Month: August 2020

Ancestors, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Pennsylvania

Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 1

by L.Roach • August 26, 2020 • 4 Comments

Raffaele Genetti (1867-1949) and Lucia Zambotti Genetti (1867-1952) with their first child, Alessandro (1895-1900?). Photographed about 1897, Pennsylvania.

When you hang out with genealogists, a certain kind of lingo infiltrates your thinking. Such things as brick walls, NPEs and search angels are common jargon amongst my research friends.

Since my last blog post about the family of Raffaele and Lucia Genetti, one particular genealogy term describes my recent research: “falling down the rabbit hole”.

Allow me to explain. After publishing the last post in our series, Anatomy of a Photograph, I received several thoughtful comments addressing missing information. Two of the comments were from descendants of Raffaele and Lucia. I felt their concerns were valid and should be researched, with the possibility of updating our current tree.

Beginning my research as I usually do by accessing various online data bases, I soon found myself “falling down the rabbit hole”. In genealogy terminology this means: I lost my focus due to search results leading me in a totally unexpected direction. The information I stumbled upon was interesting enough to pursue further and was directly linked to the Weston saloon owned by Raffaele and Lucia.

Because of this, I am taking a short break from our original series and will present several posts addressing your previous comments, as well as present new research I have unearthed about the Genetti establishment.

Part 1

Two of the comments left on our blog were from the grandchildren of Raffaele and Lucia: Helene Prehatny and Ralph Genetti. Both thought there were eight children in the family, rather than the seven I mentioned in my original post. Although I had explained the death of the family’s oldest son, Alessandro, Ralph was sure there was another child named Raffaele Jr. who had died at birth. But Ralph had no specific information about the infant’s birth or death date or age at time of death.

This child was completely missing from our tree and I had no sources within my research indicating an eighth birth in the family. I agreed with Ralph that it required further investigation.

Since we had no specific information for Alessandro either, other than being mentioned in the 1900 Federal Census as being five years old, I felt it was necessary to do in-depth research for both boys.

Returning to my most reliable online sources, I scoured data bases for any mention of Alessandro or Raffaele Jr. I also searched Find-A-Grave and Newspapers.com for some scrap of evidence on either child. There was nothing. I even went back into my archive from San Nicolo in Castelfondo, hoping there may be a slim chance relatives of Raffaele or Lucia had notified the village priest of a family birth in Hazleton. (If the couple had relatives still living in Castelfondo and they had kept a close connection with family, sometimes you will find a birth in the United States included in the church’s baptismal records.) Unfortunately, once again I came up empty. There was simply no paper trail left for either infant.

As a genealogist, this places me in an unusual predicament. If I go by the rules, there is no confirmed evidence such as a grave or public record for an eighth child named Raffaele Jr. And since this child was born prior to the 1900 Federal Census, there is no one alive today with any memory of the birth. I know from experience, trusting stories as fact can often lead to inaccurate information entered into family trees and archives (our double wedding photo is a good example of this very thing!). Incorrect information is not useful for future generations of family researchers as it leads to generational mistakes.

It should also be noted that there is a common practice to exclude stillborn births and those that die in childhood from family trees as they produce no heirs to carry on the family line. Our original tree adheres to this philosophy as I have found dozens of births in the Castelfondo records where the child was dropped from various family branches due to death before reaching adulthood.

Since both Ralph and Helene were sure there was another child in Raffaele and Lucia’s family, I decided on a compromise. I have added little Raffaele to our tree but his birth and death dates are listed as “about 1897”. Since no one knows the facts about his birth date, age at time of death or death date, I had to use basic historical facts and make my best guess. We know from the 1900 Federal Census that Alessandro was born sometime around 1895 and the next child listed, Silvio, was born in 1899. There is a very good chance that Raffaele Jr. was born between these two children in 1897. Because he is not listed in the 1900 Census, we know that he did not reach the age of three and may very well have died as an infant.

In an attempt to keep our records as accurate as possible, the listings for both children have now been modified to read:

Alessandro Genetti, born about 1895, died between 1900 and 1910. Additional Note: There are no public records for the death of Alessandro. We know he appears in the 1900 Census as being 5 yrs. old, but he is not listed in the 1910 Census.

Raffaele Genetti Jr., born about 1897, died about 1897. Additional Note: There is no known evidence of the birth or death of Raffaele Jr. other than the memory of family descendants.

Watch for “Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 2” coming soon!

