rooting and Abiettivo Caso Rosetto. And today we have a great guest, heath Orcutt-Ebert. And welcome Heath, thanks for being here. Thank you, bob. So I always, you know I ask people to start. You know when and why did you start doing family research?

Speaker 1: 0:46

Okay, well, I actually started on my father's side, so I guess I'll introduce myself that way. I am 50% Italian. My mother is first generation Italian. On my father's side I'm Irish and English. The Irish side didn't come over to the 1850s, but the English side we could trace all the way back to the Mayflower. So I started on my father's side because my grandfather had put together some information on the Heath family, which is where I got my name, and once I started on that, I wanted to find out more about the Italian side. And so the next thing I knew I was obsessed with genealogy and can now trace myself way back A lot of the Italian side. I was lucky enough to have a cousin who was doing this, and so he and I have shared information over the years.

Speaker 2: 1:46

Oh, that's great. Yeah, it always helps to have somebody working with you because you know you'll find something that they never found, and they find something that you never found.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Exactly Well, especially helped because he spoke some Italian.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Oh, good, yeah, that's yes.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Yes.

Speaker 2: 2:04

So now, where is the Italian family? From what part of Italy?

Speaker 1: 2:08

We are from Castagna, calabria, italy, and I've actually been there. It's down in the boot and, as I'm sure you're aware, up in the mountains, a small town of about seven, eight hundred people, and that's my grandfather was born there. My grandmother's parents were born there. My grandmother was born just when they came over here, right after they first come over to the States.

Speaker 2: 2:40

So what year did they come?

Speaker 1: 2:43

They came in 18, I want to say 1880s. It was before Ellis Island was opened, so they came through Castle Island.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Oh, I saw that long time ago.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Yes, so my, let's see, my grandmother's father came and went back two or three times which was fairly common back then, and brought people over. My grandfather's father had come over here and had been in the States for a while, was not married at that time, went back to Castagna and ended up marrying his friend's daughter, so she was about 20 years younger than he was. And then they came back and if you look up that town in Wikipedia or any place like that, it will tell you that the majority of immigrants came over and settled in Utica, new York, from that particular village.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Oh really, wow, that's interesting. That's interesting, yeah, and they. So they came over because, you know, I interviewed an author. Actually it was two guys. They wrote a book called Swindle to New York, which was based right around that time when they were telling the Italians that they were going to go to South America and then they'd left them in New York.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Oh dear. Well, that is not the case with our family, with my family, but it may have been. No, I don't think that it was at all. Like I said, some had come over for whatever reason, settled in the Utica area. They started in New York City, quickly moved up state to Utica and, like I said, just kept going back to this small town and bringing them back over. As in many small towns, you're related to all sorts of different people and let's see if I can tell you this straight, my grandmother made. My grandmother's maiden name was Sacco, my grandfather's name was Cardamom, but his mother's name was Sacco, and so somewhere along there, like second cousins or something like that.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Which that certainly wasn't unusual back then.

Speaker 2: 5:11

No, not at all they were marrying first cousins in some cases back then but you should check out that book Swindle to New York, because what happened there and it's a very interesting story. And again they came to a castle garden. They a bunch of Italians came I mean, you know thousands and what happened was they didn't know what to do with them, so they started giving them jobs in New York City. In fact, there was a big snowstorm and they employed the Italians to clean up the snow. But then there were places around the country west of New York like you know probably could have been upstate New York, and certainly, I know for sure, ohio and Pennsylvania where they needed laborers or they needed people to work, and they were taking the Italians. They were taking the Italians there, wow. So I'll send you the link for the book. It's a really, really interesting book and it happened. I mean it takes place right around the time when your ancestors came.

Speaker 1: 6:14

So Okay, I just looked up the book and have it right here, so I will order it.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:20

I can get it. I have a my mother's first cousin. I think that's right. My mother's first cousin is was Helen Barolini and that was her married name, and she is the author of a book called Umbertina and it is the story of our family and when they came over from Italy. So it's really half that and then half her story of growing up in Syracuse, new York, which is where I was from.

Speaker 2: 6:57

So yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:58

So that's been very, very interesting to to learn. As a matter of fact, she was the first person that gave me a family tree, a handwritten family tree of our family. To get me started in this, and how long ago was that?

