Italian Roots and Genealogy
This podcast is dedicated to Italian Genealogy, finding your Italian Roots and how to navigate through Italian records. Your host has over 12 years of experience and we will have excellent guests that will discuss a variety of genealogy topics. Please subscribe!
Italian Roots and Genealogy
Redeem Your Roots - With Dawn Mattera
Summary
In this engaging conversation, Bob Sorrentino and Dawn Matera-Corsi delve into the significance of heritage and family roots, particularly focusing on Italian culture. Dawn shares her family's journey from Ischia to America and discusses her book, 'Redeem Your Roots,' which outlines seven keys to connecting with one's heritage. The discussion emphasizes the importance of family stories, traditions, and the role of food and language in maintaining cultural connections. They also share humorous anecdotes about culinary experiences in Italy and the challenges of learning the Italian language. In this conversation, Dawn Mattera Corsi and Bob Sorrentino explore the intricacies of the Italian language, the significance of dialects, and the importance of connecting with one's heritage. They discuss the challenges of pronunciation for English speakers, the cultural pride associated with dialects, and the emotional experience of visiting ancestral towns in Italy. The conversation emphasizes the value of genealogical research and the joy of discovering family connections, as well as the broader implications of cultural identity and the role of DNA in understanding one's roots.
https://dawnmattera.com
Takeaways
Heritage is a vital part of our identity.
Connecting with family roots can enrich our lives.
Food is a powerful way to connect with culture.
Traditions help us honor our ancestors.
Language learning fosters deeper cultural connections.
Family stories enhance children's self-confidence.
Traveling to ancestral homelands can be transformative.
Cultural associations create a sense of belonging.
Understanding heritage can bridge generational gaps.
Embracing our roots leads to a richer life. Italian pronunciation can be challenging for English speakers.
Dialects in Italy are not just accents; they are distinct languages.
Traveling to your ancestral home can be a profound experience.
Genealogical research can help connect with family roots.
Italian dialects foster a sense of community and pride.
The warmth of Italians makes connecting with family easier.
Technology aids in bridging language barriers while traveling.
Cultural identity can be explored through various means, including DNA testing.
Understanding cultural heritage enriches personal identity.
The journey of discovering roots can lead to unexpected connections.
Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.
Redeem Your RootsDiscover how to: · Unlock the secrets hidden in your family tree to inspire you today.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Hi everyone. This is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check out our blog and our newsletter and our Facebook page, and my guest today is Dawn Matera-Coursey, the author of the new book I have it here Redeem your Roots. It's backwards but you'll get the picture, so welcome.
Speaker 2:Dawn.
Speaker 1:Welcome Dawn. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here today. It's always a pleasure to talk with you, and boy, you're like the king of genealogy, tracing your roots back. What a thousand years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was more by luck than by design, that's for sure. Still, it's pretty impressive. Yeah, like I said, I got lucky. So you know, before we talk about the book, what's your background, Where's your family from and when did they come to America?
Speaker 2:Yes, my family comes from the island of Ischia, which is in the Bay of Naples. Of course, most people are familiar with Capri, or Capri as the Americans pronounce it, but Ischia is right across the water and it's actually four times the size of Capri and it's called the Green Island, isola Verde, because of how lush and rich it is, because it's volcanic, so everything grows there and all the amazing natural thermal spas. My grandfather, who was born in 1895, came to the United States in the early 90s and my grandmother was still back in Ischia while he came here to the States to establish, get established, he started off as, believe it or not, he sold ice cream from a horse-drawn wagon, so maybe that's where my love of ice cream and gelato comes from. It's in the DNA. And then my grandmother came over later after he was established and had the house and all that. So we traveled to Italy. We've been 27 times since 2001. And so it's always wonderful to go and visit the family in Italy.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. I'm jealous. You know we could kick ourselves. You know we keep saying, boy, we should have done this long ago. I mean, our first trip there was when we were living in England, but my son was a baby and I didn't know anything there. The only thing I knew was that my father said he had family in Torre del Greco and we saw the sign, but we didn't go in there, we didn't do anything. And then when we did finally get to go, I actually met my dad's first cousins. That I never knew existed. Wow, I mean that was like the highlight of the entire trip.
