I will be honest this prompt kind of bothers me. I have too many relatives and ancestors that were gone too soon. People who were snatched before I got to know them or even before they were able to accomplish much in life.
For this prompt though I am going to concentrate on my Dad’s Uncle Berlindo Moro.
Berlindo died 2 December 1928. He was actually murdered trying to help his friend a Patrolman Richard Duffy.
Berlindo died at the age of 19 so he was in fact Gone too Soon. It would be interesting to see how the family would of been different had he not died. I will say that a lot of the family does not know that he was murdered but I don’t feel the need to whitewash history.
I am all about sharing the good, the bad and the ugly
Plugging along with the 52 Ancestors prompts so I can be caught up and work on putting some other things out into the universe and work on them. The prompt for week 8 is I can identify. Many different takes can be taken on this prompt. I am blessed that my Grandma started our family tree back in the day when things were done in person and letters via snail mail.
My Grandma is the reason I am so interested in family history, I have very fond memories of traipsing around cemeteries as pre-teen and teenager with my Grandma and Grandpa.
Picture of my Grandparents, Earl and Frances (Stewart) Witherwax.
So for the topic “I Can Identify”, I decided to highlight a couple of my favorite finds from over the years.
When I identified that my 2x Great Grandmother Sarah Larkin Beardsley was indeed a doctor. This was found via a google search. She attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
2. Finding the passenger list of my Moro Family coming over from Italy in 1880. When I first found this record. I did not realize that the Chiara listed there was my 2x Great Grandmother.
3. Another favorite find of mine is the marriage registration of my 2x-Great Grandparents. Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico in Italy. I am hoping to find more Italian records because every time I find one it is always a sense of accomplishment, especially since I can’t read, write or speak Italian.
Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico were married in 1872 in Lentella, Italy.
4. Another fun find was my second Daughters of the American Revolution Patriot. Bezaleel Wood. After I joined the DAR back in 2016 through my original patriot Lorin Nehemiah Larkin. I joined a bunch of different Facebook groups pertaining to the DAR and in one of these groups a member said look at lines right near the patriot. So I looked at Lorin Larkin’s Wife Christiana Cutler and couldn’t prove her father so I looked at wife of his son John. John’s wife is a woman named Sarah Wood. Sarah’s father is Bezaleel Wood my 5x great-grandfather on my grandpa’s line.
This is Bezaleel Wood’s information in the DAR Database.
5. My last favorite find is anything on my husbands tree. Everything on this is fun because I am totally flying blind with no one to ask questions of. So when I am able to find records that confirm my findings or hunches I am totally ecstatic.
It is also probably a reason that I enjoy using ThruLines at Ancestry as an additional hint because I know there is a connection somewhere due to the DNA and it gives me a starting point to figure out where the connection is in the documents.
I hope you enjoyed my take on the prompt I Can Identify, until next time.
This weeks prompt was Out of Place. I have been pondering about what to right about for a few days and I am still in a quandry about what to write about.
My favorite family stories are about my much beloved 2X Great Grandmother Sarah Larkin Beardsley but I have already told you so much about her. My great mysteries now resolve around her Mother and Father. Ruth (I think Morgan) Larkin and Benjamin Wood Larkin.
So I am still sitting here and wondering who I should write about. So I finally decided on the take I would take on this prompt.
Domenick and Teresa are my great grandparents. Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludovico are my 2X Great Grandparents.
My out of place is Teresa Tracchia’s parents. I haven’t found them yet. This is the only set of 2X Great Grandparents I haven’t found yet. Italian Research is like Irish Research to me. I have to be in a mood and it takes a lot of work for me, actually even more than Irish research as I don’t speak Italian. One goal I would love to accomplish in 2023 is to input names into this branch of my family.
So there you have it, my out of place is those missing names.
Yes I am going to attempt it yet again. Life seems a bit calmer at the moment and this is something I want and need to do for me. So here we go with prompt number 1 which is who would I like to meet and boy this is going to be super hard to pick just one so I am going to go with my top 3 or 5 and they will be in no random order.
Sarah Larkin Beardsley my 2 times great grandmother. I have written about her extensively in previous blog posts and I feel a great kinship with her.
Minerva Winchester Beardsley, my 3 times great grandmother. She lived from 1823 until 1843. She is the mother of my 2X great grandfather Leslie Winchester Beardsley. I would love to know who here parents were.
David Weatherwax – My 4 times great grandfather. I would love to hear about his Revolutionary War experience and to ask where he is buried.
Micheleangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico my 2 times great grandparents on my Dad’s side. I would love to hear about why they came to America and then left and returned to Italy and if they had more children than the 2 I have found and any history they would share.
and lastly I would like to meet John Stewart (1755 – 1835). This is as far back as I have gotten my Stewart line. I believe they are originally from Scotland but I haven’t been able to go further than John and his wife Isabelle Armstrong in County Monaghan, Ireland. I would love to know if this line is truly from Scotland. There is a lot of family story but who knows.
January 14, 2021 began a 14 Day Research Like a Pro Mini Challenge. I love these challenges because I use them to focus on lines I am uncomfortable searching like my husband’s Irish roots or this time I am working on my Italian Roots.
Searching my Italian roots ought to be fun because I do not read or write Italian and my genealogy books are all still in the garage in boxes. I really should move those things upstairs and get a desk so I can get back to work but I digress.
Day one was to come up with a research question and my original question was going to be when did my 2nd great grandmother Chiara Ludovico die but I know she died sometime after 1902 and the records for Chieti, Italy only go until 1900 so I figured that would be a very difficult task.
Last night I was poking around my tree trying to decide on a different question and I ran across her marriage record to my 2X great grandfather Michelangelo Moro. I found some one who was able to translate it on a facebook group and I now have the names of Chiara’s parents.
Translation number 1Translation number 2
Both of these translations gave me new information I did not have regarding both the groom and the bride. I now have the following questions and one may just become my research question for this mini- project.
When did Domenico Moro die?
Can I find birth records for Michelangelo Moro or Chiara Ludivico?
Who are the parents of any of the parents listed?
Can I find other records for any of the persons named here?
The other cool thing I found here is my Dad had mention San Salvo to me but we did not know where that fit in so now we do. Also we never knew that his Great-Grandmother was named Chiara before finding her on a ships Manifest in 1880. So this is going to be an interesting journey and while I like the Antenati website, I may take myself to a Family History Center to do this research as I will be able to save it on my computer easier and it is behind a wall. Thankfully the Family History Center is only about a 20 minute drive and has great hours.
So any ideas on which Italian Ancestor I should research next?
That final ProGen assignment is done. I am taking a day or so before I jump into something new and I am procrastinating my final critiques of my peers. If you have been reading for a while you have probably learned that I like to procrastinate and I like rabbit holes.
While procrastinating that final ProGen assignment I did a deep dive into my Italian Ancestors (that right there should tell you how much procrastination there was). I have been looking for the elusive last name of my 2X Great Grandmother on my Moro line.
If you read this Learned something new… post and you will see how I arrived to this place. I am not sure of the search terms I used to come up with this record but look what I found.
My 2X Great Grandmother, Chiara DiLudovico and Concenzio Moro, my great uncle.
I need to do a bit more research as I know very little about when Aliens were held for special inquiry and I am hoping there are records. One thing that I love about European women is that they traveled under their maiden names.
I am searching for a class or an institute on Italian Genealogy because I think that is what I need to get further into the process, but I finally did it I found the maiden name.
My 2X great grandmother’s name was Chiara DiLudovico Moro and it explains how my grandmother got her name.
Today, I watched a webinar entitled Long Distance Italian Genealogy from Shellee A. Morehead, PhD, CG that was on Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
My Dad and I had been talking about his family line and we know so little of anyone who was not in the United States. So after watching the webinar where I was introduced to a new website Antenati-Ancestors. It provides access to the Civil Records or Italy.
I have had a mystery of my 2X Great-Grandmother on my paternal-grandmother’s side (clear as mud I know). All I had was this passenger list where you could read the first name but What the heck was the last name and to top it off she is listed as a servant.
Well thanks to today’s webinar and the Antenati website. I have begun to unravel the mystery of this line. The first thing I found was a birth record for Teresa Moro.
I will need to translate it so I understand everything but according to the passenger list I knew Teresa was born sometime around 1876 as she is 4 on the ship manifest. I also know this branch of my family is from Lentella, Chieti, Italy. Made the records a bit easier to go through. That and the index in the beginning of the book. I spotted Michelangelo Moro’s name right away. I also see reverence to a Chiara Lodosrio(possibly).
I could not find a birth record for Domenico Moro my Great Grandfather as that book did not have an index in the front of it so it will be the task of reading page by page. I did find marriage record for Domenico Moro and Teresa Tracchia, my great grandparents.
They were married in 1886 and it again lists a Chiara Livordosio (again wonky spelling).
I figured let me see if I could find a marriage record for Michelangelo Moro and Chiara. This is what I found.
They were married in 1872. I have to figure out how to get real copies as I could not figure out about ordering them and most Italian Records on Family Search require being at a Family History Center,
So if anyone can figure out the last name I would greatly appreciate it. I am just so excited to have found something new and I can see a lot of rabbit holes being gone down because of this.
Seriously comment below if you have a clue as to the last name.
Decoding the Family Tree 