Speaker 2: 7:15

I'm sorry, how long ago was that.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Oh, 20 years, and you know how that is. You work on it for a while, but when you have a full-time job and you're raising children it kind of gets pushed to the side. But since I've been retired I've been really, really focused on it.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Well, yeah, that's the same thing with me. You know, I was doing it here and there, and now it's practically my job now.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Exactly exactly. And, as I mentioned, you know, one of my cousins had done a lot on the Italian side, and so when we caught up to each other and found out that we were both doing this, we started collaborating and we actually went to Italy together, back to the small town where our grandparents were from.

Speaker 2: 8:07

So that when you went back did you find cousins and such we did?

Speaker 1: 8:13

We found a gazillion. Well, there weren't that many people there. We had a lot of people there that had the same names that we had in our tree, that maybe were cousins, second cousins, et cetera. And then my favorite story to tell about this is, like I said, it was a very small town. So the first morning that we were there we went outside just to kind of take a little walk, started talking to some of the residents and while he was talking I was smiling Because, as I said, I couldn't speak Italian.

Speaker 1: 8:44

He taught me how to say my grandfather was a cardamon, my grandmother was a sacco, and that's all I needed to say and that got it going, but anyway. So I was trying to talk with this lady and mentioned, you know, the cardamon name. And then the next thing we knew there was a car coming down the street and she yelled out hey, giuseppe, come here. So he stopped his car, bring the middle street and got out and came over and we did find out. My cousin figured out how we were related to him. And next thing we knew that night we were having dinner at their house and it was wonderful just to meet somebody that was related to us over there, but we also found the church where my grandfather was baptized. We found cemeteries where some of the ancestors were buried, so it was a really wonderful trip.

Speaker 2: 9:35

Yeah, I mean that's so nice to do that and that's real. That's a really small town 800.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Yes, yes, left, yeah, yeah, those mountain towns.

Speaker 2: 9:46

you go up to those mountains. We were there. We went up to the mountain towns where some of the ancestors are from and you know it's hard to believe how these people got up and down these mountains 100 years ago or more, 200 years ago.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Well, how did they get down to get to Naples to get a boat to come over here? How was that even possible at that time? It just amazes me what they had to have gone through. And then for some of them to keep going back and bringing more people over and making that trip I mean, it was hard enough flying in and taking a car to get up there, no right.

Speaker 2: 10:29

I know that's the way I felt. People like driver forever. And you know my grandmother's family because they own property there. They lived in Naples but they own property in Calabria. You know Montabello, which is pretty far south from Naples. They told me that they would make this trip, you know, at least once a year, sometimes twice a year. So they were from Naples to there and back. I mean it had to take days.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Yes, Well, it's one of the stories that my family tells. My oldest brother always said that my grandmother was from Naples and I said no, no, I know that she was from, you know, from Calabria, and da, da, da. And he said, no, she always said she was from Naples and I finally kind of put it together and I think what she was saying is that she took the boat over from Naples, you know, because that was the closest place to go to get to the States. And I know the boat that my grandparents were on, you know, started there.

Speaker 2: 11:32

My grandfather and his family yeah, well, you know, that's the same thing with my family. I was always told that my father's family was from from Naples and my mother's family was from Barri, which they were in a sense from Barri, but they were from a small town called Tirito. My father's family, actually they lived in my father's father. Actually he lived in Naples itself, I mean right in the city, but he wasn't born there and I was told he was born in Caserta. And then I was told he was born someplace else and finally, when I got his birth certificate, I found he was born in Pagani, which is not far from Naples. But you know, completely different and the same thing with my father's mother.

Speaker 2: 12:28

I always thought, because her mother was born in Naples, that she was most likely born in Naples, but she was born in Chircula because that's where her father lived. And so you know, because of their connections, their nobility, you know they were noble families. I think what happened with them was his family was from Chircula or Masa di Soma back then. So that's where they lived, they lived where the man lived, right, and so she was, she was born there, and what really threw me off was that her mother died when she was only 42. And she died in Naples and the only thing I could piece together was, because her family was so well known in Naples and Naples was bigger than Masa di Soma, although it's not that far, they must have brought her back there to be with her family when she passed away. That's the only thing I could, logically, that's the only thing that I could figure.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Because she was born in.