Ancestors, Cousins, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Obituaries, Pennsylvania

Anatomy of a Photograph, Part 5

by L.Roach • August 19, 2020 • 11 Comments

Time to look at the very person associated with our photo myth, Albert Lawrence Genetti. Albert is not pictured in our group wedding photograph. But for some unknown reason the date of his birth became part of the legend attached to this eventful day. Although we now know Albert was born in 1906, two and a half years prior to the date of the 1909 photo, public records show an interesting story also revolves around his birth.

Albert came into the world on October 21, 1906, the sixth child in a family of seven (note: Albert’s oldest sibling, Alessandro, passed away in 1910). According to Census records, his parents, Angelo Raffaele Genetti (Ralph) and Lucia Zambotti Genetti (Lucy), moved sometime around 1901 to Weston, Pennsylvania from North Union, Schuylkill County, where they had lived next door to Ralph’s older sister Angela Genetti Recla. The young couple established a large beer hall/boarding house in Weston, becoming prosperous entrepreneurs and growing their large family. Our double wedding was photographed on the front porch of Ralph and Lucy’s establishment.

Raffaele and Lucia Genetti with their family, about 1914, probably photographed in Weston, PA. Front: Raffaele (1867-1949), Anna (1909-1974), Lucia (1865-1952). Standing: Albert (1906-1990), Leona (1903-1979), Silvio (1899-1982), Mary (1901-1992), Elizabeth (1904-1964).

To refute the original date of 1906 associated with our boarding house photo, I went in search of Albert’s birth certificate. This proved to be a difficult research task indeed. Due to numerous errors most likely made by the county clerk, not only was Albert’s surname misspelled as “Jenetti”, but his first name was also incorrect – plus the incorrect name was spelled wrong!

Albert Lawrence Genetti Certificate of Birth – Pennsylvania

Ralph and Lucy’s infant son is registered as: Rafile Jenetti. And if this wasn’t bad enough, the names of both of his parents were also misspelled as: Rafile Jenetti and Lucia Zambody. Never have I found a birth record with so many errors, making it extremely difficult to research!

Albert’s date of birth is also a conundrum. The day and time are recorded as October 22, 1906 – 7 p.m. However, all other public documents for Albert Genetti (Social Security Death Index, WW II Draft Registration, U.S. Public Record Index and the U.S. Find A Grave Index) state his birth as October 21, 1906. Was Albert’s certificate of birth also wrong about his date of birth? Or did he and his family decide to celebrate his birthday on the 21st rather than the 22nd? I guess we will never know the answer to this puzzling question, but I’m betting the county clerk was not the most competent person for this job!

In a backwards kind of way, I stumble upon the original birth record by first finding a revised correction of the document that had been notarized and filed on May 10, 1977. In that year Albert finally had the name on his birth certificate corrected to read Albert Lawrence Genetti. However his date of birth remained as October 22, 1906.

Albert and Vivian Genetti with sons Ralph and Lawrence.

Albert married Vivian Ellen Kummerer on January 20, 1940. They had two sons: Ralph and Lawrence. He had a long and successful career with Jeddo-Highland Coal Company, and became a well respected member of his community, belonging to numerous organizations. Albert passed away on December 15, 1990. You can read the obituary of Albert L. Genetti by clicking here.

Our thanks go to Ralph and Lawrence Genetti for sharing this fascinating photograph. It has added much to our family history!

In our next blog post, I will look into the lives of our two wedding couples from 1909.

Update: August 26, 2020

Thanks to comments from our readers, we have added an eighth child to this family: Raffaele Genetti Jr. (abt 1897? – abt 1897?).

Click here to read more about this additional child here.

Ancestors, Cousins, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Pennsylvania, Photos

Anatomy of a Photograph, Part 4

by L.Roach • August 14, 2020 • 2 Comments

Marriage License of Peter Dallachiesa and Virginia Fedrizzi

Time to search for the actual date of our double wedding! Fortunately, the state of Pennsylvania has cooperated with Ancestry.com in releasing many of their public records. Although not all documents are available at this time, Pennsylvania birth, marriage and death records are continually being updated with new information.

Now that I knew the identity of our wedding couples, I did a general search using the names of both grooms, leaving open the date of the wedding. Yes! Success! The marriage licenses issued for Peter Dallachiesa and Riccardo (labeled as Richard in the photo) Fedrizzi were easily accessible online!

Marriage License of Riccardo Fedrizzi and Angelina Cologna

The licenses were both issued on January 23, 1909 with the marriage date set as February 13, 1909. Now we had the exact date of our group photo and confirmation through public record. This later date made much more sense as Tillie Genetti had now been in the United States for over two years and by this time was most likely participating in social gatherings with family and friends. I made the correction to our Photograph page with the double wedding officially taking place on February 13, 1909. According to Google, this date fell on a Saturday.

