Family History Center, More Questions than Answers

I have been wanting to go to the local LDS Family History Center, but was nervous about going alone. An opportunity arose yesterday when the genealogy specialist at my county library invited me to attend a tour with her genealogy club from another county library. I wish I could say that I was overwhelmed with all the information and family history that there was to be had.  However, it wasn't as glorious as I had hoped.

First, I must say that the volunteers that were there were very eager to help and were extremely nice. I was expecting to go in, tour the facilities, sit down at a computer terminal and all the hidden records would come rushing at me like a river overflowing its banks. I know, I need to better manage my expectations.

But, wouldn't you know, the person who knows all the answers to all the questions I had wasn't there that day. That's OK, I'll just check out a few things. Guess what, you need your Family Search user name and password to sign in. Well, I didn't have that with me because I use a password keeper on my home computer so I don't have to remember 92 passwords. This brings me to the big question that no one there could answer. If I use my own user name and password to sign into Family Search at the Family History Center, am I going to see the same information that I would see if I was logged on at home? How can I access all the online databases the Family History Center has access to (Ancestry, Fold3, Historic Map Works, Kinpoint, My Heritage, Newspaper Archive, Paper Trail, ProQuest Obituary Listings, Puzzilla.org, World Vital Rcords), if I must sign on to each site using my own user name and password for the free, and usually limited, account?

So, just a few unanswered questions. I will definitely be going back. Hopefully, the person with all the answers will be there! Anyone want to come with?

Ciao for now!
Kim

An Introduction Is In Order

OK, so who am I?  Over the years the answer to that question has changed.  First, I was a daughter and little sister.  Then I was a student learning the ins and outs, the ups and downs, of business.  Then I was a young adult learning how to navigate life independent from my parents.  Then, and this was a good one, I was young and in love, and on the brink of a new life with the love of my life. Then a few years down the road I was mommy, then mom, then "oh mom" (said with the appropriate whine).

I've worked in many different industries - addiction services, environmental enforcement, youth sports, preschool education, and construction.  I've volunteered in just about every organization my children have ever been involved with, from boy scouts to the PTA.  I have organized enough fund raisers to buy a Lamborghini.

In the 20 years we have been married, our family has lived in six states and seen the most beautiful country here in the United States and abroad.  I've finally come to realize that home really is where your heart is.  And where your heart is, your passion will live also.

A few years ago, a family member gave me a binder with some family tree information in it.  There wasn't any documentation to prove whether any of it was true or not, it was just a list of names, and a few birth and death dates here and there.  At some point, I packed it up with a lot of other stuff in preparation for one of our cross-country moves.  Then last year, I found the box and opened the binder.  At the time, those Ancestry commercials were on several times a day, so I gave it a try.  Now I'm hooked.

One other thing that has shaped me and made me who I am is something that, until recently, I never really considered all that important.  When I was just a baby, I was placed for adoption.  I have always known that I was adopted and it was never a negative thing.  As a young adult I thought I might like to try to find out who my biological mother and father were.  My parents were very supportive outwardly, but looking back I'm sure on the inside they worried about where this might lead.  As it turned out, at that time it led nowhere.

Fast forward to 2014, my dad calls to tell me that he just heard the adoption law in Ohio was being changed and I would most likely be able to learn the names of my biological family.  I had recently been bitten by the genealogy bug and it was all starting to come together for me.  On March 20, 2015 I sent in my application for a copy of my original birth certificate, and waited.  I didn't have to wait long because in only 2 weeks it arrived.  I could barely breathe, and, there was no one at home for me to tell!

Since then I have connected with a half-sister that lives all the way in Germany and other half-sisters here in the U.S.. Joe, my biological father, and Janet, my biological mother.

So that is why I call this blog, A Family Forest.  My family has grown exponentially in 2015.  When once it was just me, a tiny baby in a foster home, now I have one brother, seven half-sisters, a step-sister and step-brother, a mom, a dad, a step-mother, Joe and Janet, and innumerable aunts, uncles, and cousins that make up my family forest.

It is my goal to use this blog to share with you my journey as I learn about some of the trees in our forest, for our roots grow deep and wide.

