A Fun Byproduct of Genealogy

I watched a TED Talk on the idea of everyone in the world being related. The speaker was AJ Jacobs, a humorist and author for Esquire Magazine.

He became interested in genealogy when a stranger wrote him to say they were 12th cousins. The way AJ describes it, I'll bet they sourced little to nothing in their 80,000-person family tree. But it was fun for him to be able to claim distant relationships to:

• famous actors
• politicians
• royalty
• Albert Einstein, and
• a serial killer.

None of these famous people had a blood relationship to the speaker. Instead, they had the type of relationships I see in my family tree a lot, like:

• 2nd great grandfather of husband of 1st great aunt of husband of my 1st great aunt Eva Leone, or
• brother-in-law of sister-in-law of 1st cousin of husband of my 3rd great aunt Mariarosa Bozza

There's a reason why I have these complicated relationships in my family tree. My ancestors come from a few small, rural, neighboring towns in Italy. I discovered the populations of these towns in the 1800s was almost 100% related by blood or marriage.

I wanted to document all the relationships because these towns are me, and I am made from them.

Inspired by that TED Talk, I invite you to play along and find your connection to a few famous people. I hope none of you practice genealogy simply to find a famous connection. But, as a sort of parlor game, let's give it a try.

I do have 2 actors in my blood-relations family:

• One is my straight-up 3rd cousin, but we've never met. Josh Saviano played Paul, the bespectacled best friend of the main character on TV's "The Wonder Years." Every time I saw his Saviano name in the credits, I wondered if we were related. And we were!
• The other is my mother's 2nd cousin, Ralph Lucarelli. I've been lucky to get to know Ralph over the past 10 years or so. Ironically, both actors have appeared on TV's "Law & Order."

To find other celebrities, I had to branch out further:

• Singer Gwen Stefani is my 5th cousin. I'd heard she had roots in my grandfather's hometown in Italy. So I did a little digging to place her in my family tree. As a bonus, the father of her children is one of my musical idols, Gavin Rossdale. (Hello, ex-5th cousin-in-law!)
• Actor Charles Robinson, played Mac on TV's "Night Court." More recently, I've enjoyed him on "Mom." He is the husband of the niece of the husband of the sister-in-law of the niece of the husband of my aunt Stella Leone. That sounds like one heck of a reach, I know. But in reality, Charlie is the son-in-law of a beloved family friend—my mom's bridesmaid. This was just a fun fact until I learned there was a relationship in there.
• War hero John Francis Basilone is my distant cousin. As with Gwen Stefani, I'd heard "Manila John's" father came from my grandfather's town. One day I tried to work out his connection to me. Now John is the 1st great grandnephew of the wife of my 5th great uncle Giovannantonio Palmiero.

In the world of college sports, my brother Jay is well known as a sports conference commissioner. To connect to him, I just had to be born.

A little fame and fortune may stir new interest in your family tree.

I tend to go very far on my distant branches, and my family tree has more than 25,000 people. But with all my roots in poverty-stricken towns, I won't find anyone famous by going backwards. Italian records won't lead you to royalty if you're a peasant. Before I could connect to these celebrities, someone had to tell me:

• their ancestors came from Grandpa's town, or
• there was a distant family relation in there somewhere.

In my early days of genealogy, I tried to connect to famous singer Enrico Caruso. But Caruso is such a common name, and he came from a different part of Italy. And then there was a family myth. We had long thought my sons were great grandnephews of the captain of the Titanic. A few minutes into researching, I discovered it was all a mistake.

If you find a celebrity connection, you can use it to get your family more interested in genealogy. If you do happen to find a true blood-relationship to someone important, congratulations! You're building the family tree they never knew they had.

Need more motivation?

• How Many of These 5 Gifts Does Genealogy Research Give You?
• Make the Most of Each Shiny Genealogy Object
• Taking Refuge in Your Family History Research

Finding Your Family's Fallen War Heroes

Once in a while I revisit my list of genealogy website bookmarks. When I saved each link, it either inspired me or seemed like a useful resource.

Today I decided to squeeze the value out of one of these bookmarks. It's a database of Italian war dead—both World War I and II. I'm sure we all have people in our family trees who disappeared from the records. If they were the right age at the right time, they may have died in the war.

An Italian Example

To explain how to use these databases of war dead, I'm going to focus on an Italian casualty website. But there are other databases below that may work better for you.

I know many of these fallen heroes belong, or are already in my family tree.

At the website www.cadutigrandeguerra.it:

• I clicked Richerche (research).
• This page has a form with a ton of boxes.
  • I filled in only one: Comune in Albo. Since the bulk of my relatives came from one town, I entered that town into the field: Colle Sannita.
  • Instead of a town, you can enter a name in the 1st box: Nominativo e paternità. Enter only a last name, or a full name, but last name first, like Russo Giovanni.
• My search produced a list of 96 men from the town who died in World War I.
• Almost every last name in the list is familiar to me, so I started down the list, searching for each man in my family tree.

It took a while to find one, but when I did, I knew he was the right man because:

• The database includes the name of each man's father, and that was a match.
• The database include each man's birth year, and that was a match.

I already knew that Giorgio Gentile, son of Innocenzo, was born in Colle Sannita on 4 September 1877. He married Maria Concetta Pilla on 2 June 1902, and they had a son, Innocenzo, on 13 April 1903. Now I've learned that:

• Giorgio died in 1918 at home in Colle Sannita from disease.
• He was a soldier in the 67th battalion.
• A link to a printed list of war dead confirms his birth date. (The link says Mostra Pagina—Show Page.)
• The linked page provides his exact death date: 13 December 1918. It also confirms his exact birth date.
• Giorgio was 41 years old and fulfilling his military service when he died.

