Hunting History - Finding Family

Week four of the #52in52Ancestors prompt has been a difficult one for me.  Everyone is doing how far away their ancestors came from, and they all did; if you're American chances are your ancestors came from somewhere else, far across the ocean.  I thought about spinning a tale of that crossing, which I still may do one day, but not today.  While browsing some new features on my Ancestry app last night, I found this really cool section where it plots out where each of your ancestors were born and significant things in their lives happened.   It's super interesting to see it all out on that map, little dots spread out (in my case) all over Germany, England, and Scotland.  And then, all the way down in the bottom, are two little dots, far away from each other, in Italy.  One high in the Alps by Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia, and one far over towards France.  I actually never realized just how far away those two very important places were, until ...

With almost 2000 images in my Ancestry gallery, and another large personal family album full of old photos I'd inherited and scanned when my Nona passed, you'd think that the challenge of "Favorite Photo" would be a difficult one, but it wasn't.  As soon as I heard it, I knew exactly which photo I'd use.  So this will be a much shorter post, as these are people I've certainly blogged about many times before, and I'm going to focus a little more on them and a little less on the genealogy this time. Mary & Frank on their wedding day - 7/7/43 Hands down, this is my favorite photo ever.  There are so many things I love about it; including the people.  This is my Grandma Mary "Nona" Barra on the day she married Grandpa Frank Anthony Heigert, July 7th 1943 in Staunton IL.  This was taken at the farmhouse where Frank grew up, a big old home that's still there, unfortunately not still in the family, it was donated before I came along...

I knew this ancestor spotlight would come sooner rather than later, and I didn't have to think real hard for this weeks 52 in 52 submission, which the prompt is "Challenge."  Eventually, I will probably compile all my facts and write a book about great grandma Angela (Which will be a challenge in and of itself, I'm just a hobby novelist) but for now a spotlight blog will do.  Angela is perfect for the "Challenge" prompt, as you'll see when you read about her life, she was faced with one challenge after another, but she always rose above.  I can only image the strength this woman had. I never got to meet her, but I bet I would have loved her.  As the mother of one of my favorite people in the world (my Nona Mary) I expect them to be very much alike.  Nona always said she spoke "very broken English," as of course Italian would have been her first language.  Nona never said she herself  knew Italian, she certainly never spoke it and had no accen...

This past week Ancestry has, quite controversially (at least in my Italian Genealogy Group) "updated" our DNA story.  I have previously done a blog entry about mine, but to compare here the old analysis: Great Britain: 69% Southern Europe: 10% Scandinavia: 7% Western England: 3% Caucasus: 1% Ireland >1% Russia >1% And the new analysis: England, Wales, Northern Europe: 77% Ireland/Scotland: 11% Sweden: 9% Germanic Europe 3% Now, at first glance this actually does seem to fit my own research better.  But there's something really important missing, and that's my Northern Italian DNA.  Before, it was in there, you just had to expand on the tabs a bit, but that 10% Southern Europe is my Northern Italian.  Now, it's gone.  Many in the group have said their previous Italian DNA matches have been replaced with French.  Now luckily I didn't have that happen, but just disappearing altogether isn't much of a consolation prize. If you're inte...

I once asked Nona if we had any mobsters in our family. I was young, and all I knew about Italians where what I saw in the movies, and I was all about the 20's.  Mobsters were cool.  We lived in the Midwest, Al Capone had his hands all over our state, even in our little part of it.  We had the "Moo-tel" and the Coliseum.  We had rum runner tunnels under the town streets.  I would have loved to have a member of the family be a member of a family. She told me that she was told that "Uncle Tony" wasn't necessarily a mob member, but that she'd heard quite the story about him.  Tony lived in Detroit, and the story I was told was that there was a parade, and Tony reached out an touched an American flag and was shot for it by an officer or a guard of some kind.  Cousin Louis Barra (fellow researcher) remarked that Tony was a "very fancy dresser" and a "strong member of the Italian-American society" in Detroit.  Truth? We didn't know.  ...

It would be an understatement to say that Louis Barra launched my genealogy obsession.  At some point, probably some fifteen years ago, I was handed a paper book, the Barra family history.  You'll have to forgive me if this post is not as descriptive as I'd prefer it to be, I've recently moved and said book is buried in a stack of unpacked boxes. It wasn't the most comprehensive of family histories, but considering that Louis had built it in an age before ancestry.com, familysearch, or even the internet, it's a pretty impressive piece of work.  He did what I can't do, went to the source and talked to the older generations of relatives. I bring this up not just to reminisce on my own introduction to the time suck that is family history research, but because I received a rather random email from a Jerry Olivera at the beginning of January about Louis; "I have a photo taken in early 1940s of a Louis (Lou) Barra. My father had the photo from his Army days i...

12/1/14 I have spent quite a bit of time trying to research the Barra bloodline, and have recently gotten much further with the assistance of ItalianGenealogy.com.  I believe the easiest way for everyone to understand is to work backwards.  All this information has been verified and is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Here goes. :) I am Valerie Heigert Simpson. My Paternal grandparents were Frank Alan Heigert Sr (B. 02/07/1915, Staunton IL D. 10/02/1963, Carlinville IL) and Mary "Nona" Barra (10/08/1920 Benld IL D. 08/14/2008, Carlinville IL) who married on 07/07/1943 in Benld IL. I will now follow the Barra line. My great grandparents were Guiseppe Antonio "Joe" Barra (B. 08/28/1878 Brossasco, Italy D. 02/09/1925 Benld IL) and Angelina Nardin (02/07/1887 Asiago Italy D. 02/08/1963 Benld IL) who married in Dec 1915. Joe and Angelina ...

Uncle Alan is a wealth of information.  At least, in my eyes.  He responded to my inquiries about the Strazzaboscos and Nardins, with a few very precious sentences. Angelina Nardin, my great grandmother, was born in 1887 in Asiago Italy.  She had a daughter, Rena, and emigrated to the USA aboard the Duca D'Aosta, leaving the port of Genoa March 16, 1915.  Rena's name is listed on the manifest as Anizara Paganini.  They arrived through Ellis Island April 1st, 1915.  Angelina was 28, Rena was 3. Her husband and why they emigrated had always been a mystery to me. Until now.  Uncle Alan gave me something very important; a name. Valentino Paganini. The only other thing he knew was that he'd died in 1912, the same year Rena was born.  I still don't know much, but I did find two ship manifests bearing his name from Asiago. Valentino Paganini arrived in NY, NY on April 12, 1908 aboard the ship "New York" from the port of Southampton.  He wa...

11/23/14 F or the longest time, the only thing I knew about my second great grandmother on my father's side was this: Not much to go on.  For the longest time, she was a complete mystery.  I had gone to Benld City Cemetery looking for Barra relations, which is where several of them are buried, including my grandmother's half sister Rena (whom I also know next to nothing about, including her given name.)  Mary is buried right next to Rena.  So on to Ancestry I went, knowing only her dates and the fact that at some point she ended up in Benld. I still do not know her proper birth date, simply that she was born in 1857, as the headstone states.  Once I had asked her granddaughter, my grandmother Mary ("Nona") where her family was from and she told be Asiago Italy on her mother's side and Brossasco Italy on her father's.  In most of my research this has turned out to be true, so I have placed Mary's birthplace as Asiago. I know for a fact that Mary ...