Speaker 1:But I have a link to Isquia, because I don't know if you know, do you know? Villa Piramalo on the island Sounds familiar. Yeah, I guess it's kind of sort of like an Agatiz Mall or something like that. But that was my grandmother's family. They were the. They were the. She was the Count of Montebello, wow, my third great-grandfather and they had I learned this from my cousin they had at least seven places throughout the South. Wow, so in Sicily, Calabria, naples, of course, and so I didn't get to see that, but we did see some of the other homes. So you still have family there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we do, it would be. My father's first cousins are the closest living relatives that I still have in Ischia and it's wonderful to have that connection. It was like discovering a hidden treasure, because I really had no contact with them, and the biggest reason why, when I was growing up, is the language. On Ischia, most of the tourists are German, so if they so my family on Ischia, if they speak another language which of course Europeans do it's German, not English. And I only had one uncle here in the United States that he didn't even speak Italian. He spoke the dialect, and so once we made that first trip in 2001 with my dad and my uncle, I realized that that chain was going to be broken if somebody didn't learn the language. So I nominated myself and learned to speak Italian, the proper Italian, not the dialect. That still confuses me and that has really opened doors by knowing the language, being able to communicate with them and also discovering my husband's family, because they live in a really small, dot-on-the-map town that hardly anybody speaks English.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Boy, the German connection. That's so interesting because you know, obviously you think the North you're going to have the Germans and the Austrians, because that was part of the Austrian Empire and everything. But I would have never thought Ischia. But I guess it's a resorting type of place and they want to get out of the cold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right. And the big thing, the big draw, are the thermal spas that are all around East Gia, and since it is volcanic, you can go hiking up to the peak of Mount Epomeo, and so the German tourists tend to love to go to the spas to relax, and then they'll go hiking. And the good food and all that. That's neat, that's really cool, that's really really cool.
Speaker 2:That's neat.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. That's really really cool. So let's talk about the book, because you have seven keys to redeeming your heritage or your family, so why don't we go through the seven keys? So the three C's Connect, create and continue. Because I'm encouraging people to connect to their heritage and even though you and I are Italian Americans, it can be any heritage. So whether they're Mexican or Mandalorian, whatever it is, they can connect to their heritage. Or maybe someone married into a culture that's different than theirs, or they did that DNA test and they suddenly found out that they have some type of heritage. So I encourage people to connect to their heritage and then to create a Dolce Vita by using that, whatever that is, that topic included in their daily lives.
Speaker 2:And then the third C the continue is to continue the legacy for the future. And because so many of us say, you know, oh, my kids or my grandkids they don't have an interest in our heritage. Or, like you and I were talking earlier, how some of the younger generations, they don't even know about things like an Onomastico, which is your name day, but like my dad, he was Joseph Joseph. So St Joseph's Day was a big deal around our house. Not only is that the Father's Day in Italy, but it might as my dad's second birthday. So the seven keys and the way that I organized it is the easiest to do to the more involved not necessarily the more difficult, but the more involved. So the a number one food, glorious food. In Italian food, it has been known to be the best in the world. Of course we might be a little biased, but it is. So we can. For example, we can connect to our heritage through food by going to an authentic Italian restaurant dusting off one of grandma's old recipes. We can create our richer life, our more meaningful life, by using those recipes. And then how do we continue our culture and our heritage with the next generation? Well, maybe you could do something like with the holidays coming up, you're going to ask the younger generation to help you plan a meal, the dinner meal, or something like I did. I took a cooking class, a pasta making class, with my three great nieces. Now you might say, oh yeah, that's a great idea. Well, we had the extra challenge of one lives in Florida, two live in the Carolinas and I live in Rhode Island. So what we did is we did a Zoom cooking class with a real live, authentic nonna grandma in Italy, and so we had these four Zooms going on at the same time making pasta together. It was awesome. So food is the first one.
Speaker 2:The second key is holidays and traditions, things like onomastico. The third key is language, and I'm not expecting people to say that they have to be fluent Oops, I lost one of my earbuds there. You don't have to be fluent, but even just learning simple traveler phrases for language, and that will help you connect. The fourth key is film and music. Whether you're playing music in the background, key is film and music. Whether you're playing music in the background or you're seeing Italian films, or even films that are filmed in Italy. Or, for example, I know some of the James Bond movies, the Mission Impossible movies. There are a lot of movies. Of course, eat, pray, love the eat part is filmed in Italy, so you can get those feels. That's the fourth one.
