Giuseppe Nicholas Coffarelli 1817-1917

The Coffarelli tree will need a little more roon since I believe I have found another generation--great great great grandparents.

In 1910 and 1915, Nicholas Coffarelli (James Coffarelli's grandfather) lived with his son John's family in Long Island City. He had arrived from Italy when he was probably about 88 years old. Can you imagine making such a change in your life at that age? I suspect perhaps he wasn't in very good health but I don't know too much about that yet. I further suspect his wife had died by this time.

But I had a difficult time tracing Nicholas. I didn't expect he could have lived very much longer and by 1920 he no longer lived with the family. Some extra persistence paid off (thanks to the Italian Genealogical Group and I think I found his death record in January 1917 at the age of "99 years 4 months and 20 days" (making his birthday August 18 1817). He is listed as having been found dead in bed of "chronic myocarditis; arterio sclerosis and general senility". Small wonder.

He is actually listed on the death record as Giuseppe N Coffarelli, and since I'd been looking for Nicholas, it's no wonder it took persistence to find him. Another lesson learned. I should have been a little suspicious since I hadn't found any children named Nicholas anywhere yet. Family research is certainly teaching me many lessons!

Anyhow, back to the new added branch on the family. Guiseppe N Coffarelli's parents are listed as John and Isabella Malizasso! Welcome to the family John and Isabella! Isabella Coffarelli is a very pretty name. Another clue that this might be the right Coffarelli is that he named his son after his own father, as was typical for Italian families in those days.  It provides a clue that "your" John (great grandfather) may be the eldest son in his family. 

A new branch on the tree is always a cause for celebration and a new surname to boot is a terrific bonus. I recently bought some old but very beautful Christmas tree ornaments and finding Isabella Malizasso Coffaerelli is like hanging one of those pretty old ornaments-- a pretty sparkling ornament sitting in an antique shop just waiting to be discovered. And you always know there are more out there!

Social Networking before Facebook

I was very surprised to find my grandfather Francis P. "Weenie" Flynn on Facebook!  I don't think many people my age can say they found their grandfathers on a social networking site.  Made me wonder what he would have thought of Facebook.....I expect he would have taken it in stride the way he seemed to do with everything else.  At least, that's how it appeared to my young eyes. 

But social networking has been active for ages and ages.  Remember the party line we had on Dennison Road in Silver Creek NY in the 1960s?  That seems to me to be the ultimate precursor to Facebook.  You were connected to others (although not entirely by choice) who could monitor your activities anonymously by listening into the phone conversations.  Facebook stalking in its infancy.

Local newspapers, though, take the cake for hotbeds of social sharing.  You would never find such enlightening and entertaining information today in newsprint (if you can even find newsprint at all).  I am very grateful for such news flashes as they help build a more robust picture of our ancestors and their lives.

John Nevins is our great great grandfather (Henry's father).  This appeared in the Ellicottville Post Wed Oct 5 1898 and brings to mind the gigunda wind turbines they are bringing into Gloucester Massachusetts these days.  Everything old is new again.

Mary is Henry's next oldest sibling.  This appeared in the Ellicottville Post Wed June 14 1905 and pre-dates the All American Girls' Professional Baseball League ("There's no crying in baseball!") by nearly 40 years.  Nice that everyone in town knew about the black eye.

So, just to prove this stuff didn't just happen in Western New York, this is from the Boston Daily Globe Aug 2 1920.  Mrs. Ida Ryan, aged 27 and good-looking was the wife of Richard Ryan (Grampie Paul Ryan's brother).  This would have been our father's aunt.  All of 4'7" and 85 pounds, she could have blown into the harbor, but apparently she eventually returned home.  I do not yet know "the rest of the story" but there are all sorts of implications in this article:  "Quarrels with parents or relatives, anxiety to dress in better fashion that their pay envelopes will allow, love affairs, unrest and plain wanderlust are given by the police as primary cause in most cases".  Sometimes I wonder if we've really come very far in cases where young women disappear.
**I have just discovered that Ida Ryan was owner/manager of a tea room by 1940**  I hope she was happy.

Such articles don't appear anymore, but I wonder if those Facebook posts will be available to our descendants?

Marguerite (Innocence) Coffarelli DiSabto

This is the tale of one of those family history discoveries where you just want to dope-slap yourself for being so stupid.  And this particular 1910 census record has already provided interesting surprises in it and is now yielding another.

In the 1900 census, the John Coffarelli family lived at 75 Fifth Street.  The household included head of house John (your great grandfather) who lists himself as a laborer, his wife Rosa and children Margaret (the eldest and only born in Italy); Mary, Elizabeth, Theresa, Lena, Joseph, Phillip, Lucy and Samuel (your grandfather whom we know as James). 

In the 1910 census, the same Coffarelli family lived at the same address but by now Rosa had died and the household included:  John, Elizabeth, Tessie, Lena, Joseph, Phillip, Louise, Samuel, Nicholas (father to John so your great great grandfather) and cousin Michael Pinto.

