Click here to Join Italian Genealogy Group on Facebook One of my first posts, updated with some new information and links.   I did my first DNA test with Ancestry.com about six years ago.  They, as I think most people know, have one of the largest networks.  I have to say that I was very surprised when I got my results that I was not as Italian as I thought I was.  Ancestry has a lot of tools to build family trees and look up potential family members and records from various places around the world.  All of this comes at a cost of course, and it really depends on how deep you want to go. Recently, I came across Living DNA.  I decided to do a test with them, as they are based in Europe and have a more granular approach.  Plus, for one price, they give you your autosomal, maternal and paternal DNA.  They also give you migration routes and haplogroups.  They also have a unique way of building trees, in that they plan to do it through DNA, as opposed to you having to build your own.Since doing my DNA, I have found several cousins that I did not know about.  Several friends have found half-siblings and adopted siblings.  My wife found out that our adopted son is her fifth cousin!  Our adopted daughter has found an aunt that was adopted many years ago, as well as an adopted cousin.  All very interesting stuff, although I do know a lot of people that are quite afraid to find out.  See my post on DNA Comparison. Since I did this first post, I have also sent my results to My True Ancestry.   They compare your results to DNA found at archeological digs from around the world.  You can click here to see my post on the results that I received from them.  Quite fascinating. If you are just starting out researching your family, check out our links page.  I did one test, should I do more? You can, however, most of the DNA sites allow you to download your GED file so that you can then upload that file into another site to find more relatives.  I took my Ancestry DNA and uploaded to GEDMatch, My Family Heritage and several others.  GEDMatch for example, matches the DNA samples from all the other ancestry sites that they support, so that you can contact them, if you want.  My Family Heritage does similar, but takes it a step further, by giving you the relationship that you have with other DNA matches. Most companies do this for free. New News from My Heritage!  Just! AutoClustering organizes your MyHeritage DNA Matches into shared match clusters that likely descended from common ancestors. Each of the colored cells represents an intersection between two of your matches, meaning that both individuals match you and each other. These cells are grouped together physically and by color to create a powerful visual chart of your shared match clusters. Each color represents one shared match cluster. Members of a cluster match you and most or all of the other cluster members. So, Should I do a DNA Test? In the end that’s up to you.  I know a lot go people are concerned about DNA falling into the wrong hands, being used by police or reported to health insurance companies,  I have not had bad experiences myself, nor have I heard of anyone else being compromised.   Here’s a great article on testing from Genetics Digest.  Another great site for beginners is Fortify Your Family Tree. Portal To The Past

Family Search ( or familysearch.org ) is a free service provided by the Church of Latter Day Saints. Although free it does require you to register.  I have been on a long time, so I am not sure, but they may try to up sell some products.     I have used this site many many times, the last time I used it I found that while they have many records that you can view online at home,  just as you can on the Antenati, they also have records that are NOT on the Antenati that you can view by going to one to the LDS research  center.  They have them all over the world and I’ll show the steps below on how to find people using family search and how to find a research center Catch our podcast on the topic Familysearch. Click here to join Italian Genealogy Group on Facebook Family Search Log In When you first access the site you will see a screen similar to this one.  I get logged in automatically so your screen may appear a little different.  It only takes a minute to register and you will be on your way. Family Search Records Costanza Saluzzo is my paternal grandmother’s grandmother.  I searched the Antenati for her and found some records, but not all her records show.  So how did I figure that out?  Here is my initial search on the Family Search site.  The first screen is my search and the second screen is the results returned. As you can see, there were 1065 records returned.  That’s an awful lot to parse through, however, since I knew her husband was Luigi Caracciolo and that she was born in 1790 I refined the search.  The refined search returned only 18 records. Only one of these records, the very first one, did I find on the Antenati site.  I would also point out that even if you want to look on the Antenati, Family search is a good first step.  When you click on the record icon on the far right you get the results below.  Which is helpful in and of itself, but can also help narrow down your Antenati search. Clicking on the tree icon will open a pop up window that shows any information connected with the record.  In this case you can see that there are 14 sources.  You can view these sources and correct information on the record. Family Research Centers are available globally.  I suggest you call like I did before you go. One final bit of information is that you can create your tree and it will populate ancestors automatically if it finds matches.  We will get more into this in our next post.