Speaker 2:The fifth one is genealogy and of course, obviously, there's a connection Genealogy where we're discovering our family stories, our family trees, and this brings me I forgot to mention this about each chapter. Each chapter has the three keys, the three C's, rather connect, create and continue. But each chapter also has something that I call over the top. It's somebody that took that key and went above and beyond the extra mile with that topic and, for example, travel. The next key my friends Gary and Eileen Modica, from Our Italian Journey For genealogy. The person that's over the top would be right here, bob Sorrentino, with Italian roots and genealogy, and I was just saying how, for those of you that don't know, he's traced his genealogy back a thousand years. That's impressive. So, again, the sixth key is travel, and that can be anything from. It could be simply traveling from your chair, your armchair, where you're watching a video about your hometown or where your ancestors came from.
Speaker 2:And then the seventh key is association, where you're going to get together with people that share your passion for your culture. And the biggest thing about that, I feel that we are. So these days, we are so connected because of technology, we can find out about things happening around the world in seconds. However, I think that we're really becoming more disconnected emotionally and with personal relationships. So part of this is about getting together with like-minded people and creating those associations, because it helps us. We feel more connected, that we're part of something bigger than ourselves and we are.
Speaker 2:And there is speaking of associations and connections. There's one big reason. There's three big reasons I wrote the book, but the biggest one is this Do you know that children that have a strong knowledge of their family story, their family history, they are going to do better in school and have a greater self-confidence. Who wouldn't want that for their kids? And even adults that are connected to something like that? They are happier and healthier. So redeeming your roots is not just about following your who, married who and had children. It's about creating a richer life today.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's really interesting point about the connection with the kids and all of that, because I see it in the club that I joined and, like I said, and we were talking in the pre-interview that I wish I didn't wait so long, but a lot of the grandchildren of some of the members they're four-year high school Italian students, so they understand the language they're conversing in it, which is really really neat. I wish they had taught us when we were younger my generation they were trying to speak more English because they had to get through and my parents spoke, but they didn't teach us. So we just know, we just knew you know a sped and things like that, and the swear words yes, the swear words. When they didn't want us to know something, they would speak in Italian, right, right?
Speaker 2:exactly Whether they were arguing or they were talking about Christmas presents, yep.
Speaker 1:So I think it was the holiday one. I read in the book and I'm going to have you tell the story about the ham, because I think it's just so hysterical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good story, and this is in the chapter about holidays and traditions, and it's a story about a gentleman that's watching his wife make a ham. So she has it on the counter on the cutting board and she cuts off one end, cuts off the other end and then puts it in the pan and throws it in the oven. And so he scratches his head and says but honey, why do you cut the ends off of the ham? She said well, my mother taught me how to cook a ham like that. That's how I do it. You'll have to ask her. So he calls his mother-in-law and explains this why, you know, your wife, your daughter, told me that you cut the hands off of each end off the ham before you cook it. Why Does it make it taste better or something? She said well, that's how my mother taught me and that's just how we do it. You'll have to ask her.
Speaker 2:Now, luckily, grandma's still around. So he calls his wife's grandmother and explains the story about this mysterious cooking technique, about cutting the ends off of the ham. Well, she thought that was hysterical and she laughed and she said honey, my pan is too small, so sometimes we might have a tradition that we think is very profound, when really it's something as simple as that. But no matter what, whether it's something silly or something deep and profound and meaningful, it's so important to carry on these traditions and things like that. That gives us an opportunity to talk about them, to talk about our grandparents or our aunts and uncles, and I feel that we need to do that as a way of honoring them not just remembering them, but honoring them. You know, we made pretty cushy lives, especially compared to what they went through, and just think about the sacrifices that they made. So you and I can be where we are today, so as we keep their story and their memory alive and we pass it on to the next generation, that's a way of honoring those sacrifices.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and that's a good point. I remember my mother's sister, oldest sister, saying at Christmas they got an orange and that was a big deal to get an orange, that's right, and my mom, her sister, her oldest sister, I guess, was maybe 15 years older than her, or something like that. My mother never got a doll to play with until her sister actually went to work. Wow, I believe it. Yeah, so you know. We're talking, I guess, 1933, 34, somewhere around that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But you know people don't realize that we've come a long way and that wasn't easy for them and I think that's why we had so much food, because they didn't have it before until the children started to work. That's when they started being able to do the food. But I know in the book you had some do's and don'ts about food and, um, I'll tell you, you know, uh, a couple of two funny stories about food. In italy, my daughter thought she was going to have the best fettuccine alfredo that she ever ate in italy and I had to break the news to her that it doesn't exist here.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it's funny. Yeah, chicken parm and veal parm do not exist. Eggplant parmesan does, but not chicken or veal. Yeah, or Caesar salad. I mean these are things that don't exist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my cousin made us real eggplant parmesan when we were there. The other one was my wife didn't tell me this until she tested it out at the restaurant. She asked for cheese on the fish dish.