I had become obsessed with tracking down your grandfather James' siblings so as to demonstrate that indeed there were (and are) lots of Coffarellis out there for you to meet.  In some ways this was no small task given what this family seemed to do with first names by changing them seemingly at will.  But I did pretty well.

Going up the line from James youngest to oldest, I found that Louise married Michael Barra and I met her grandson.  Phillip apparently never married.  Joseph married but had no children.  Lena married Anthony Fierro and I do believe there are children in this family.  Tessie became a nun.  Elizabeth apparently never married and was known as Christine when she died.  Mary (who was not in the house in 1910) had married John Orabell and had at least one child who died nearly at birth.  But I was having a really hard time with the oldest Margaret.

From James' newspaper obituary I knew that Margaret was Mrs. M. Disabto.  A great deal of fruitless searching for her left me frustrated but even more determined.  Online I located a Disabto family Marco and Innocence and the family tree listed Innocence as Innocence Coffarelli before marriage.  When I tracked that family down, I found them living at 75 Fifth Avenue IN THE SAME HOUSE as John and the remaining siblings.  Look carefully at the census record and there they are right below cousin Michael Pinto.

I had overlooked that this family was living in the same house.  Most maddeningly I had recognized the Disabto name and figured this was how Margaret met her husband because the families were neighbors.  Duh.  They ARE the family.  Margaret is apparently Innocence.  I sent away for the two oldest of her children's birth records.  They each list a Coffarelli for the mother's maiden name but not quite the same first names:  Innocentia and Enogensia--I figure that's close enough to feel comfortable in saying this Disabto family are your Coffarellis.  And they were right there all the time!!!  Right under my nose just waiting to be recognized.

Innocence/Margaret was Marco/Mark's second wife and it appears he died around 1923.  She may have died around 1955 but this isn't confirmed yet. 

This family was pretty loosey-goosey with first names it seems.  It wasn't until I got the bigger picture that I realized that and can now make it part of my research strategy.  I feel like I've gathered up all those siblings and got them accounted for nicely.  There you go!  A whole bunch of new cousins for you to consider.  And they are right here in front of us just waiting to be recognized.

Nevins family of Ellicottville NY

Recently I've found some really cool newspaper articles that are helping to fill in the pictures of the lives of our Nevins ancestors.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing them.  It is so COOL finding this stuff and I've been wasting way too time on this--but, honestly it's not wasted and it could never be too much time to find these tidbits.

Marriage announcement for our great grandparents Henry and Caroline Nevins as it appeared in the Ellicottville paper The Post Wed Sept 25 1901.  Notice they were married on a weekday morning.

John Nevins is Henry's father and our great great grandfather.  I am wondering how innovative this was or perhaps not at all for the time.  From The Post Wed Oct 5 1898.

I love this one!  Mary with the black eye is Henry's older sister.  One of our contemporary Nevins cousins remembers meeting her and says she was a "flamboyant dresser".  Our grandmother said Mary became an RN later in life and lived with her brother after their parents died.  Sounds like a character I should be researching further, especially as I don't have her death information yet.  From The Post June 14 1905.

And, even though it's pretty hard to pick out my favorite little tidbit, the following is certainly in the top 3:

Christopher Fisher is our great great grand uncle (Julia Nevins brother and Henry's uncle).  Looks like he lost his goose Christmas night and was finally anxious enough to put an ad in the Ellicottville American Union sometime around Jan 15 1862.  Makes you wonder if the goose ran off to join the Union Army. 

These articles were obtained from FultonHistory.com .  This is a wonderful resource especially for people with ties in small town New York. 

Guiseppe (Joseph) Disabto 1920-1943

Marguerite (Innocencia) Coffarelli, your grandfather James' oldest sister, married Marco Disabto (or Disabato) and they lived for a time with her father John.  Marco died around 1924 leaving her with 8 children.  I continue to work on her story especially trying to determine when she died and where she is buried.  She may have died around 1950, but I don't have that confirmed yet. 

This afternoon I decided to take this task on just to see what came up, and--boy, did it pay off with a very interesting story I found using FultonHistory.com (an absolutely great resource)

This soldier is a cousin to your mother and her brother Uncle Johnny.  After he died and was awarded a Purple Heart and Silver Star, his mother waited FIVE long years before he was returned to native soil.

This article makes it seem as though this was kind of normal procedure although today it seems pretty appalling and cruel.  But I think that reflects the cultural attitude of the mid forties during wartime.  The papers are full of enthusiastic articles such as this one (which kind of breaks my 2014 heart)

These articles are full of tidbits of information I think I might be able to use to round out the story of this Disabto family. I re-learned (the hard way) that many times these families were born with Italian first names which were used in some cases, but used the more Americanized names in other cases.  This Joseph Disabto also has records listed under Guiseppe Disabato.  This family is very challenging for the number of ways the surname is spelled or misspelled.  In addition, first names can be somewhat loosey-goosey as well.  Most of the time, the Italian version of Joseph is spelled Giuseppe but in this case, appears in the records as Guiseppe.  No small wonder I'm having trouble with this family.  I feel certain there are many more gems waiting to be discovered about this group of cousins.