Firefly's Haven: Family Tree book

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Family Tree book

I've never been good at figuring out what to actually call the mother of my third cousin once removed. (or something like that). To me they're all aunts and uncles and cousins. I may have never heard about them before, but they're still family. Many of them are simply fragments of stories my father launches into when he's had a glass of wine or two.

So i was greatly surprised when i found out that i not only had an Aunt Anita...but that she was compiling a family tree. Since i identify most with my father's side of the family (mom's were never really in contact until i was much older), i was eager to see pictures of my whole family all the way back to our roots in Italy.

The book was 100$ (yikes!) But well worth the money. My Aunt did a superb job and uncovered all sorts of stories that aren't wild yarns. I had never before seen many of these pictures.

Among many other things i learned:

My Great Grandmother's name was Maria Concetta (but she went by her middle name)
My Great Grandfather married her cause she was pregnant but they stayed together for 45 years
My grandfather (their first surviving child) made the trip across the Atlantic between Italy and New York a total of 5 times. It would have been six but he was turned when he was 4 back because of being ill.
My grandfather married my name-sake grandmother who was a housekeeper for my great grandfather.

much to my displeasure, her name was misspelled throughout the entire book. They kept leaving off the E at the end of Anne which she spent a lot of time teaching me how to spell our name so it became important to me.

I come from a long line of swarthy, meaty, voluptuous women who are not afraid of getting into a bathing suit at the beach just because they have some jiggly areas.
We've always been hard working, close knit, and with serious family resemblance passed down.