Speaker 2:That's un pecado, a sin.
Speaker 1:The guy was like no cheese, no cheese. I love it I love it.
Speaker 2:That sounds just like them.
Speaker 1:And he just refused to bring it. I mean, that was the end of that. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Zach, it doesn't matter if you're the paying customer or not. You just do not do that, I love it.
Speaker 1:No, there's no cheese. And I said, did you know? She says, yeah, I wanted to see what they were going to do. Good, I'm glad she did. That's fun, I love it. But cappuccino in the big cities they serve it after 11 because they figure the Americanos are there when they want cappuccino. Exactly Capuchinos are there when they want cappuccino.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah. So if you do order a cappuccino after noon or 11 am anywhere in Italy, they will serve it to you because you're the paying customer, but they will go snicker at you in the back when they're making it and they'll say it's a Capuchino.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like I said, in the real touristy places I don't think they care that much. No, they don't. The best coffee I ever had was in Naples.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in Italy, anywhere in the world, that was the best coffee. And to your point about the languages and stuff like that, by the end of the week I could converse with the guy in the because they used to go to the same place every morning. Yeah, and so we could. We got by by the end of the week, Exactly. But I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn, I'm trying my best to learn. I use Duolingo a little bit. And the club. To your point about joining these clubs, we have a free class on Saturday morning.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:You know we have a, we have a teacher come in. She comes like every other week and then the days when she's not there. We all bought the same book Italian Stories. You know Easy Italian Stories, so we'll read through it and there are a couple of guys who are pretty fluent so they'll help us with the pronunciation and the translation and things like that and things like that. But to your point, you feel, you know, you feel more connected to the culture, even just doing that, you know.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, yes, yeah, yeah, it is. It's amazing how the language does tie you in so closely and especially if you grew up hearing the Italian, it takes you back. It's a reminiscence as well and a memory to hear that and to speak the language. And there are a lot of people you know do get together. If you can get together in person, of course, it's always better, and I have an Italian group that when I lived in New Hampshire, we would meet at the library. Then I moved away, so a two-hour drive to go to an Italian conversation didn't work out. But here's a silver lining to 2020, when everything was shut down that Italian group, they went online and we are still today. So now I can join them. And even today, later on this afternoon, I'm going to be part of my Italian conversation group with the Bedford Italian Cultural Society in New Hampshire so we can connect with people.
Speaker 2:And a language is like a muscle If we don't use our muscles, they atrophy. And the same thing with the language. And it could be something as simple as you're sitting in a traffic light and you're going to see the numbers on the license plate in front of you. Say them out loud. Say those numbers in Italian out loud. Or you're thinking about your things you have to do today. Try to say it in your head in Italian of the things you have to do or the things you have to go. Use it or you'll lose it.
Speaker 1:Well, and I like the thing that you put in the book about you used to put stickers on all the stuff in the kitchen and things like that.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I had little, you know the little tiny sticky notes, and so it would sayigorifero on the fridge and it would say cafe on the coffee pod and that one on the dog kept falling off though.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and like they say, they say don't worry too much about the verb tenses and things like that. What I find the toughest and I'm catching on it, there's two things is when you're pronouncing the vowels, the sounds don't change in Italian Right Like they do here. That's correct. That's something that you know. The American kicks in every now and then. And the other one is well, the other, just two others. One is when you have the double L or double R or things like that, you pronounce both Right, you hold it.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:And then what was the other one? Same thing with the vowels. You pronounce every single vowel, that is correct.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. Yep, yes, yeah, and so it is. It is different for our English-speaking brains to get used to that, but, having said that, italian is easier to read out loud, because out loud, because everything stays the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point and, like I said, that's why we all bought that book and we all read and, like I said, the more fluent Italian speakers will correct us and things like that. Right. But you know, growing up you mentioned growing up I thought I was hearing Italian. Growing up, and I wasn't, I was hearing Bares.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right and that's why I know. Sometimes people say because I was the same as you, where my grandparents? They wanted to be American, so they spoke English to each other unless they were having an argument or wanted to keep something secret. However, and my dad and my uncle, they grew up. Their native language was Italian. However, it was not Italian, it was the Neapolitan dialect that I still don't understand. But so people say, oh, it's too bad your parents or your grandparents didn't teach you Italian when you were growing up. No, this is actually a blessing, because I would have been learning a dialect. I still would have had to learn Italian, and so I'm glad I didn't have anything to mess up my brain with what I thought was Italian. So now, and knowing Italian rather than just the dialect, we can travel anywhere in Italy and talk to anybody knowing Italian.