I thought it would be fun to put my  Italian ancestral names in a list.  Please comment if you have a match. Join Italian Roots and Genealogy on Facebook Naples Sorrentino Caracciolo Caracciolo Di Torchiarolo Longo Princi Scafura  Martre Pedatella Pasca Mauiello Genovese Priscolo Cennamo Saluzzo Savino Capece Piscicelli  Piromallo Toritto Mirra Nicoletti Carnevale Solazzo Di Niello Lisa Bruno Urgenti Mirra Florio Urgenti Acquaviva Della Fonti Chiarappa Cheico Lorusso Mirra  Caputo Paparella Tarullo Lamandaloro Mecurio Lucerne Mohr Sonneberg Goldin Amryhn Bircher Schnider Phyffer Grunauer Helmin Feer Weber Fleckenstein Holdermeyer Megan

A while back, we did a post on Italian American’s in WWII,  based on two videos that my uncle Tom made with his grandson.  My good friend John called me after reading in and told me the story about his Grandfather Frank Imperiale who served in WWI.  I knew that both my grandfather’s had to register for the draft after coming to America, but I really hadn’t given much thought to Italian American’s that served in Europe. There’s not a lot of information about Italian Americans in WWI, this is what we have found so far. Frank Imperiale’s family was originally notified that he was KIA and that was reported in the the first edition of the Brooklyn Eagle on Oct 1 1918.  Below is the corrected version of his story from a later edition that same day.  The featured photo at the top is Private Frank Imperiale Click here to join Italian Genealogy Group on Facebook Brooklyn Eagle Oct 1 1918 Medal of Honor recipient Michael ValenteSept 27, 1929 There was one Italian American Medal of Honor recipient Michael Valente.  This is his citation from the National Medal of Honor Museum.   For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy during the operations against the Hindenburg line, east of Ronssoy, France, 29 September 1918. Finding the advance of his organization held up by a withering enemy machinegun fire, Pvt. Valente volunteered to go forward. With utter disregard of his own personal danger, accompanied by another soldier, Pvt. Valente rushed forward through an intense machinegun fire directly upon the enemy nest, killing 2 and capturing 5 of the enemy and silencing the gun. Discovering another machinegun nest close by which was pouring a deadly fire on the American forces, preventing their advance, Pvt. Valente and his companion charged upon this strong point, killing the gunner and putting this machinegun out of action. Without hesitation they jumped into the enemy’s trench, killed 2 and captured 16 German soldiers. Pvt. Valente was later wounded and sent to the rear. Draft Documents of Italian Americans Frank Imperiale My grandfather Ubaldo Sorrentino.  He was not drafted, I suspect because he had 3 children at the time.  Or possibly that he was already 35 years old. Cyndi’s list of WWI records WWI Index ( list of record websites ) Family Search WWI records search Coat of Arms of the Italian Army Alpini Regiment The photo on the left is Mario Luigi Basso from Liguria, who later settled in the US.  He is also in the front row with the hat on his knee.  The Alpini regiment distinguished themselves  fighting Austria’s Kaiserjager and Germany’s Alpenkorps.  Many thanks to Louis Basso for providing these photos. Joseph Muraglia Joseph Muraglia USA Calvary.   He guarded German POW’s and was discharged in 1919.  He became a US citizen in 1923.  Thanks to his daughter Anna for the photos. Naturalization Papers Enlistment Record Discharge

Early in July, I wrote a piece on My True Ancestry.  Here’s an update since I did the upgrade to King, which adds some extra features.  First it gives you a chart that shows your DNA in relation to ancient and current DNA populations.  Second, you can create custom timeline charts.  They do offer a free trial where you can upload your GED from various other companies. Explore your Ancient past using your DNA…   Ancient DNA – Real History 5000 years of history at your fingertips – compare yourself to thousands of ancient DNA samplesfrom real archaeological sites!   Compare yourself with ancient people Direct analysis – find your ancient relatives. Perform DNA breakdowns of 250+ ancient peoples, modern nationalities and ethnicities Here’s  a link to the first post.  My True Ancestry Review. Click here to join our Facebook Group PCA (Principal Component Analysis) is a statistical procedure that lets you visualize relationships in sets of data.It is ideally suited for visualizing genetic distance and relatedness among samples and populations. Your DNA is the red star.Ancient samples appear as dark blue crosses.Modern populations appear as light blue circles.   You can also create custom time lines based on time periods, sample data and CM’s. Here are mine from 3 different time periods.  Based on my dad’s maternal grandmother’s family, which I have been able to trace back to around 500 AD pretty confidently, these all make sense. 5000 BC to 40 BC 40 BC to 1015 AD 1064 AD to 2019 AD These are some answers from My True Ancestry FAQ’s. Samples are retrieved from archaelogical digs (e.g. a tooth from human remains) and the DNA is scanned in a complex process aligning the data with the human genome. Samples which are of high quality can then be processed as Ancient DNA samples. By combining the latest archaeogenetic techniques with powerful admixture algorithms and cloud computing, MyTrueAncestry can accurately compare anyone with a wide variety of Ancient DNA samples. Via data triangulation and clustering, one can be categorized and compared with ancestors separated by thousands of years. Unlike other companies which try to cater to target audiences pre-conceptions about their identity, MyTrueAncestry focuses in accurately determing one’s closest match based on tens of thousands of data samples.