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One Wish Granted

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 When I published "From Sassano to 48th and Federal Street" in the first half of 2019 one thing I mentioned I wanted to accomplish in the future was to find my Great Grandfather, Francesco Cavallone's brother Vincenzo family.  Vincenzo was killed by a train on 19 Oct 1911 in Chicago.  He had two boys Joseph (born in Chicago 13 May 1908)  and John (born in Chicago 20 Jan 1911).  Their mother, Filomena LaRosa, returned to Italy with the boys.  At the time I wrote the book the only information I had was the 1924 Passport Application of the two young boys coming back to America. I found one of John Cavallone's grandchildren on Facebook in the first months of 2020.  I filled her and her two sisters in on my discoveries over email and got to chat with them on the phone later that year. Persistence and prayer pay off.   They were kind enough to share their grandparents wedding picture with me.  Below is one of those little boys in the passport application in the 1939 wedding
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The Responsibility of Double Checking Another's Work

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 I never expected to write this entry, but it's important that when we copy other people's genealogy work, we check for accuracy because your work may become the authority and when it is wrong bad information gets passed on geometrically. My case study is Rosa Libretti .  Rosa Libretti is my paternal great grandmother born in Sassano on 10 Dec 1879 and died in Chicago on 22 Aug 1856. The following is the accurate information: While continuing my research on Sassano I found the following, Wrong pictures are included in area of copying incorrect information. I recently decided to focus on the name Rosa Libretti in my research. I located each one born between 1800 and 1899 in Sassano and added then to my tree. Here is also the variation " Anna Rosa Libretti " There were two that I could not add that I found because there was no current way to attached them to another existing family. Rosa Libretti (29 Jul 1880 - 21 Dec 1885) parents Felice Libretti and Concetta di Sta
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Twins of Sassano

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 When you have access to three centuries of genealogy data at your fingertips how do you not want to analyze the data?  One of the first areas I wanted to dive into was Twins.  What families have twins, is there a common ancestor?   Records of twins began in the first year of available record keeping - 1644 This weekend I began the "Twins Analysis."  I've parsed out the twins from the 1700s and 1800s which are found here for the 1700s:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11GJWam0iHpMtqN7Dx4TZMIkSkBFTOudGLBbz85QE5SA/edit#gid=486220950&range=A1:H253 and here for the 1800s: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RiqcfrDEuhWv0KrTPFOD5toaKtWDEn1156ioidpzoLk/edit#gid=10001454&range=A1:H431 In the 1700s there were 84 sets of twins and in the 1800s there were 143 sets of twins with a single triplet birth in 1823. I expect the full analysis process to last several months, expect my report in July. In the meantime check out the links above to watch the data progress! -
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You Never Know Who Might Be Your Family

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I was ten years old when I moved into my new neighborhood July 4th weekend 1975.  I didn't know much back then, it was surviving one year of school after another at the time. But he we were just moved into a Chicago neighborhood from a Chicago suburb of Justice.  The neighborhood was called Wrightwood.  Pretty typical on the southwest side of Chicago - a grid - a block to the North, 79th Street, a corner grocer, a bakery, a library and a bar.  I would frequent the grocer, bakery and library regularly.   A week or so into it and I'm playing in the backyard with my GI Joes, the good ones - 12 inch tall, fuzzy hair and beard and kung-fu grip, and here drives by my first friend of the neighborhood - Don Casey.   Shortly after we hang out at his house a couple blocks away. His mom - Mrs. Casey, notes my last name of "Cavallone" - "I remember Cavallones," she exclaims, "I grew up with Cavallones on Federal Street when I was young.  I'm Italian too." 
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2021 New Year Update

 Though I have been away from the blog for nearly a year, the daily work of the Sassano Project and my personal website, www.sassanochicago.org , continued... All of the church and civil records of Sassano have been indexed back to the mid 1600s!  The original images can be found at  San Giovanni Evangelista , the Family Search website  (free registration required) & Antenati websites  1809-1815 1816-1865 . At www.sassanochicago.org  I have placed a list of twenty-three couples that migrated from Sassano to Chicago with hyperlinks to the respective ancestors pedigree charts! Moving forward Peter, Pasquale and I, as we develop Sassano family trees, go back over the indexes and correct mis-spellings and document errors.  A link to my public Sassano Tree is here and Peter Barbella's is here . I hope to get back here at the blog at least once a week to provide updates, but check back to our respective websites often to see the updates in action. -John
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A New Chapter

Today begins a new chapter in my genealogy quest.  I'm more determined then ever to continue to contribute to my Italian heritage and anyone I can assist.  It's important that we do not lose how we got to now and life is more than just our existence.  It is about those who came before and those that come after.  It is our responsibility to discover and tell stories of our heritage, because the longer we wait, the more history is lost.  If we don't explore,  the path to the past becomes harder to follow for future generations. Just a few hours a week and your story, your family's story, can be told.  We can learn of the trials and successes and benefit. A little over a year ago I discovered Peter Barbella's Sassano Project and with his resources I was able to follow a path to my 7th great grandparents, the earliest recorded Cavallones -  Giovanni Antonio Cavallone (1643-1722) and Vittoria di Raho (1659-1726) and the earliest recorded ancestors Giuseppe Zozzaro (
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