Speaker 2: 13:42

Naples. She was born in Naples, she died in Naples, but my grandmother was born in Chircula.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, exactly, it's like how does that happen? But sometimes you just have to take your best guess at it and say you know, this is what I, what I think happened.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Yeah, well, that's the same thing with with why she came. There were only two people in my grandmother's family that came to America her and her aunt. And her aunt came about 10 years before her. And you know, piecing together with my, my cousin, who descends from from my grandmother's aunt, is that her husband was a sort of an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 14:24

I was told he owned of either he may choose or he made, while it's something to do with leather and the only thing I could think of is he must have said if you want to come to America, come to America and I'll help your husband get started, or whatever, because there's nobody else in the family from her family that came, and it's seven. These are a lot.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Yeah, that happened a lot I finding now that family friends names I had heard of when I was growing up were children of friends of theirs that had come over at the same time. One of the things that I never totally put together when I was growing up my grandmother. I asked my grandmother where she was born and she said Chicago. Well, I grew up thinking Chicago was part of Italy because everybody else was born in Italy. And then when I realized no, she really was born in Chicago. I was like, wait a minute, how did that, you know? And apparently my grandfather had come over and at some point obviously moved to Chicago. She was born there, but she only lived there until she was about a year and then he moved back east to Utica and then the rest of the family was born in Utica because she's the only child that has a birth certificate from Chicago.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Yeah, it was quite a shock to me that it wasn't in Italy.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, and seeing my father. My father was born in Scotch Plains, new Jersey. I still don't know why I never asked the story I should have. But his oldest, three brother and two sisters were born in Italy. His sister right up just a little bit older than him. She was born in New York City and the family was in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, for some strange reason. And then nobody ever said why, how they there? Because eventually they wound up back in Corona, you know, queens, in New York City.

Speaker 1: 16:23

So I have a brother was born in Queens, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Where I don't know, because it was when he came back up to Utica when he was very young. I mean, I I know because I have it in my ancestry, but I, off top of my head, I can't tell you where. One was born in Queens, one was born in Manhattan. They moved from Utica down there and then came back to Utica.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Yeah, so what so? So what did you, what did your grandparents and your and your father do? What kind of what kind of businesses?

Speaker 1: 17:12

Well, my, my grandparents were on my mother's side, yeah, and my grandfather and his two, his older brother and his younger brother, came over with their parents, like I said, when my grandfather was about eight. The youngest brother was a baby, so maybe my grandfather wasn't even that old, but anyway. So it was just the three boys that were born in Italy and then they came to Utica and then after that they had six girls, but they were all born, you know, in the States. My grandfather started out, you know, working any kind of odd job that he could, my great grandfather working any kind of odd job that he could.

Speaker 1: 17:58

I don't think he worked in the mills, although that's very possible because that was quite big in Utica back then. But wherever he was working, the family lore goes that my grandmother would, my great grandmother would make him his lunch and send it, you know, with him, and that all the other men there were very jealous because of the lunches that he had. And my grandmother, great grandmother, who was really the matriarch in all senses of the word, including business, but because women weren't then it was never talked about. So she was the one that pushed the whole getting started in the business. So she started making sandwiches for the other men and had him sell them at the work site.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Wow, that's cool. So, it's like the inventor of the lunch truck yeah there you go.

Speaker 1: 18:55

And then at some point there were many Italians in Utica that had fruit and broke and produce companies, and I'm not sure exactly what year, but my great grandfather started a cardamom in son. So my grandfather and his brothers had to be old enough to be working there, which doesn't mean much now, because I think my grandfather started working there after he got out of eighth grade. Okay, so they started a small fruit produce company that grew and grew and did very well. My grandfather passed away. My great grandfather I've seen the wrong one my great grandfather passed away. I don't remember the year but because his wife was 20 years younger, the boys were just old enough to take over the company.

Speaker 1: 19:47

And so the three of them took over the company, but my grandmother apparently ran it from behind the scenes, you know. She took care of all the other things that had to go on and kept it going. And then the three of them started. They not only had the fruit and produce, but then they incorporated at some point real estate and also liquor, wholesale liquor, and so, like many Italian families, they had their feuds, and it ended up that my grandfather and my and his brothers stopped speaking to each other in around 1946, 40, somewhere in the 1940s. I never spoke to each other again, even though they lived in the same city.