Ciao for now!
Kim

Bon Bons and Passengers Lists

My husband has a fairly uncommon surname, or so I thought.  In the last 20 years, we have lived in many parts of the country, and have only run across one other Krautheim that was not known family. So, I was perusing Genealogybank.com the other day and I plug in KRAUTHEIM to the appropriate search field, just for kicks, just to see what might pop up. Low and behold there are many Krautheim's that live in the northeast.  Not wanting to wade through them all at that moment, I thought about another surname in my husband's tree that I know next-to-nothing about, and is even more uncommon.  DELLE VENNERI.  You can imagine how many spellings there could be for this surname.

As you may already know, when searching for records in GenealogyBank.com you have to have a pretty good idea of how to spell whatever it is you are searching. GenealogyBank.com is not like Ancestry.com in that it will not offer you suggestions based on the sound of the word you input [soundex]. Here are just a few that I tried - DELLVENNERY, DELVENNERY, DEL VENNERY, DELEVENNERY, DEL VENNERI, DELL VENNERI, DELL VENERI, DELL VENERY, and so on.

Very few records were returned. However, there was one that caught my eye. Right there, on page 3 of the Trenton Evening Times (NJ), 2 Aug 1932. I actually sat straight up in my seat and I'm pretty sure I held my breath while I read the article. It was titled "BOMB IMBEDDED IN BOX OF CANDY".  Wait, what?  It goes on "Dynamite for Jersey Woman in Bon Bons - Daughter's Suspicions Foil Plot".

The gist of the story is that one Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery received a package at her home from the postal delivery man that seemed to be a box of Bon Bons. Mrs. Dell Vennery's daughter, Rose, grew suspicious of the package and opened it herself. There was a bomb of "three balls of dynamite and five small batteries" hidden among the candy. Rose threw the package out the window and a nearby policeman doused the package with a hose. My favorite line is that "Mrs. Vennery ventured a guess the box was sent by an enemy she may have made in the sale of some Paterson property."

Wow, what a find! But, I do not have Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery, nor her daughter Rose, in my family tree.

That same day I was listening to a recording of DearMyrtle's Tracing Immigrant Origins Study Group-Session 1, and she mentioned Stephen P. Morse's One-Step Web Pages.  This site helps find immigration records, as well as other records. (DearMyrtle recommends that we read the "About this Website and how to use it" tab before using the site.  But, you know, I just jumped right in there.)

Some time ago, I had found a passenger list index for Giuseppe Delle Venneri, traveling from Naples, Italy, to New York City, in 1910 when he was 28 years old.  He was apparently traveling with his wife, 21 year old Candida.  This is who I believe to be my husband's great grandfather and great grandmother.  Using Stephen P. Morse's One-Step Web Pages, I found a link to the digitized passenger list.

Passenger Manifest, SS Virginia, Sailing from Naples to New York, 20, Sep 1910,
page 1 (lines 1 & 2) Images from Ancestry.com

Passenger Manifest, SS Virginia sailing from Naples to New York, 20 Sep 1910,
page 2 (lines 1 & 2) Images from Ancestry.com

This is where seeing the actual record instead of just an index is helpful.  The passenger list indicated that this was not his first trip to the U.S. and he had traveled to New York City from Naples in 1899. Off I go to find that record, and according to that passenger list, Giuseppe, age 17, traveled to the U.S. with his older brother Antonio in 1899.

Passenger Manifest, SS Bolivia, sailing from Naples to New York, 11 Nov 1899, (lines 3 & 4)
Images from Ancestry.com 

Now I've got a real online bread trail to follow. Using Ancestry.com I search for Antonio Delle Venneri and find him in the 1910 U.S. Census, married to Innocenzia with daughters named Maria, Isabella, and Rosina.  That is helpful, but then I check the 1920 U.S. Census.  Anthony Del Vennery is married to Mary Del Vennery and they have three daughters, Mary, Isabel, and Rose.  While not a lot of online information (birth, marriage, death) is available for New Jersey, there are many city directories available online for that area.  Using the U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 record group, I am fairly certain that Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery could be the wife of my husband's great grand uncle Anthony Dell Vennery, and her daughter Rose could be his 1st cousin, twice removed.

As a beginner family historian, I am very excited to continue to find out more information about this part of my husband's family tree and add it to our family forest.

Ciao for now!
Kim