Speaker 1:Right and Scorpion has a little statement here. The CH sound, the sound yes.
Speaker 2:That's right. Right, especially when you have a word that, once you get it pluralized, the CH makes it a hard, keeps it a hard C sound or a hard K sound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll tell you a funny story I got. I was getting transferred to England. So my, my English boss came to. He was in New York and he said the wife works in Manhattan, right? I said yeah. He said, oh, you know, I'll meet you for dinner. You want to go to dinner with me for dinner, and where do you want to go? I said, well, we could go to Little Italy. So he said, oh, okay, that's good. So we get in the restaurant and he ordered the ganache.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it, ganache.
Speaker 1:And of course I couldn't say anything because he was my new English boss.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I used to have a language fight with them all the time. They used to call it filet, like filet mignon. They used to call it fillet steak.
Speaker 2:Fillet and I said where do you get fillet from?
Speaker 1:And they said well, that's the way you pronounce it. And the French and all. I said well, how do you pronounce V-A-L-E-T? They said valet. I said it's the same thing. There you go. That's funny.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, I can answer this question. It is still alive and well. It is getting the dialect. In case people are listening and not reading, the question is not sure if you guys can answer. How common is dialect in Italy now? Everywhere you go, the dialect is still very strong, especially in Southern Italy. Now, as more and more different nationalities move into Italy, just like every other country in the world, of course the dialects are becoming more diminished.
Speaker 2:However, the dialect is not just a, by the way, it's not an accent, it's a totally different language, like there's a Sicilian Italian dictionary. That's how different a dialect is and it's not so. It's not just a language, it's a sense of pride for the Italian people. It's a way, it's one of the ways that they hold on to their heritage, their unique corner of the world. So for my family speaking the neapolitan dialect, they will speak that all the time because it shows well.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like, let's say, you go to a you have you're a fan of a particular baseball team and you go to one of their games that's not in their home stadium, but you see other t-shirts, that same logo that you're wearing. You have an instant bond with that person, even though you don't even know who each other is. Same thing with the dialect they start speaking their dialect or they hear their dialect spoken by somebody else. Instant community that yes, these are my paisans, so it is very alive and well, although it is diminishing yeah, and you know my experience with the dialect over there was too.
Speaker 1:The first, the first trip. We were in calabria and they were singing this song eat the goat, I'm on your crop, that's the way they said eat the goat. And uh, it's, it's three chords. So I asked them to send me the chords. I actually figured out the chords on the guitars. I said ask them if they could send me the lyrics. That was like no language I ever saw in my life. It was just, certainly wasn't italian, that's for sure, right. And then the last trip, when we we were in, we were in my mom's family's home in Torito our driver was Bades and I asked him. I said can you say some things in Bades and then say it in Italian? And completely, you know it was completely different, completely different.
Speaker 1:So what would you? So I always tell people that if you're going to Italy and you know where you come from, you have to go there. So what's your advice to people who are not sure if they want to go down because they don't know anybody, it's a small town or whatever?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I agree with you 110%. It is especially if you are of Italian heritage and it might be difficult to find where is where did your family come from. But you can do the research. It took me a while to find my husband's family, but we finally did. And it's so important to go. You can't explain it, you have to experience it. Or it's like that movie, rudy, when the father stepped into the stadium at Notre Dame. He was. This is like my life's dream and it's true when, when you go to your, your the roots of where your family came from. Even if you don't know any relatives there, there's just something inside of you that says you're home. And and again it goes back to honoring our relatives, our ancestors, by going home wherever that is. And some things that you can do once you do find out where you are, where your family comes from, and you can do that through genealogical research. Talk to Bob about that, that's his expertise. There are a couple of things you can do. Number one you can always do search and do it the easy way Look on YouTube, look up videos for whatever area that your family comes from. Like my husband's family, I'm not going to find something on San Michele in Taverina, but I can find something for Umbria or the mountains of Lazio that I can find. Then you can.