Speaker 2: 20:45

Wow yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Split up the business and now all the cousin estate in touch with each other. So my mother and her sisters knew all of them Again, why they split up. We've heard a couple of different things. But his brothers had sons to come into the business. My grandfather had had one son who passed away at 27. And so my grandfather brought his son-in-laws into the business and the family story says that the brothers said no, they can work here but they can't own, you know, be the owners of the business because they're not blood. And that's kind of when the split happened. He said fine, now take my son-in-laws and buy a portion of the business and I'll just go on my merry way and do what I want to do.

Speaker 2: 21:42

So yeah, that's that's. You know, it's sad to hear a story like that.

Speaker 1: 21:47

You know I mean nowadays.

Speaker 2: 21:48

that probably won't happen because, you know, I think women get a lot more respect than they did back then, Right.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Yes, well, and it's interesting because when he started the other business, even though he had the son-in-laws involved in it, he also made sure of a daughter's names were on the business. Now, did they come in and work there? No, because they were, you know, married and having children, and but he made sure that they were on the board at his business and were involved in it, which, back then, yeah, that's progressive for back then.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Yeah, yeah, Again, I had a. I had the curve right.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Yes, exactly. The other thing that was different about, I think, was different about my Italian family. My father passed away when I was very young, and so I didn't understand the difference, if you will, between my mother being Italian and my father not being Italian. Until I was much older, my grandfather was so proud to be a United States citizen and to be in the United States that they didn't follow a lot of the Italian traditions. In our house and we're in America, we're gonna live as Americans we had the traditional Italian well, some of the traditional Italian food and everything, but most of the traditions that I've heard about since then, either from my cousins or from other Italian friends that I've had, I didn't have any of that, so it wasn't until I was older that I heard some of the things that typical, if you will, typical Italian families did.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Yeah, yeah, well, you know that's again, that's not uncommon either. I mean my family you know both my, you know all my grandparents were from Italy and some of my aunts and uncles were born there. So you know we had that and I heard the language and everything constantly growing up and all of that. But so now I am interested in the English side, especially the Mayflower side, and I'll tell you why. Both my children were adopted and my daughter I've been able to trace her all the way back to England through her, both her birth parents actually, and she's a distant cousin of Princess Di, like you know. I don't know how many times are moved. So what have you found that interesting on the English side?

Speaker 1: 24:28

Well, it started with, as I said, when I grew up. As far as I was concerned, if anybody asked me what nationality I was, I would say I'm Italian and Irish. Now, that was my distinction. I never gave the English part a thought until I don't remember. Oh, until my grandfather's.

Speaker 1: 24:51

He put together this little family genealogy of the Heath family, who was very English, and the Orchard family, also English, and then it was like, oh, wait a minute. So who are these people? And that's how I started looking into them. And as I was doing it, I can remember my mother telling me one time, you know that my father was from, had English background, and she said wouldn't it be hysterical if you could join the Daughters of the American Revolution through that? You know, that would be pretty funny for the Australian girl to do that. And so that was in the back of my head.

Speaker 1: 25:31

So when I started looking at all the ancestors there, I found someone who was in the Daughters of the American Revolution and proved that. And then I thought, well, let me see how much further back they go. Sure enough, I found Edward Fuller, who was on the Mayflower, and he is a direct ninth great grandfather of mine. And yeah, and he and his wife and son came over on the Mayflower, as well as his brother, his brother Samuel, and his son's name was Samuel, so I messed that up all the time but anyway also came over. But they didn't bring any of their children over when they first came. They came later, and you've probably heard the story of the Mayflower, the first winner, and how many people died that winter. Well, my ninth great grandfather and grandmother died that first winter, but their son survived it and so his uncle raised him.

Speaker 2: 26:39

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Yeah, so I say, samuel Fuller, it's like which one? The uncle or the son or you know, but we come through the sun. So it was really interesting to find that connection On the other side of the English. They did not come over on the Mayflower, but they came over in the 1600s also. So both sides of my English side came over at a very early stage of our country. I did find out another and I'm trying to remember. I think this one was on the Heath family.

