John's Direct Ancestor Trees to 5th Great-Grandparents: Part 1, Impellizzeri and Milano
These are John's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. (I wish we had photos for them all!) Because of differences in records availability, research questions, and a myriad of other factors, I've accomplished more in some branches than others. I have more than a lifetime's worth of work, because as we know, the number of ancestors grows exponentially with each generation.
I've shared this graphic before, but it's worth a share again for this project. Can you imagine uncovering 4.096 10th great-grandparents?! I have identified two of John's 10th great-grandparents (who also happen to be his 7th great-grandparents in a different branch). Only 4,094 to go! 😄
So, several months ago, I had the idea to try and balance up the tree a bit by attempting to get every branch to the level of 5th great-grandparent (in other words, 4 generations back from the 8 people in the top row of the cover graphic above). Was I successful? Read on for my discoveries.
Giuseppe Impellizzeri, father of John's maternal grandfather, Giovanni Impellizzeri
The direct ancestor tree for Giuseppe Impellizzeri at the start of my project.
Baptism record Giuseppe Impellizzeri, 28 February 1858
Looking at the graphic, you can see that for the Impellizzeri (paternal) line of Giuseppe, I had already identified the 5th great-grandparents, with the exception of the parents of Vita Senia. That was odd, because her parents names would have been on her marriage record. There must have been an issue.
Marriage of Stefano Buongiovanni and Vita Senia, 6 February, 1780.
Reviewing the record, I saw what the issue was. It was from the time period when the mothers' surnames were not listed on the marriage record of their children. So, I needed Vita's baptism record to move back further in this line, and I had not pursued that.
Baptism of Vita Maria Senia, 30 September, 1762.
A couple of interesting discoveries with this one. First, Vita's godfather Sebastiano Bongiovanni (also, note the changing nature of the spelling of this surname) eventually became her father-in-law. I imagine this wasn't all that uncommon. The second discovery came when I researched the marriage record for Vita's parents, Antonino Senia and Mattia Lanzerone.
Marriage of Antonino Senia and Mattia Lanzarone, 31 October, 1756.
The record reveals that Antonino Senia was not from Alcamo, but from Calatafami. These towns are both in the province of Trapani, about 20 km apart. Perhaps Antonino moved to Alcamo for work? It's interesting to think about their lives!
Alcamo - Calatafimi. Maybe we'll make it there one day?
Two new 5th great-grandparents identified! Guiseppe's father Giovanni Impellizzeri's line complete to the 5th great-grandparent level. Next up was Giuseppe's mother's (Francesca Cancelliere) line. For Francesca, I had only identified up to the 4th great-grandparent level. I had 8 people to identify in this line to reach my goal.
Francesca Cancelliere was a bit of a challenge early on in my genealogy efforts. The problem was that her mother's surname was incorrectly listed on both her civil birth record and her baptism record. (The maternal grandmother's surname was used.) This caused problems with researching further back for some time, as the names did not match. However, our nephew-in-law Jürgen was able to find the court order that corrected this mistake, and then the path was clear for researching.
Civil birth record of Francesca Cancelliere, 11 February, 1821. Her mother is incorrectly listed as Giuseppa Lombardo (her mother's surname). Her name is Giuseppa Cangemi (her father's surname). This is a type of mistake I've seen more than once.
Since I'm talking about Giuseppa Cangemi, I'll continue with insights from researching her line.
Death of Giuseppa Cangemi, 26 July, 1837. She died relatively young (48), as did her husband, Giuseppe Cancelliere, who died 7 years before her. I haven't been successful in finding any other children, aside from Francesca Cancelliere, who lived to adulthood. Therefore, it's not likely there will be any DNA cousin matches in this branch.
Fortunately, Giuseppa's surname is less common, so she wasn't as challenging to research as some of my other projects. Since I was on the hunt for Cangemi (or Cancemi, as it is alternatively spelled), along the way I found several siblings, aunts/uncles, and great aunts/uncles. I've placed them in the tree, in the event that DNA matches present in the future. I hate to waste collected data!
Giuseppa's corner of the family tree.
Note in the graphic that Giuseppa's grandparents were identified in this research. So, that's 4 more 5th great-grandparents: Sebastiano Cangemi + Rosa Varvera / Barbera and Giuseppe Lombardo + Caterina Mannina. Woo Hoo!
That left one last branch in this section to work on: Francesca Cancelliere's father Giuseppe.