Speaker 2:There are organizations that will help you connect with that town. A friend of mine, mirella, at Southern Italy Travels. That's what she and her brother do. They help connect you with your and I don't get a kickback. I should, but I don't get a kickback. But anyway she will connect you. I get a kickback in friendship which is worth more than money. So anyway she can connect you with where your town is, where your family's town is. In some cases she can even arrange it. You meet the mayor of that town.
Speaker 2:Now, one thing that we did with my again my husband's family. We could not find anybody, at least through the Italian white pages Pagina Bianche that had. We only found three people. And when we just we just showed up, we just went to the town, made a reservation at a hotel which was actually a castle, and that's another story and the owner of the castle called those three people and every one of them said, no, we don't have any family in America. But hey, we were there.
Speaker 2:We found the cemetery, we found his great, great grandfather's grave, et cetera, et cetera, and but what ended up happening is that we we were on the last we went and we cleaned up the grave, we put flowers there and everything else, and before we left town we went to the cemetery to pay our respects, before we said goodbye, and this guy comes up to us and in Italian he said you know who are you and why are you at this grave? Why are you at this grave? And I explained that Francesco way at the top there or actually Donato way at the top was my husband's great-great-grandfather. Well, come to find out, we were related. And so he said oh well, that man is my father's cousin or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:And so he took us around the graveyard introducing us to his family, and come to find out he was one of those three from the white pages. It's just he didn't know he had family in America, but we found him and now we're all good friends, we get together every time we go, we send Christmas cards and all that, my and we have another friend that same town and that he just showed up and he brought pictures and that was genius, it's old pictures. And he just went around town and said do you know these people? Do you know these people, and sure enough, somebody knew somebody, that knew somebody that knew somebody, and they were able to connect that way.
Speaker 1:So just go Well yeah, and there are no accidents? No, no, there's no accidents.
Speaker 1:You know I've heard so many stories with you know people that I interviewed. I mean, one of the latest ones was just so amazing where they had given up. They were looking for people with the name of Napolitano and they had given up and they're getting a drink of water. Leaving the town. The garbage men pulled up and they asked the one person's cousin who lived in Italy who were they and she said, oh, we're looking for them but we can't find them. Follow us. He took them to the house. I love it. And the same thing with the photos and stuff like that. When I met my dad's cousins, they had my parents' wedding photo from 1944 that my grandmother had sent.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's just incredible. I mean, I'm a firm believer in that that. They want to be found. Yes, and that's the whole point of your book, right? That's right, they want to be found.
Speaker 2:They do, they really do and think about it. And I know sometimes people say, well, isn't that kind of weird just showing up? Well, yeah, it is a little weird, but so what? It's beautiful that you are reaching out, you're connecting, you want to connect to them, with them, and I do find that the Italians in general tend to be very warm, open, friendly people in the first place. So, even if you're not related, but if they find out that you're even related, distant, distant cousins, they don't care, you're family, they will celebrate and join with you. They'll be happy that you found them. So absolutely don't, don't be afraid to do it. And as far as the language, today, with technology, you've got a translator right on your phone.
Speaker 1:So you don't even have to worry about that. Yeah, and you know, when I started this I was using Facebook and my cousin Chin-C who's the fourth cousin actually but she had no idea she had anybody in America. She was looking for people in maybe Spain or South America, because Pio Malo originally came from Spain and she found me and we realized and that's the one who set up a lot of things for us over there but when I went to my dad's cousins I didn't know where I was going. I knew that Nicola was my dad's half first cousin, but he didn't say where he was taking us. And so as soon as I walked into the apartment, one of the women there were three women there in the 90s one of them resembled my grandmother a lot and they, soon as we walked in the door, it was like we knew each other forever, like we, you know, like they were my grandparents or great aunts or something like that Exactly.