Speaker 1: 27:21

I was reading one time about one of my great-grandmothers and she was when she was in her 80s or somewhere older. She lived in Salem, massachusetts. Can you guess where the story is going? Yeah, she said, well, first she was arrested for living above her means. They actually had a law that if you saw someone that looked like they were dressed or had belongings that it didn't appear that they should have been able to afford, that they could arrest them for living above their means. Really, yeah, and so they arrested her and she spent not very long in jail. She got bailed out when the family could prove that no, while they were not wealthy they could afford whatever scarves, for so whatever it was that she was wearing that they arrested her for.

Speaker 1: 28:18

And then fast forward a few years and she got arrested for being a witch and she was arrested. She was in her 80s now and she was arrested along with another woman. This was very much towards the end of the Salem witch hunt. So she was arrested, she was put in jail and apparently the bond was much higher on that one, so it took her family three months to get her out of jail. She finally got bailed out and it never went to trial because it was towards the end of the whole Salem Witch Hunt. So she was. She never was tried for it or anything, but she was arrested for being a witch.

Speaker 2: 29:05

Wow, that's something that's crazy. Have you ever been to Salem? It's an interesting place.

Speaker 1: 29:09

I have now. I'm looking forward to doing that sometime.

Speaker 2: 29:13

Yeah, they have a whole like stage thing set up where they actually you know you sit there and they go through the trial, you know, and they explain who was arrested and what they did and all of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:25

I would find that fascinating.

Speaker 2: 29:28

Yeah, it's really, it's really pretty interesting. And of course there's a, you know, there's an old cemetery there and all of that. That's really something. Yeah, you know I was surprised with my daughter. Never thought I would find what I found. And in fact one of our great, great, great, great great great grandfathers was a Bassano brother. There were three brothers that were musicians from Italy, that they were musicians for King Henry the eighth.

Speaker 1: 29:57

Wow.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Yeah, and of course they stayed there. So they all married English women, sure. So when you, you know, when you start, you know when you start researching back, it makes a connection. But so she's got Italian going back to King Henry.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Wow, that, that is amazing. Yeah, you never know what you're going to find by any stretch of the imagination. You know there's always surprises and things that come up. I was surprised when I did my DNA that the Italian is straight 50%. Really.

Speaker 2: 30:32

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Yeah, so it's all on the other side. You know that I have all these Scottish English Irish connections. Yeah, and my grandmother, my Italian grandmother, was not fond of the Irish Apparently. When they first moved to Utica the Irish had gotten their first and they were not well very welcoming of the Italians moving in. And I finally asked my grandmother one time when I was younger, said why don't you like the Irish? My father's Irish. And she said they wouldn't let my children go to their school. So apparently there was a Catholic school there. It was Irish and they would not let the Italian kids go to that school. They had to go to a different school. And by holding a grudge, my grandmother held that grudge for a long time.

Speaker 2: 31:31

Well, you know, brooklyn I interviewed again. Somebody wrote a book about it, but there was a. They wouldn't let the Italians go to the Irish church.

Speaker 1: 31:41

In.

Speaker 2: 31:41

Brooklyn and they they were able to get a piece of land from the Bishop eventually and they had like a storefront church and then eventually they were able to build the Italian church, but it was literally a couple of blocks away from the Irish church.

Speaker 1: 31:59

Yeah, so it was just the opposite in Utica at that time, because the Utica had the Utica, because the Irish had settled their first, so when the Italians got there it was already a Catholic, an Irish Catholic church. Yeah, so it's fascinating to to read some of these things and you know hear what it was like. My grandmother talked more about her Italian heritage than my grandfather did, and I can clearly remember being in the kitchen with her which is of course very common and just talking to her, and I asked her how, you know, she and my grandfather met. Well, they all lived in this one little community that was like three blocks wide and everybody do, everybody. She then proceeded to tell me the story about how her cousin, lucy and she were.

Speaker 1: 33:00

They had arranged marriages. Okay, so they were saccals. They had arranged marriages to marry two of the Cardamom brothers and Lucy was supposed to marry Sam and Mary. My grandmother was supposed to marry Frank and the girls got together and said you know, I really think that I get along better with the other one. And they got up the courage to go to the parents and say you know, we understand it's arranged and this is what's going to happen, but do you care if I marry the other one and she marries that one, and the parents said okay, and so they actually, you know, ended up marrying different ones.

Speaker 2: 33:36

Yeah, oh that's so funny, I know I know, I love that story.

