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 March 2008 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Feature
Angelo Coniglio is a retired civil engineer and former university professor, and he’s also a man of many passions, including the history of the American Football League. He is also devoted to genealogy, and the search for information about his family tree. As a local expert, Conliglio has many tips to offer for those looking to uncover their family’s past. So we’re proud to announce that he is joining our Forever Young family as a regular genealogy columnist, and to kick things off, he answered some questions on how to begin your own search. What led to your interest in genealogy, and how did it first take root? I was the youngest of nine children. My parents were the only ones from either of their immediate families to settle in America. So I have no first cousins or other close relatives here, only my siblings and their children, grandchildren, and so on. When my parents’ descendants numbered about a hundred, I thought I should research our ancestors so that my nephews and nieces could connect with their heritage. What kind of information have you found about your own family history, and how farback did it go? Sicilians traditionally didn’t volunteer any information about their backgrounds. This reticence was due to thousands of years of repression and mistreatment by those in power: the church, the nobility, the police. My parents were no different. All I knew before I started my research was my paternal and maternal grandparents’ names; my father had a brother; and my mother had three sisters. I’ve now learned that my father was the youngest of seven sons (as was I), and had a sister. My mother had not three, but seven sisters. By tracing my ancestry on both sides, I’ve found the names of fourteen of my sixteen great-great-grandparents. The earliest I have found is a fifth-great-grandfather on my mother’s side, born in Sicily in about 1725. Then, Sicily was under the feudal system, a part of the noble House of Savoy. Most of my mother’s ancestors were simple contadini — share-cropping peasant farmers, or serfs, on large estates owned by the nobility. Have any of your findings surprised you? What surprised me was the wealth of information available, and in my case, the orderliness of the Sicilian records. There are some frustrating gaps and errors, but it amazed me that a good set of birth records can give, say for your grandfather, the date of his birth and the date the record was made; his father’s name, age, occupation and address, his mother’s name, age and occupation; the names, ages and occupations of two witnesses to the record; the signatures of the mayor or other official making the record, the father, and the witnesses, if they knew how to write; or a statement noting that they were illiterate. What is it that makes genealogical research so fascinating to you? I view each search for a relative as a little mystery to be solved. There may be three people with the same name, or four different records for the same person may have four different spellings of his or her name. There’s always a little surge of triumph when you finally pin down that third-cousin-once-removed, or find out that someone who has been your friend for 50 years is actually a distant relative! Can you tell me a little about your background? How did that impact yourinterest in genealogy? I’m a retired engineer and former professor of engineering. I’m an avid reader; I like mysteries, and have an interest in language nurtured by my three years in Miss Marian Clark’s Latin classes at Lafayette High School. That also helps in genealogy, since old church records in many Christian nations are in Latin, regardless whether the official language is English, Italian, Spanish, French, Polish or German. Look for part two of this interview with Angelo in the April issue of Forever Young. He can be reached by email at GenealogyTips@aol.com or at 438 Maynard Drive, Amherst, NY, 14226. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