Now I have all the vital information for Giorgio: birth, marriage, and death. I felt sure Giorgio and Maria Concetta had more than one child. So I searched the available vital records.

There are no birth records available for 1905 through 1909. But I found his children Paolo, born in 1910, and Lucia Rosa, born in 1915. Lucia Rosa's birth record has a note written later in the column. It says, "The father [of this child] died in the national war as per communication from the Ministry of War dated 1920."

Giorgio's records are as complete as they can be. That couldn't have happened without this database. I'll continue down this list of 96 war dead from my Grandpa's town. Then I'll search my handful of other towns.

With online databases of the war dead, I can identify the men named in their hometowns' monuments.

Search Other Countries

To search for your fallen family members, try these databases:

• British Commonwealth, World War I and II: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead provides name, rank and, service number; unit, rank, and country of service; date of death and age; burial place; next of kin and their address; and a commemorative document.
• Germany, World War I: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2124 provides an image of the casualty lists, printed in German, with name, place of birth, and the date of the list.
• United States, World War II: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1102 provides rank, branch of service, burial place, and an image of their name in the "Roster of World War II Dead."
• United States, World War II: https://www.militaryindexes.com/worldwartwo provides access to many online resources. Look for "World War II Records by State" for lists of the dead and wounded.
• Various countries, World War I: http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/military-records provides links to country-specific databases like the Italian one I'm using.
• Various countries, World War II: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2 provides free access to many lists, photographs, maps, recordings, and more.

Need more? Search online for "database of world war dead," or make that more specific to what you'd like to find.

I'm sure you'll agree it's worthwhile to find out what became of some of the men in your family tree. Many towns in Italy have monuments to their fallen soldiers. I photographed the memorials in my ancestral hometowns. Now I should have enough information to tie names on the monuments to people in my tree.

And speaking of military records:

• POW: My Grandfather's World War I Experience
• Appreciate the Veterans in Your Family Tree
• Dates that Remind You of Your Military Ancestors

Why Did Your Ancestor Leave Home?

Someone asked me why our ancestors left Italy when it's so beautiful there. I knew the answer, but I remember when I thought the exact same thing.

Then I read a bit of the country's history. Southern Italians faced overwhelming poverty while those in the north fared much better. The young men from the south could have taken factory jobs in the north. But there was too much competition.

Many made their way to the United States of America after hearing that jobs were plentiful. They were hard jobs in steel mills, railroad yards, and coal mines. But it was steady work and decent pay. My grandfathers seized the opportunity and applied for citizenship as soon as possible.

Being an immigrant is not easy. Why did your ancestors choose to leave?

What was going on in your ancestral homeland when your ancestors emigrated? The FamilySearch website is a great place to begin your search. For instance:

• Germans left their country at many points in their history. The main reasons were poverty and religious persecution.
• Many early English emigrants went to America to improve their business prospects. Some were prisoners, sent to other countries. Some military personnel received land or money to stay in the place where they had served.
• The Irish fled famine and poverty. They were also suffering from religious persecution. Some sought political asylum, and others were prisoners sent to America.
• Italian emigration skyrocketed from 1870 to 1914. Young men sought the steady work they couldn't find at home.

A real-life library, or an online catalog search, can tell you why your ancestors moved. One thing is very clear. There has always been a ton of moving going on.

A table on Wikipedia shows the number of foreign-born people living in the U.S. by decade. Based on each census from 1850–2000, the table breaks down the numbers by country and region. (Note: The table is missing 1930 and 1940, and it ends a full 20 years ago.)

The table shows who was leaving their homeland in large numbers at certain times in history. One or more of these trends may apply to your ancestors. For instance:

• German immigration ranged from a half million and 2.7 million people each census year since 1850. It's never let up. In fact, the largest ethnicity in the USA is German at 14.7%*.
• The British Isles and Ireland ranged from nearly 1 million (1990 and 2000) to 4 million (in 1890) people. The English make up 7.8% of America, and the Irish are 10.6%.
• Italian immigration surged to 484,000 people in 1900, and a high of almost 1.8 million people in 1950. After that, quotas forced some of my relatives to go to Canada. Italians are 5.5% of Americans.
• French immigrants peaked at 153,000 in 1920. Relatively speaking, those are low numbers. In fact, the French comprise only 2.6% of Americans.
• Canada has ranged from almost 150,000 in 1850, to 1.3 million in 1950.
• The former Soviet Union hit its peak of more than 1 million people from 1910–1950.
• The former Czechoslovakia topped out at almost a half million people in 1950.

Some countries are seeing a dramatic rise in emigration:

• Mexico surged from 103,000 in 1950 to 9 million in 2000, with a big increase starting in 1980. Mexicans are 10.9% of Americans. That's now the 3rd highest percentage of Americans. First are Germans and second are non-Hispanic Blacks or African Americans.
• The Caribbean Islands began their surge in 1970 and reached almost 3 million strong in 2000.
• Chinese immigrants had many bans and restrictions in the 1800s. But they nearly doubled from 530,000 in 1990 to 989,000 in 2000. This ethnicity represents 1.2% of Americans.

Statistics paint a picture of nationalities fleeing oppression.

While I adore Italy, and I feel at home in my ancestral hometowns, I know it is not the Italy my ancestors left behind.

I encourage you to learn a bit of the history of your "old country". You'll discover a new-found appreciation for your immigrant ancestors' sacrifices.

*The percentages of ethnicities in the U.S. comes from a 2019 article on the WorldAtlas website.

And speaking of emigration/immigration:

• How Did Immigration Laws Guide Your Ancestors?
• Grandpa's Journeys Shed Light On My Own
• Celebrating My Peasant Ancestors