Speaker 1: 33:41

I love, love, love that story.

Speaker 2: 33:43

I love it partially because my grandmother told it to me, you know and I guess the guys, I guess the guys went along with it too, right.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Yeah, they had one day, I know, in my grandfather. He wouldn't have cared. He would have been like, yeah, okay, well, I just need a wife. He was not exactly the romantic type. What is that right?

Speaker 2: 34:07

Yeah, I guess. I guess back then you had to have a, you had to have a wife, right? Yes, more important for them to have a husband, I suppose.

Speaker 1: 34:16

And, like I said, you know, they were all so close back then that the businesses you know got intertwined with all of it also. And yeah, so I, like I said as a child, if I heard the name sack or I had no clue which side of the family it came from. You have to confuse me terribly.

Speaker 2: 34:39

Yeah, you know I am. I just wish I had asked my, my grandparents more questions.

Speaker 1: 34:48

I've never met anybody who does genealogy. That doesn't say that.

Speaker 2: 34:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:54

I was blessed because my grandfather on the English side put together that genealogy Plus. He was a letter writer and one of my aunts gave me copies of letters that he wrote to my grandmother when they were courted.

Speaker 2: 35:14

Oh wow, that's great.

Speaker 1: 35:15

You know, and he had a journal that he kept the last year of his life and it was very short, it wasn't like a long drawn out thing, it was just every day. He put something in there and typically it was baseball scores, the weather and who would come to visit. But the who would come to visit was always very helpful because then I could start connecting. You know some of the names, but he also wrote it. One of the entries was on December 7, 1941.

Speaker 2: 35:49

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1: 35:50

Yes, and so all of a sudden I'm reading about you know this one came to visit the baseball store, was this and always hot today, and then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. It's like whoa wait. So I was very blessed to have have that kind of information you know from him to piece together what was going on.

Speaker 2: 36:11

Yeah, well, that's, that's really cool. You know my, like I said my, you know father's mother. I had no idea the connections that that they had and the families that she came from. And when I started doing this research, you know my father had already passed away and I'm so disappointed that he didn't know. Well, I don't know what he knew, you know, I don't know. I have to think that certainly my oldest aunt, who was, you know, born in Italy and came here when she was, I guess, nine or 10. She had to know these people, she had to know what family she came from. Right, and when I started doing the research and I found my great grandmother and I asked my cousin who lived with my grandmother, I said, do you know the name Karachalo? And she goes oh sure, that's Nanny's mother.

Speaker 1: 37:04

Yeah, I said, do you know how?

Speaker 2: 37:05

famous these people? Do you know where these people came from? And she said well, you know, she used to tell us that that her cousin was the princess, but we just thought she was, you know, crazy. But her cousin was the princess, right, and you know, as I was finding these things and telling my mother, she was saying are you sure? And I said, yeah, I'm sure, I have birth records. I found these things.

Speaker 2: 37:31

And then I started talking to the cousins, but you know people. When people say, you know, if you could go back in time, who would you, who would you want to meet? I was like my grandmother yes, my grandparents. That's what I want to talk to.

Speaker 1: 37:43

Yeah, my father passed away when I was six, so I am, and because of that I grew up more with the Italian, much more with the Italian side, so I really didn't know that much about the the other side of the family. So I would, I would want to go back and talk to him, but I also his grandfather, I think it was. No, his great grandfather is my brick wall.

Speaker 1: 38:10

You know I know he was there, I can tell you when. Yeah, I can tell you where he was born, I can tell you where he moved to and who he married and all that, but I cannot tell you who his parents were. I cannot prove who his parentage is. And boy, I would love to talk to him and find that out because it drives me crazy. And he was part of the the Heath, yeah, no, he was part of the Orchard family. So I'm, you know, I can't, can't really go there to to find out more things.

Speaker 2: 38:44

Yeah, no, you know, you never know. You know sometimes something you know you. I tell people all the time. Just you know, you'll be knocking around on Google one day and all of a sudden it shows up. You know?

Speaker 1: 38:57

oh, it's amazing. Yes, I have found that one of my uncles I thought one of my brother, my father's brothers had a child that we're not sure he even knew about. You know, because he had passed away and he never had any other children. So we're like 99% sure that it's his, because we kind of eliminated the other brothers, but we don't know if he ever even knew that this child existed.

