Group photo taken in the meadows above Castelfondo.
Yay! Three new photos have been added to our Photograph page under the Gallery Section of the website. What a treat as these are from our Italian family in Trentino. Check them out, click here!
If you have family photos you would like to share on The Genetti Family Genealogy Project website, we would love to hear from you. Please email photos along with a description to: info.genetti.family(at)gmail.com.
Baptismal record from San Nicolo Church:
Vigilio Genetti, born 1852 in Castelfondo, Austria.
Died 1932 in Collinsville, IL.
The Illinois Genetti Clan has proven to be very inquisitive and helpful concerning our shared ancestors. A few weeks ago I received an email from Brian Genetti with info about his family line. It turns out Brian is also a descendant of Vigilio Genetti who settled in Collinsville, Illinois around 1890. Why I say “also” is that I have had three other descendants of Vigilio contact me during the past year (Tom, Gary and Andrew). Each has contributed a bit more of our ancestral puzzle and allowed me to research further into their branch of the family tree. As a result of Brian’s info, I was able to add ten more descendants to our online tree and continue to extend Vigilio’s legacy in America. Brian says he also has photos of Vigilio Genetti tucked away somewhere. When he finds them we’ll add those pics to our photo archive page too.
Of course, I had to work out all of the cousin relationships. Here’s what I came up with:
– Brian is 1st cousin, twice removed from Tom.
– Brian is 1st cousin, once removed from Gary.
– Brian is a 3rd cousin of Andrew.
And Brian is my 5th cousin, once removed AND my 8th cousin once removed! Yes, my family twig is related to Brian twice!
Do you have descendants you would like included on our family tree? I believe we have only about a third of our ancestors documented so far. Feel free to email me with your information. If I can find documentation on the ancestor, I will add he/she to the Genetti Family online tree.
Many thanks to the Illinois Genetti Family for their participation.
Our very special congratulations to Bill Genetti of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. I’m sure most of you know Bill for his kind generosity, as the owner of Best Western Genetti Inn and Suites in Hazleton, as our family genealogist, and as the organizer of our Genetti Family Reunions. After 65 years in the hotel and banquet business, Bill is finally ready to retire. According to several recent newspaper articles and a wonderful news video, Bill has sold the hotel portion of his business. The catering and banquet end of Genetti’s will be taken over by his son, Patrick.
Congratulations Bill! The Genetti family owes you a great debt of gratitude for all you have accomplished and given. We wish you many happy years of retirement!
To read the full story and see the newscast, click here.
Have you ever wondered what your ancestors looked like? Before the invention of photography in the 1830’s, there was only one way to remember a loved one – a formal portrait painted by an artist. If your family had enough money, they might commission an artist to capture your image for posterity. But this was an expense most families could not afford. More likely than not, ancestors living prior to the 1840s (when commercial photography was first introduced) left no images for future generations to ponder.
I’ve spent many hours researching the details of the Genetti family – their names, spouses, children, birth dates and deaths. This information is all that we have to remember them by. Often I wonder just who they were, what kind of personalities they had, what did they do for a living, how did they dress and what did they look like.
A few days ago, I was visiting an art museum in Sydney (yes I’m still in Australia). A small oil portrait by an Italian artist of the late Renaissance period caught my eye.
The name plate on the work of art stopped me immediately. “Portrait of a Young Man” painted around 1565 by Giovanni Battista Moroni. The artist’s name made me smile since there are many men on the Genetti family tree named “Giovanni Battista”. I snapped a photo of the painting and decided to do more research later on Master Moroni.
That evening I googled the artist to find a pleasant surprise. He was considered one of the best portrait painters of his time. Giovanni was born and worked most of his life in a small Northern Italian city, not far from Castelfondo (the Genetti’s village of origin). He had also worked for a period of time in the city of Trent (Trento), located down the valley from Castelfondo. Giovanni Battista was of Northern Italian descent, as most likely, were his clients and sitters. Wow!
My next thought was: “did my ancestors look like this too?”
The pensive young man in the painting with intense eyes, short-cropped hair and a ruffled collar probably represented the appearance and dress of men in the mid-1500’s. Which of my ancestors had been a contemporary of this era? After consulting the online family tree, I found Pietro Genetti, my 10th great-grandfather, had lived during this time. From clues left in parish records, we know that Pietro was born about 1530 and lived until 1580. He was married to Chatarina Segna.