Marriage of Giuseppe Cancelliere + Giuseppa Cangemi, 27 December, 1819.
From the marriage record above, I was able to find the names of Giuseppe's parents (4th great-grandparents): Francesco Cancelliere and Francesca Gagliano. I also learned that Giuseppe was not from Alcamo, but from another town in Trapani, Gibellina.
Alcamo - Gibellina. Another new ancestral home town.
Unfortunately, Gibellina church records are not digitized, so I am unable to go any further back in this line to find the 5th great-grandparents.
Summary: Ancestry tree for Giuseppe Impellizzeri. 12/16 5th great-grandparents identified. Two new ancestral home towns identified. Three new surnames identified: Lanzarone, Varvara / Barbera, and Mannina.
Francesca Ragona, mother of John's maternal grandfather, Giovanni Impellizzeri
The direct ancestor tree for Francesca Ragona at the start of my project.
I thought this branch would be an easier task. I had already identified all 16 of the 5th great-grandparents. Yay! However, for one of the females, I did not know her surname, and for two females in the line, I didn't have birth or death dates, only a marriage record. (These are circled in blue.)
I first worked on Giacoma Coraci and her parents, Domenico Coraci and Vincenza Milito. Giacoma wasn't too hard to find. From her marriage record to Matteo Lipari, I saw that Giacoma was listed as a widow, so I took this into consideration when targeting a range of years to search. I also noted which church she was married at, because more often than not, the couple is married at the church where the bride was baptized.
Baptism of Giacoma Coraci, 9 September, 1773 (4th great-grandmother).
In the same index, I found Giacoma's older brother Vito, baptized 25 September, 1771. This is helpful information for my next task, finding the marriage record of their parents, as I know to begin looking around 1770 and earlier. (I didn't really need this information for my project, but I thought I might as well check and find out the names of the 6th great-grandparents!)
Marriage of Damiano Coraci and Vincenza Milito, 7 October, 1770. Damiano's parents are Vito and Giacoma (no surprise, given naming conventions) and Vincenza's parents are Vincenzo and Giuseppa. It's possible then, that Damiano and Vincenza also have children named Vincenzo and Giuseppa, but that's a project for another day!
Next up, Stellaria Lombardo (isn't that a pretty name?!) and her parents. These folks turned out to be a real challenge. First, I wasn't able to find Stellaria's baptism record, which was needed to confirm her mother's maiden name. Since I was unable to find that, my next choice was the death record. To help narrow it down, I reviewed documents I had for her children, which would indicate whether she was still living at a certain date. I found her death record fairly quickly but, unfortunately, it also did not have her mother's maiden name listed.
Death of Stellaria Lombardo, 6 May 1827. There is a problem with her father's name, but since she is the only Stellaria Lombardo in this time period, I'm willing to chalk that up to a clerical error.
The death certificate allows me to estimate her birth year (1757). I went back and researched the indices again for the range of her birth year, but I still couldn't find her record. The birth year estimate is useful and important, though, because now I needed to try and find the marriage record for her parents. Hopefully, there is only one couple named Vincenzo and Giuseppa Lombardo.
NOT! Boo. I found two couples with a Vincenzo Lombardo and a Giuseppa. One Giuseppa's surname was di Gregorio and the other Casara. None of the (grand)mothers were named Stellaria, which would have been a helpful hint. I decided to go through the baptism records to identify the children of the couple with Giuseppa di Gregorio (I chose them because Stellaria's records were all from the same church as the marriage of this Vincenzo and Giuseppa). Perhaps Stellaria had a different name or the spelling is different in Latin? I found several children for this couple (which happened to match naming conventions), but no Stellaria.
Marriage of Vincenzo Lombardo and Giuseppa di Gregorio, 3 February 1750. When I found this record, I needed assistance with the parents' names. I posted in my Sicilian Genealogy Facebook group...
The discussion triggered a memory of a post I had made a few months ago for a record with a Didaci. The person who helped me then taught me that Didaci was Diego, so I searched out the post to tag Julie, in order to answer her question. Well, synchronicity! That post had to do with a Giuseppe Lombardo from another part of our tree, whose parents were Diego and deceased Margarita. So that Giuseppe and this Vincenzo are brothers! You can see him up above earlier in the post, in the family tree of Giuseppe Impellizzeri. He is a 5th great-grandfather, married to Caterina Mannina.