Speaker 2: 39:27

Well, yeah, never know what you're going to find, yeah well, my, my, my friend, good friend of mine, he found his half brother, his older half brother that he, no, he never knew. He suspects that his his father knew he's not sure if his mother knew. But you know, he, just he's. I think he's, you know, two or three years older than Al. So it happened before his father was, you know, married to his mother and nobody ever talked about it. And the same thing with my cousin. My cousin found a half sister, like that.

Speaker 1: 40:02

Yeah, it's amazing, it's absolutely amazing, I have to tell you one other quick thing that I was thinking about that you might enjoy hearing my I got my son, one of my sons, interested in genealogy. Okay, and this son is as left wing and left wing and he was left wing as we talk about right wing people sometimes. Sometimes he's so far left that I'm like really, but he's fascinated in history and he, you know so. When he heard that he had relatives with the name Sacco, he said wait a minute, is that like Sacco Vendetti? And I said, well, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 40:49

Remember, you know, the family always kind of laughed about it. We were related, but I've never. So he said, oh, mom, we've got to prove that, we've got to find that out. And I was like, okay, so we did all this research. We could not prove that they were related to us in any way. Fast forward, we're looking at the English side and we found that one of our great grandparents whatever was the governor in Massachusetts at one time, he happened to be the governor who sentenced Sacco to death. Really. So my son is like wait a minute, not only do I find out he's not related, but now you're telling me that one of our relatives is responsible for killing him. You never know what you're going to find. There's always something out there. So yeah, yeah, Well, it's like the six degrees of separation.

Speaker 2: 41:42

right, you know, there's, there's, uh, uh. You know you never know I've, I've, I've found so many interesting things and talked to so many people with you, know so many, just Things that just can't be a coincidence, if you know what I mean. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:59

Oh, oh, yeah, I've. I've started writing stories about the family and so many of them are about coincidences, you know of finding out that, running into people that you had no idea were related to you and find out that they are, and you know just all the different things, like the sacco you know and anything it's like. Okay, you're just, I know or have finding a witch and you know somebody who is arrested for being a witch. I went to um a DAR, a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting, because I was changing chapters and that one, and was talking to this girl, this woman who also joined, and in passing, we said something about Mayflower and I said, yeah, I belong to Mayflower. She said, oh, so do I. Who was your ancestor? We're the same ancestor, we're both from Edward Fuller.

Speaker 2: 42:55

Yeah, see that.

Speaker 1: 42:56

Like yep, Okay yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:01

You know, and it's funny when you do that some of those things in your town. You know some people don't believe you when you tell them that stuff.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Oh, I know, I know, I know Well, and especially, like you say, if they, if, when there are children that nobody knew about and things like that. Um, out of brother, who is crazy story when he was 15, he and his girlfriend borrowed my brother's car Of course he didn't have a license drove out of state to go to see a friend and got married. Now, obviously he lied about his age, you know, at 15, but they were married long enough for her to get pregnant and the parents had it annulled and my brother was not supposed to be any part of his daughter's life, for whatever reasons. And, um, fast forward 20, 30 years and I am working in upstate New York and, uh, this woman had been transferred from Syracuse to the Rochester branch of where I was working.

Speaker 1: 44:05

We had this get together to say hi to them. I sat down, started talking to her, asked her where she was from. She told me and I said oh, isn't that up near such and such? And she said, yeah, that's exactly where it is. And I said oh well, does this name mean anything to you? And she said that's my grandparents name and I was like okay, so does the name, or cut, which is my maiden name mean anything to you. She goes that's my father's name. I said, hmm, that makes me your aunt and I met her at a bar. I mean, you know what are the chances? Like I said, there's these things on coincidences?

Speaker 2: 44:43

No, no, they're absolutely not, absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 44:46

You know they are, and so I try to pay attention, you know to when I hear things like that. It's like, ah, there's a reason that I met this person or learned about this. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 45:00

Well, this has been a lot of fun, fascinating, great stories I mean that's for sure and great history on both the Italian and the English side. I'm always fascinated by the English side because in some cases in America it's a lot easier to trace back than the Italian. Yeah, but thanks again. I really really appreciate you taking the time. No problem, Bob. Thanks for everything.

Speaker 1: 45:21

That you do. I really enjoy this group.