How tempting it is to imagine Pietro dressed as the portrait sitter. Dapper in a ruffled collar, his sandy-colored hair short and beard neatly trimmed, peering at me with steel-gray eyes. Of course, this is all speculation and fantasy on my part. There is no record of Pietro’s appearance. But what fun it is using a little imagination to bring my 10th great-grandfather to life!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably wondering where I’ve been since December. Well I’m currently “Down Under” in Australia, exploring and soaking up the warm sunshine of Brisbane, Sydney, Manly Beach and Uluru. Yes, my husband and I love to travel. With every trip, I learn about other cultures, make new friends from far away countries and expand my personal universe just a bit more.
As I walked around the grounds of the beautiful Sydney Opera House, watching the busy harbor hum with ferries and ogling the massive cruise ships that put to port everyday, I couldn’t help but think of my ancestors.
Although they had lived in the same mountain valley for hundreds of years, a poor economy and no job opportunities had forced them to travel far from their ancestral home. From the mid-1870’s through the 1920’s, entire families left the Val di Non for a better life. They traveled to the United States, Canada, South America, and other parts of Europe. Unlike our ability to board a plane and be half-way around the world in less than a day, our great-grandparents had a much more difficult time traveling.
My branch of the Genetti family left their village of Castelfondo in the Austrian Tyrol for the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Their journey would have transpired somewhat like this. First they would travel down the valley to the city of Trento. Today this takes about an hour by car. But before the era of automobiles, our ancestors road in a horse and cart loaded with children and baggage or they walked. It would have taken the better part of a day to reach the city. Once in Trento, the family purchased train tickets to the port of Le Havre, France as well as their tickets to board a ship to New York City. After traveling by train through the mountains to the French port, they boarded a large steam ship with hundreds of other immigrants.
Due to the expense of moving a big family to a new country, my great-grandfather traveled to America first, bringing along his four oldest children. The passage by ship would have been about 10 days at sea, most likely docking in New York City. I say “most likely” because I have yet to find the ship records for this particular crossing made by Damiano and his children who arrived sometime around 1903.
Three years later Damiano’s wife, Oliva, arrived on December 3, 1906 at Ellis Island with the couple’s five youngest children. The little one, Angela Maria, was just three years old. We do have ship’s records for Oliva and the children. They traveled steerage. It must have been a long and difficult journey for a mother trying to keep track of five young children. In New York City they joined their Papa, boarded another train and reunited a few hours later with their older siblings in the new and strange city of Hazleton.
I have much respect for my great-grandfather. From online records I know he made the arduous journey between Hazleton, PA and Castelfondo, Austria (now Italy) at least seven times, between 1877 and 1930.
Even by today’s standards of air travel, I know it’s not easy to reach the village of Castelfondo, tucked in the alpine meadows. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been 100 years ago.
A page from Stanley Genetti’s autobiography.
“If you don’t recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.” ~ quote by author Madeleine L’Engle
Have you ever thought of recording your life for future generations? I’ll bet your grandchildren and great-grandchildren would treasure a biography containing remembrances and details about the times in which you lived. And if your family is like ours, with a long and detailed history, an autobiography becomes part of the family’s ancestral legacy.
You’re probably thinking “why would someone want to read about me?” So many of us believe that our everyday lives are not worth writing about. But one hundred years from now, I can assure you, ordinary lives will seem quite extraordinary to future generations. Our family stories and photos, memories, details about our home and the town where we lived, reminiscences of how we met our spouse, what we did for a living, our children’s escapades, those folksy colloquialisms that pepper our speech – all of the small details of our “ordinary” lives will be cherished by future descendants searching for their family roots.
A page from Stanley Genetti’s autobiography.
I know of two biographies written by members of the Genetti family. One by Stanley Genetti of Pennsylvania and the other by Herman Genetti of Wyoming, with the intriguing title of “Herman’s Howlings: A Personal History of Southwestern Wyoming”. Both are fascinating first-hand accounts of life in America for Tyrolean immigrants during the 1900’s. Sprinkled with family stories, regional history and ancestral details, they make for very interesting reading! Unfortunately both memoirs are self-published and hard to come by. Having been produced in a limited number and usually only in the possession of direct family descendants, it is nearly impossible to obtain a copy of either Stanley’s or Herman’s autobiography.
Fortunately I have been able to locate both books. Several years ago, a copy of Stanley’s book was given to me by one of his grandchildren. I have read it many times, gleaning a good bit of genealogical information from Stan Genetti’s stories (FYI – Stanley was my grand uncle or in other terms, my grandfather’s brother).