Where to try next? I was getting frustrated and only had one idea remaining - check the marriage banns for Stellaria Lombardo and Vincenzo Ragona.
Sadly, the marriage banns also did not list Giuseppa's name. WAH! I won't be able to extend this line if I cannot figure out her surname.
I again posted in the Facebook group, because I couldn't read the information on the right hand side of this document, but it seemed to reference a di Gregorio. Is that a hint for me?! As it turns out, it wasn't. I learned that this was the name of the priest who married the couple. ARGH. I was bemoaning my inability to identify Giuseppa, when an angel from the group posted:
Yes! But how in the world did I miss this?! I went back, and there was the entry, clear as can be, in the indices I had viewed at least three times. Sometimes you just need an extra pair of eyes! So grateful to Wilberta!
This presented an interesting twist - another couple Vincenzo + Giuseppa Lombardo, with Giuseppa's surname Vilardo. Off to find their marriage record, as I missed them in my previous sweep of looking for couples by this name (I think I didn't go back as far as their marriage year in that sweep).
Marriage of Vincenzo Lombardo and Giuseppa Vilardo, 22 Nov 1740. And, look! - Giuseppa's mother's name is Stellaria. Perfect!
My time researching Vincenzo Lombardo and Giuseppa di Gregorio, while an investment, does not go to waste. Since he is the brother of a 5th great-grandparent, that is useful information to put into our tree, which I'll get to eventually.
Summary: Ancestry tree for Francesca Ragona. 16/16 5th great-grandparents identified. One new surname, Vilardo, identified. Several new linkages to investigate.
Antonio Milano, father of John's maternal grandmother, Maria Milano
The direct ancestor tree for Antonio Milano at the start of my project.
Antonio's branch was already completed to the 5th great-grandparent ancestors. I've written a blog about investigating this line, so you can head over there if you're interested in my research and findings in the Milano line. There are lots of interesting tidbits and many photos. In this branch, I have actually identified all of Antonio Milano's 6th great-grandparents!
Summary: Ancestry tree for Antonio Milano to 5th great-grandparents same as above.
Maria Rosaria Giorlando, mother of John's maternal grandmother, Maria Milano
The direct ancestor tree for Maria Rosaria Giorlando at the start of my project.
As with her husband Antonio Milano, I have written a blog on my research into Maria Giorlando's branch. Similarly, you might enjoy the findings and photos. For Maria's branch, I've identified half of the 6th great-grandparents. Both blogs discuss overlaps with the Impellizzeri line. I'm discovering more and more overlaps, but this isn't surprising, as we're getting pretty far back now, and all of the people are from the same town, Alcamo.
For this project, I wanted to obtain birth information for Vincenza Renda and identify the maiden name of her mother Maria (circled in blue). (For the couple circled in red, Damiano Tartamella and Caterina Varvera, I'll reserve comments until I get to the section on Benedetta Adamo.) This was a fairly straightforward search.
Baptism of Vincenza Renda, 20 April 1762. The only glitch here is that her given name was Tommasa (consistent with naming conventions). However, there are no other Vincenza Renda's of this couple in an acceptable date range, so I'm accepting the record.
The baptism record identified Vincenza's mother's surname, the goal in this project, but I went ahead and found her parents' marriage record.
Marriage of Gaspare Renda and Maria Alesi, 11 September 1757.
While researching these records, I found a brother of Vincenza, Vito, as well as some hints for future expansion of this line. Yay!
Summary: Ancestry tree for Maria Rosaria Giorlando. 16/16 5th great-grandparents identified. One new ancestral surname, Alesi, identified.
Endlessly impressed by your research skills and your focus!
ReplyDeleteA lovely compliment. Thank you and thanks for reading!
DeleteFascinating! And more than that to me because my grandmother was an Impellizzeri and her mother was a Cangemi.
ReplyDeleteGlad it resonated with you, thanks! If you'd like me to try and place you in our mega Impellizzeri tree and look for Cangemi connections, send me an email with more info on names.
DeleteI can't find Part 2, or hasn't it been written yet? I can't thank you enough for your help over the weekend helping me discover my husband and your husband's connection through their 5th great-grandparents - all due to your excellent detective skills and perseverance!
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome Donna. I'm glad it was useful and appreciate your comments. I'm still working on Part 2, a little more than halfway through - I keep going down rabbit holes - I'm sure you understand, LOL!
DeleteI do! 💕
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