A little breakthrough to share

I was trying to decide what to share on this blog next and noticed these two documents in my collection. I find them very interesting for a couple of different reasons. They both concern your grandfather James Coffarelli, for whom I have already had to solve a fair number of mysteries!

The Certificate of Baptism from St. Mary's Long Island City is for a child named Jacob Simeon Coffarelli sone of John and Rosa Coffarelli. Definitely your family and the birth date of July 25 1898 matches all records I have for your grandfather James. It has been a huge mystery to me why the name is Jacob Simeon. It is dated June 6 1923 so we can presume he requested it as a requirement of his upcoming Catholic wedding just a few weeks later.

The Certificate of Marriage from St. Rita's certifies that James Coffarelli and Marguerite Manzelli were married June 27 1923. The documents are strikingly similar -- indeed they are produced by the same company so I imagine area churches all used the same.

They reside back to back inside a sheet protector in my notebook and I just thought you might like to see them again and take notice of a few things. Other than the child's name, his baptismal sponsors were Frank Scaretta and Margherita Nigra. I don't know if these are relatives but since James was the last of 9 children, it seems likely they may have given this honor to family friends.

Off I went to bed thinking I knew just how I was going to write the blog today. Relaxing your mind allows little brainstorms in and I had such an experience last night just as I was drfiting off. That darn Jacob Simeon was really bugging me and I was thinking about how I was going to note that the baptism certificate was produced 25 years after the event to prepare for the wedding. That means someone had to copy over and transcribe the information in the original church records.

And that's when the light when on! I am guessing that your grandfather James may have been listed in the original church records with his Italian name Giacomo--which can also be translated as Jacob! Ta-da! A perfectly reasonable hypothesis for the name on the baptismal certificate. Perhaps Simon/Simeon really was his middle name. I don't think I have anything else to help me figure that out for sure, but I am very pleased with myself that there may be an answer to that little mystery.

I slept very well after that. Now all I have to do is come up with some reason for him to have been listed as Samuel in the census records........

Update from the Ville

Yeah, I hate it but some of the coaches and athletes are referring to Harpursville as "the Ville". The Harpur part is what makes us unique is what I say but you can imagine how much weight such a statement from a gray haired lady carries.

Ryan calls this picture "Smooshed"--that's him in the middle between those colliding gor-ma-trons. The team is now 1-2 but we can live with that. No miracles were expected under a new coaching staff and for now it looks like things might be on the right track for "the boys of the Ville". He's looking forward to playing some defense this week (I'm not) in a game they are expected to lose --so no pressure.

I remember when Ryan was probably about 8 and Linda and Scott were able to see one of his youth league games. Ryan came off the field bleeding from his mouth and I always thought Linda probably swore off football for her boys forever that day. This season, I feel a little bit like that.

We got the "Save the Date" card in the mail this week! Yeah--and congratulations Brian and Monet. I'll be adding all sorts of new stuff to the Dalpiaz family tree in 2010. It's kind of nice to be adding names at the bottom rather than at the top or out to the sides of the family tree....do you think I might have that backwards?

Pat, Steve and the kids looked great on Good Morning America. Looking forward to hearing some dog stories. Welcome Sade.

I hope you all had a good first day of fall and enjoy what the season has to offer.

I was upset with myself Friday morning when I realized that I had forgotten it was September 11. A few days earlier, I was very aware that Friday was September 11 in part because the 8th grade history teacher across the hall was preparing her now-annual first lesson "What September 11 Means to Me". And I found myself wondering where was the tipping point on this event for our students...these current 8th graders were probably in kindergarten on September 11 2001. Did they have a memory of that day and would they be able to effectively express what it means to them? I'm guessing not. I'm sure the teacher makes it meaningful to them, but the bottom line is that this event probably doesn't carry personal meaning to them or any students coming up behind them.

This fading of event trauma is normal and likely healthy. One of the blogs that I like to read recently did a very nice post along these lines. The Occasional CEO wrote "9/11 and the National Memory". I strongly encourage you to read it. He puts historical events in our lifetimes in perspective in an enlightening way: such tidbits as when a mouse used to indicate a 4 legged critter rather than an electronic extension of our fingers.

He likens this shift to a snake shedding its skin. Out with the old and in with the new. Regrowth. Renewal. I was reminded of Amy's experience at the zoo this summer. Apparently boa constrictors need some extra help shedding all their skin--especially around their eyes. So she found herself helping the staff remove old skin from around this constrictor's eyes. Huge "Blecch" factor aside, it's not unlike how such memories get lost. There is some natural fading and shifting but we (society) assist that fading and shifting in many ways. We are picking the skin away so new skin can grow when we forget or fail to pause and remember. A survival technique, yes but it seems criminal to let that day go by without some remembrance.