Recently I was given a copy of Herman’s book. I had been looking for this volume for some time and had found only obscure mention of it online. Unbelievably, on a recent trip to Italy I met with a friend who is a local historian (and not from the Genetti family). He handed me Herman’s book and asked if I had ever heard of him. Apparently a copy of the original was given to my friend, possibly through someone in the Genetti family. I was amazed that at some point Herman’s book had made a long trip from Wyoming to Castelfondo, Italy and now would be returning to the United States via a distant cousin (me!). I gladly accepted the thick Xeroxed spiral-bound copy, tucked it away in my suitcase and happily returned to Santa Fe with my family treasure. I’m currently enjoying perusing “Herman’s Howlings”, sifting through the pages for genealogy info to include on our online family tree.
My hope is to one day include both of these books as free PDF downloads on The Genetti Family Genealogy Project website, of course with the permission of their descendants. If you are a direct descendant of Stanley Genetti or Herman Genetti and would like to make their autobiographies available for the rest of the family to read, please contact me at info.genetti.family(at)gmail.com. Mille grazie!
First cousins, Bill Genetti and Jean Branz Daly, about 1940.
In previous blog posts you’ve heard me talk about 2nd cousins, 8th cousins, cousins that are once or twice removed, and so on. What does this genealogy jargon mean and how do I figure out the relationship between all of those cousins?
Surprisingly, we all have a multitude of distant cousins. If you take an autosomal DNA test (a combination of both parent’s DNA) through Ancestry.com or Family Tree DNA, you will be matched up with others who have snippets of the same DNA. The more pieces of their DNA that match, the higher the likelihood that they are a close relative of yours. A first cousin may match up to 25% of your DNA. A sibling should match close to 50%. The more distant the cousin, the less DNA will match. We’ll save the DNA discussion for another time, since it is rather complicated. But just keep this info in mind as we discuss different degrees of cousins.
Lidia Genetti (center) with two daughters, Giovanna and Laura. Laura’s young daughter Viola is also in the photo. Photographed 2014.
To determine a cousin relationship you first need to find your Closest Common Relative or CCR. You then count each generation away from this CCR to determine the cousin level.
Here’s is an easy way to remember cousin levels:
– Siblings or half-siblings: you share a parent.
– 1st cousins: you share a grandparent and are from the same generation.
– 2nd cousins: you share a great-grandparent and are from the same generation.
– 3rd cousins: you share a 2nd great-grandparent and are from the same generation.
– 4th cousins: you share a 3rd great-grandparent and are from the same generation.
At Genetti reunion 2010, Valeria Genetti Bozek, Louise Genetti Roach and Marianne Genetti.
And it continues from there. I have traced some people to the level of 8th cousins! Usually I can figure out the relationships up to 4th cousins in my head. For really distant cousins (5th and beyond) I have to look at our family tree and physically count each generation from our Closest Common Relative. The further back in time that the CCR lived, the more distant the cousin. After discovering several 8th cousins, I found our CCR was born around the mid-1600’s.
Now comes the difficult part of the equation – what does “once removed mean”? This means that you share a CCR, but are from different generations. For example: the child of my first cousin would be my “first cousin, once removed”. Or in other terms, my grandparent(s) and their great-grandparent(s) are the same person – this is our shared CCR. A first cousin, twice removed would be the grandchild of my first cousin. Yeah, I know, it sounds complicated! But once you get the hang of it, the system really isn’t difficult to understand. The cousin relationship is one of the most important tools you have when researching genealogy to help discover family connections.
And in answer to several people who have written me – sorry, a second cousin is not the same as a first cousin, once removed. Second cousins share a great-grandparent. First cousins, once removed share a grandparent/great-grandparent (same person).
Let’s talk about the photos that accompany this post. The first image is of first cousins Bill Genetti and Jean Branz Daly, they share a set of grandparents and are also my father’s first cousins. My relationship to both Bill and Jean is first cousin, once removed – we have the same Closest Common Relatives, but I am from the next generation – or one generation removed.
The second photo shows Lidia Genetti from Italy with her two daughters and a granddaughter. Lidia’s 2nd great-grandparents and my 3rd great-grandparents are the same, Antonio and Veronica Genetti, (Antonio was born in 1789). That makes me Lidia’s 3rd cousin, once removed. Since I am from the same generation as Lidia’s daughters, I am their 4th cousin (we share the same 3rd great-grandparents, Antonio and Veronica). Laura’s daughter is my 4th cousin, once removed because she is from the next generation.