Speaker 1:And this can't, like you said before, you can't explain it to people what that's like unless they do it, and I've heard people just walking down the street and they see you look like so-and-so. They'll tell them oh, that's my uncle, my grandfather, my great-whatever. Exactly right, and it's so exciting to me anyway. My wife not so much, but I did take it to shock on her hometown. I love it, but you know she's half Italian and half Puerto Rican I guess she was. Although her mother was Italian, her family she was more connected with the Puerto Rican side. So I think she felt like that when she went to Puerto Rico a little bit, although she didn't tell me. And yeah, the one good thing about knowing at least a little italian you could usually read the menus, if nothing else that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right and point the thing.
Speaker 1:So, before we, before we go, mary has a question that I was going to ask, so hey, where can? The book be purchased excellent.
Speaker 2:I'm glad, yes, I'm glad you asked that for the e-book. The e-book is exclusive to Amazon, and if you have Kindle Unlimited, it's free. With Kindle Unlimited, the hardcover and softcover books are available anywhere. Books are sold, so you know, amazon Barnes Noble. I really encourage you to go to your local mom and pop bookstore though, but yes, the print versions are available everywhere.
Speaker 1:Right, and people could also find you on online too right?
Speaker 2:yes, absolutely, I'm on facebook. It's under dawn matera. Author and speaker. I'm on instagram. I'm on tiktok, believe it or not, I'm no. No one's more surprised than me.
Speaker 1:Linkedin and my website is your dolce vitacom and so so for anybody who's interested, because because, like I said, I'm doing the cultural thing now. So what? What kind of? When you do speaking engagements, what do you? What do you talk about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a couple of keynote speak speeches that I do. There are three areas that I focus on and my, my target market as far as demographics are people over 50. And so my I have three areas called lead live and you have me to way over, way over 50. I can do like oh, I can do over 60 these days. Lead live and legacy Leading is for my corporate and nonprofit organizations, where I talk about resilience and retention in the workplace as well as generational diversity. Living is all about la dolce vita, and so one of my keynotes is five keys to a dolce vita in your 50s and beyond. And then the legacy part is directly related to the newest book, redeem your Roots, and that's where I talk about Now. Obviously, I'm not going to do a keynote of all seven keys to connect and create and continue, but I'll highlight three of the seven keys in that speech.
Speaker 1:So that's, I didn't realize that you did all three. Well, I guess that the new one is geared more towards art, and I guess that could apply to any nationality, right, it doesn't have to be specific to Italian.
Speaker 2:That is absolutely correct, and in the book I even talk about that. That it doesn't matter whether you I just have an Italian bent to it because that's what I know but any of the principles that I talk about in the book, it doesn't matter. So again, whether someone married into a culture or they did a DNA test and suddenly found out they're Scottish or whatever, they can use the same seven keys to connect to their roots and redeem their roots.
Speaker 1:I find it fascinating that not so much anymore, but several years ago, when a lot of people were just starting to do the DNA, coming back and finding out they were Greek or they were you know something else and like I'm 100% Italian and I tried to explain to them, I said there's culture and there's science. Your culture, of course, is Italian If your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents, everybody was born there. Of course that's your culture, but your DNA, where you originally came from, italy, that really was a melting pot?
Speaker 2:right, absolutely it was. I mean, you think about it, it was mostly Roman, forever. And then you look at throughout the years, throughout the centuries rather, where Italy had been conquered and taken over by almost every group, every people group, whether it was Greeks or different groups. So yeah, it definitely has been a melting pot.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and I did Living DNA and they give you your maternal and paternal lines and I was blown away. My mother's maternal line goes back almost 100% to the Caucasus. There's no Italian in there, no Slavic, no Greek, no nothing. I was blown away. My father Italian in there, no Slavic, no Greek, no nothing. I was still on the way. My father was kind of mountain type of people, you know, and today there are some people in like the mountains of Switzerland, parts of Spain, sardinia, places like that, but yeah, my mother's line. I was shocked. I was shocked, you know, to see that. But, like I said, you know this culture and this science and, of course, right, yep, cultures are the best culture in the world, italians, I mean.
Speaker 2:I might be, that's right and the best food.
Speaker 1:I might be a little biased, but no, but we're right, but we're right well, this has been been great, dawn. I really appreciate it and, um you know, hopefully a lot of people buy the book and learn how to connect back to that poetry.
Speaker 2:That's the goal, yes, helping people reconnect, discover or rediscover their roots. Yes, ok, thank you. Ciao, everybody.