I was 7 when President Kennedy was shot. Most definitely the defining event of its time. I vaguely remember seeing the funeral on television but have no other specific memories of that day in school or the days that followed. Eight years later I certainly could not have written a meaningful essay on "What President Kennedy's Assassination Means to Me". Present tense. Still meaningful. But I feel certain my teachers could have. And my parents. So perhaps today's 8th graders see September 11 not as video-like memories running through their minds but more as how it is commemorized today. And I'm afraid they did not see much evidence that we remember. Neither did I on the following anniversaries of the President's assassination.

A number of articles in the paper the next day talked about how some places held remembrance events and others did not. Specifically it mentioned that no recognition was given at Ryan's football game in Bainbridge. I was grateful the game wasn't in Harpursville or I'm pretty sure we would have been in the same boat. I guess this puts me in the same camp as those campaigning to have September 11 be marked as a Day of Remembrance. Because it affected me. Because it's still vivid in my memory. But I forgot Friday was September 11 until well into the day. I guess I also helped peel away the dead skin of that day.

#4 starts his last football season with a win!

Where does the summer go? When I was a kid, it seemed like summer went along nice and slow. We went to swimming lessons and that was about the extent of the scheduled activities. We rode our bikes and played outside. That was just about it.

This summer began with a visit from Kathleen and Nick, as well as a visit from our summer long companion (or so it seemed): rain. It ended with Ryan's first football game (and victory!) of the season. In between we had baseball, basketball, wisdom teeth, summer school, contacts, cousins, Coffarellis, and an actual running Mustang. Actually now that I put it in writing it seems like quite enough to fill up the last 10 weeks or so.

Back to school wasn't quite the shopping event then that it has become. We did have to sort, repair and re-hem clothes and find lunch pails. The right lunch pail was kind of a big deal as we almost never bought "hot lunch" and you did have to carry the right accessories into the cafeteria. I am very certain my mother was very happy to see that school bus arrive on a regular basis again.

In a way, I'm grateful for what the whole "back to school" season has become. It is like starting fresh again --I will be thinking of you all on my 31st first day back to school (well, I guess it's technically my 44th first day back to school if you count those 13 other years!).

Birth Days and Places

Happy birthday to our girls of summer--Marisa, Mallory, Sarah and Hailey! What a fun way to end the summer each year. I hope everyone has a great day. Looks to me as if Mallory is asking "What's with the cone on my head?" You can see here she is destined for greatness.

Birth days and places have been on my mind. We FINALLY got ourselves together and took ourselves down to get passports. Of course, James is the only one of us without a birth certificate that has a raised seal. The directions said we could bring other documents to support proof of birth if the birth certificate didn't have the raised seal. So we did but the lady behind the counter was having none of it. That's a whole other story, but I ended up ordering a new birth certificate for James, which was surprisingly easier than I expected it was going to be.

The piece of paper I consider to be James' original birth certificate says he was born in Bay Shore--information that makes sense and information we have used every time that information was required. The new "official" birth certificate arrived and says he was born in Islip.

I feel certain I will get nowhere arguing the point with the authorities but to me this is a pretty big problem. Where you are born is an integral part of your history. It shapes you and is carried down through the generations. I am still trying to figure out how to handle this but I want future generations to know their ancestor was born in Bay Shore New York. How can New York State change your place of birth? I am nearly speechless thinking about the implications.

Power of 16

There's a thread running through recent genealogy blogs and discussions about the "great grands"-- your 16 great grandparents. Specifically, can we name our 16 great grandparents? Must be this is where people get stalled.

Now, in case this challenge is presented to you and for those of you who aren't sure allow me to assist: Fortunato and Carolina Parteli Dalpiaz; Francisco and Teresa Odorizzi; Luigi and Mary Cella Messa; Peter and Mary Chesternino Contenta; Giuseppe (and unknown) Coffarelli; Giovanni and Leonarda Dalami Pedano; Pietro and Margherita De Carlo Manzelli; Graziano and Antonia Isoldi. Well, there's 15 of them anyhow--not too bad!

One of the interesting things about this group I noticed when I put these names together is that only Giuseppe Coffarelli came to live in the United States (he was about 90 when he arrived to live with his son). All the others were in Italy. It was the next generation that were the primary immigrants and therefore how your family came to be Americans.

Unfortunately these are pretty much just names in a list. I don't (yet) have any stories or background information to fill out their stories in ways that make them real people. For most of them I don't even yet know hometowns or regions. Maybe I never will but it's the hunt that keeps me going.

Just for fun

Summer 1996 and 2009