And the third photo pictures myself with Valeria Genetti Bozek and Marianne Genetti. Valeria and I are second cousins, we share a set of great-grandparents, Damiano and Oliva Genetti. But Marianne was my first cousin, once removed. Marianne’s grandparents were Damiano and Oliva, but since I am from the next generation, Damiano and Oliva are my great-grandparents. (To read more about Marianne Genetti, please visit her Tribute.)
Just one more fact to make your head spin – every person has sixty-four 4th great-grandparents or 32 sets! Yep, that’s a whole lot of great-grandparents! If each family had on average of three surviving children, that makes 96 fifth cousins. If you multiply that same equation out over five more generations, you end up with an average of 23,328 cousins! At last count my great-grandparents, Damiano and Oliva Genetti, have five generations of descendants – over 250 people!
Now you understand why you have so many cousins!
Here are two excellent Wikipedia articles that explain cousin relations and the DNA connection:
The Genetti Family Tree
One of the best things about being a family genealogist is helping others find their roots. About once a month I receive a request from someone who has searched online for family information and stumbled upon the Genetti Family Genealogy Project. Often the only connection they have with their past are their grandparents. So this is where we begin the search, hoping that my library of family ancestry will yield clues to their heritage. Usually it takes about a week to research and compile the information, always with surprising results!
Two weeks ago I received an email from Andrew. His mother was a Genetti and he was hoping I could trace his family lineage. When I read that his family had settled in Illinois, I knew exactly what branch of the tree to begin our search. You see I’ve found that different family groups (or branches) from our tree, immigrated to specific locations in North and South America. They usually stayed together as an extended family and you can still find them in that location today. For example, my family settled in Pennsylvania. Others went to California, South Dakota, Michigan, Utah, Colorado and even Argentina. Andrew’s family was all in the Illinois/Missouri area.
It didn’t take long to find the connections since I had already compiled a genealogy for one of Andrew’s cousins. Here are the results of my research:
– We added two more generations to Andrew’s original line, extending four generations past the last ancestor noted on the family tree.
– Twelve new names were added to our online family tree.
– I have had past contact with two of Andrew’s cousins (Tom who is Andrew’s 1st cousin, twice removed, and Gary who is Andrew’s 2nd cousin, once removed). Hopefully they will all connect through this website. (FYI – I don’t share personal contact information of family members, but am more than happy to assist in making connections.)
– I am related twice to Andrew: My 2nd great-grandfather and Andrew’s 3rd great-grandmother were first cousins. That makes Andrew and me 4th cousins, once removed. And through Andrew’s 3rd great-grandfather, I am Andrew’s 8th cousin, once removed with our closest share relative being Pietro Genetti born in 1650.
Plus there were other surprises hiding within this genealogy that I have yet to figure out. But I’m sure it will be quite the story when I do! If there is anything I’ve learned from the Genetti clan, it’s that we are always full of surprises!
In my next blog post I’ll explain how I determine the different levels of cousins (2nd, 3rd, etc.) and what does it mean to be a cousin “once removed”. So stay tune for more interesting genealogy jargon.
While visiting Castelfondo this past September, I was told an interesting story by an old-timer of the village. See what you think …
Base of the original family tree.
Since I began researching our family genealogy, I’ve had a question about “Melango”. The first time I saw this word was on the Genetti Family Tree under Pietro Genetti born in 1461. Along with Pietro’s name is the word “Melango”. At first I thought this was Pietro’s wife, as this is the format for everyone else on the tree – husband’s name first, wife’s name listed below his.
But when I began researching baptismal records, I found that Melango was recorded as a place of origin. The record pictured below states that a son was born to Pietro Genet (oldest form of our name) of Melango on the 12th of February, 1568. He was baptized Andrea. The godmother to the child was the wife of Antoni Lorenecto (maybe a form of the name Lorenzetti) also of Melango. Obviously, Melango was a place. In almost all baptismal records of the time, the father’s village of origin is recorded, as a means of identification. For example, if you have five men named Pietro Genet born in the same region, you can tell them apart by their town.
Baptismal record from St. Nicolo Church, 1568.
Since the origin of the Genetti Family was supposedly the village of Castelfondo, I was confused. Researching further, I found that baptismal records through the end of the 1500’s clearly state that our branch of the family were all from Melango. About 1625, the records change, stating that our ancestors were “di Castelfondo” or “of Castelfondo”.