If we look a little closer at Riccardo and Angelina’s license record, we see an interesting mistake. Errors are common as I have often found name, spelling and date mistakes in many public records – especially in rural communities where correct spelling was not all that important. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to find several sources to confirm historical information.

In this case the birth date of Riccardo Fedrizzi is stated as December 17, 1897. Hmmmm – that would mean our groom was only twelve years old at the time of his wedding! Luckily, someone later spotted the error and made the correction using a side note next to the record. The year of his birth had been transposed and should have been 1879 – making Riccardo a respectable 29 year old groom. His bride, Angelina Cologna, was 23 years old.

With our mystery solved, I wondered how the story of Lucia giving birth became associated with this photo since Albert’s birth date did not match that of the wedding. Maybe one of Raffaele and Lucia Genetti’s other children had been born on that day. Since Albert was second to the youngest, the only possibility would be his little sister, Anna Ottilia.

Returning back to our Ancestry records, I soon located Anna’s birth record. It was dated January 9, 1909. Well that was close to our wedding date, but obviously a month prior to our nuptial event. Apparently somewhere along the line a creative family historian had attached a fanciful story to the photograph and the legend stuck.

On a final note, look closely at Anna’s birth record. There are two mistakes – her middle name is incorrectly spelled as is her father’s name! So much for accuracy! I guess that’s the job of a family genealogist – to find and correct the errors of by gone days.

In our next blog post we will begin exploring individual stories connected to our wedding photograph.

Part 5 coming soon!

Ancestors, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Pennsylvania, Photos

Anatomy of a Photograph, Part 3

by L.Roach • August 11, 2020 • 3 Comments

Manifest of Alien Passenger for the U.S. Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival – 1906

Let’s skip ahead to 2020 and the discovery that inspired this entire series. During the past year I had been working with Loretta Cologna transcribing the school notebook of Tillie Genetti, who was my grandfather’s younger sister. As we worked through the text, adding historical information about Tillie and her siblings, I naturally used a timeline to trace personal information and immigration dates for my great-aunts and uncles. The family had arrived during three separate years: 1902, 1904 and 1906. Tillie, with her mother and five siblings, disembarked from their ship at Ellis Island in 1906. Although I had always been aware of the family’s immigration years, I had not paid close attention to the specific dates other than noting the Manifest Passenger List as a source citation in my Ancestry family tree.

Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry – arrival date December 3, 1906

While working on the school notebook, I was particularly interested in the transitional period of Tillie’s life between her final school year in Castelfondo and her new life in Pennsylvania. As I created her timeline I noted Tillie’s arrival in New York City on December 3^rd, 1906. This date is correct and confirmed through public record according to the ship’s manifest and Ellis Island passenger records.

L to R: Dora Genetti, Richard Fedrizzi, Angeline Cologna, Tillie Genetti

A few months later while I was updating sections of our family website and playing with a new photo colorization tool, I stopped in my tracks! It suddenly occurred to me – the date included in the caption for the boarding house photo was suspect! Since Tillie and her older sister Dora had both attended the wedding and were clearly pictured standing in the front row, the date of October 1906 could not possibly be correct. Here’s why: while we believe Dora arrived sometime in 1902 with her father and sister Ester (there are no public records to confirm this year), Tillie had not arrived until much later in December of 1906 – three months after the supposed date of when the photo was taken – October of 1906!

Obviously, the story of Lucia Genetti giving birth upstairs in 1906 while a wedding took place downstairs was an interesting family legend – but alas, not founded in truth! Public immigration records verified this date could not be accurate as Tillie was not living in Pennsylvania in October 1906!

But what was the true date?

Although I was fond of the story attached to our infamous photo, it was obvious that we needed to correct the misnomer. It was time to dig into Pennsylvania marriage records at Ancestry.com to learn more!

Part 4 – coming soon!

Note – In both documents from Ellis Island we see that Oliva and her five children were detained for further examination. It appears that little Ann was only about three years old at the time and suffering from a hip problem. In Stanley Genetti’s biography he explains:

“Before we left Europe my three year old sister, Ann, suffered from leg poisoning and had to be operated on. She was still unable to walk when our ship docked at Ellis Island and my oldest sister carried her. One of the inspectors told her to put Ann down and let her walk. When she responded that Ann could not walk, they were both detained for special inquiry.