After searching for Melango on historical maps, Google, Wikipedia and even consulting with a local historian, I had no clear-cut answers. It seemed that Melango had been lost somewhere in time!
Possible location of Melango – hill near Castelfondo.
On my first visit to Castelfondo in 2011, I met an older gentleman who had known my great-grandfather in the 1930’s and 40’s. Since Andrea spoke fluent English, he escorted me around the village, explaining various sites. When I approached the question of Melango, Andrea was also unsure. He and our historian friend, Marco, thought that it was a name for the general area of Castelfondo, but it was no longer used.
When I returned to the village this past September, Andrea had a surprise for me. He brought me to a hill right off the road leading into Castelfondo. The site was located between the village and Castello di Castelfondo, an ancient castle with origins dating back to the 11th century. “This is Melango,” he told me. We were standing on a high mound, covered with grass and partially planted with apple trees and grape vines. From the top of the hill we could see the gables of Castello di Castelfondo, peaking out from the forest further down the highway. Again, I was confused.
Possible location of Melango – hill near Castelfondo.
Andrea explained. After speaking to a number of people, he had learned that Melango had indeed been a village located closer to the castle than the current town of Castelfondo. He was told at some point in history, there was a landslide that covered the village of Melango. And this hill was the remains of Melango – we were standing on top of an archaeological site! Apparently everyone who had survived moved up the road to Castelfondo or to the other surrounding hamlets. I asked if he knew the date of the landslide. No, he did not. Judging from the Castelfondo baptismal records I had spent months scouring over, Melango as a location seemed to fall out of use by around 1600. So if a slide had occurred, my guess was that it happened a generation before, around 1575.
The rooftops of Castello di Castelfondo as seen from the hill where Melango may have been located.
Arriving home, I tried researching Melango again. This time I was lucky! I found it mentioned on the Commune di Castelfondo webpage under the section titled: “Il paese”. After running the page through Google translator, I had a rough English translation. It seems the name “Castelfondo” designated a parish region composed of the communities of Melango, Raina and Dovena. I was familiar with Raina and Dovena, as they are hamlets bordering Castelfondo still in existence today – almost like Gothic suburbs. So that meant Melango had also bordered the village at one time. From the website translation, the description of Melango’s location matched the hill that Andrea had taken me to.
According to the historian, Carl Ausserer (“Archive Trentino” published 1900, historical literature quoted on the Castelfondo website), Melango was the original location of the first fortification and settlement in the region. It pre-dated Castello di Castelfondo!
Numerous archaeological finds from the site confirm that there were originally Roman and pre-Roman settlements on this location. The text also states that apparently over time the community of Melango disappeared due to abandonment or depopulation as a result of plague epidemics. The name was no longer used and the entire region became known as Castelfondo.
So now I had two stories about Melango, both fascinating! The village certainly did exist, but it’s true history pre-dates written records. Now I don’t know how valid either story is, but a few of the puzzle pieces are following into place.
In conclusion, it appears that our true family origin is from a village that no longer exists! However, this also could mean that the Genetti family is much older than the first date on our family tree of “1461”. What do you think?
I have another date that I’m researching of 1265 concerning the origin of our family. But hey, that’s another story!
Special Note: here is a link to an excellent photograph by Enrico Marchetti, showing Castello di Castelfondo in the forground and the village of Castelfondo in the background. Click here!
The family of Damiano and Oliva Genetti, circa 1898, Castelfondo, Austria
Last week I received a wonderful package of photos and information from Jean Branz Daly. Jean is my first cousin once removed (my father’s 1st cousin) and the granddaughter of Damiano and Oliva Genetti. We have been corresponding for several months and Jean has shared many of her family memories with me. Her package of photographs was a treasure trove! I’ve spent the last few days adding many of them to our Gallery section of the website.
Take a few moments and walk down memory lane …
click here to view Family Photographs.
Jean was also kind enough to make copies of a booklet from the Tirolesi Alpini from Hazleton, PA. This social club was dedicated to those who had emigrated from Tirol (Tyrol). It contained a number of interesting articles and photos about the Tyroleans of Hazleton, including several about Genetti family members. I’ve added one about Gus Genetti Sr. to our Family Story page, click here to read.
Thank you so much Jean! Our ancestry becomes richer with the memories we share!
We welcome all contributions to the Genetti Family Gallery. Please send photos as JPG files attached to an email (no more than 8 attachments per email). Include information for each photo so we can give it a caption (names, dates, location). Send to Louise Genetti Roach. Click here for email link.
The Genetti Family Genealogy Project 