“The rest of the family had passed through inspection when we received the bad news. We had to wait three days for my father to arrive from Hazleton. During our wait mother became very upset. She said she feared that we would all be deported, but I think that she was more afraid that the two girls would be deported by themselves. Finally, my father arrived and convinced the authorities that he would have a doctor treat my sister and she would never become a public charge. We were released on the fourth day.”

Extra note: Little Ann went on to have a successful life and career, reaching the amazing age of 102 – outliving her entire family!

Ancestors, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Pennsylvania, Photos

Anatomy of a Photograph, Part 2

by L.Roach • August 7, 2020 • 0 Comments

When Ralph Genetti handed me the boarding house photo, it was numbered on the front and the names of those present were noted on the back. It also contained the date of October 1906. Ralph related an interesting story associated with the photo passed down through family legend during the past one hundred years. Supposedly while the wedding celebrations were taking place downstairs, his grandmother Lucia was upstairs giving birth to Albert (1906-1990), Ralph’s father. Since Albert was born on October 21, 1906, this seemed to confirm the date printed on the back of the photo.

No caption was provided and it was difficult to determine exactly who had married who since many of the people in the front row were wearing corsages. Eventually I was able to conclude that two siblings, Richard and Virginia Fedrizzi, had taken vows on that day. Virginia had married Peter Dallachiesa. But Richard Fedrizzi’s bride was labeled only as Mrs. Richard Fedrizzi. Not much help!

I dutifully published the photo on our website along with the information and date provided on the back, although I felt it unfair to name one of the brides “Mrs. Fedrizzi” – as if she had no identity of her own. Unfortunately, at that time Ancestry.com was just beginning to add Pennsylvania wedding documents to their data base and I found nothing listed for a Fedrizzi wedding taking place in October of 1906.

A year passed and I received an email from a descendant of the Dallachiesa family. Arleen had seen our wedding photo and also wondered about the identity of the bride. Could she possibly be one of her ancestors? Arleen did a little research and soon wrote back to me. The bride was not from the Dallachiesa family. She was a woman named Angeline Cologna. And like most of the people in this photo, Angeline was a recent immigrant from our ancestral village of Castelfondo.

Our photo was updated with the newly found name. The bride of Richard Fedrizzi now had an identity!

Although Arleen had found the name of our illusive bride, she had not provided the date of the wedding, probably assuming the date I had listed was correct. I assumed the same thing!

That was my mistake. I had broken the number one rule of genealogy – never assume a date, event or name is correct unless substantiated by several public sources.

And the saga continues …

Watch for Part 3 – coming soon!

(Note: click on photos for a larger view)

Ancestors, Cousins, Family History, Family Stories, Genetti Family, Pennsylvania, Photos

Anatomy of a Photograph, Part 1

by L.Roach • August 4, 2020 • 2 Comments

Photo taken in 1909, in front of Raffaele Genetti’s boarding house and saloon in Weston, PA. Group includes members of the following families: Genetti, Zambotti, Marchetti, Dallachiesa, Martini, Springetti, Yannes, Recla.

I’m sure you have heard the old adage: A picture is worth a thousand words. Recently this saying echoed in my brain as I updated a large group photo from the Genetti family of Pennsylvania. So much so, that I decided to write an entire blog series about the people and stories hiding behind the faces that stared back at me.

If you are a frequent visitor to our website, I’m sure you are familiar with the group photo memorializing a double wedding taking place at Raffaele and Lucia Genetti’s boarding house/bar in Weston, Pennsylvania. I received the photo at a family reunion in 2012. It was given to me by Ralph Genetti, the grandson of Raffaele and Lucia; and was the first photo I published on our new website in 2014. Over the years I have received many emails from descendants of those pictured in Ralph’s photograph.

Colorized photo

A few months ago I decided to use a new online tool to “colorize” the original black and white photo. I loved the results and thought it was a nice way to enhance this period image dating from the turn of the century. Taking a closer look at the newly colorized photo, I glanced at our website to check the caption. Immediately I noticed a glaring error! Although the photo had been online for the past six years, no one (including me) had caught the mistake!

The caption has since been corrected. But I was fascinated by the photo’s provenance and how a family story had persisted for over a hundred years, misinterpreting the true date of that day’s event. The following series will examine photo details as I compare dates and people to public records. I will also delve into historical information we have for each person, telling their story through documents, photos and whatever else I can find from other sources.

As you will soon find out, this picture is certainly worth a thousand words – and more!

Stay tuned for Part 2!