Tuell.Net

Sometimes it seems so strange to me that, when we are gone from this life, all that is left of us are the bits and scraps of paper that carry our name, the photos (the good, the bad and the ugly), and whatever documents that are required by the government.  It is those government documents that become the backbone of genealogical research.  Birth, death, marriage, divorce and property records are priceless. But when it comes to verifying the residence of a person or family in a given location, or tracking the movements of families across and around the country, nothing beats the census.  Through the census images available on Ancestry.com and other sites, I've found family members I didn't know existed.  I've followed my 4th great grandfather, John Rossiter Smith, from Hebron, Conn., to Armenia, Penn., and learned how he and many of his neighbors moved to the same place at the same time around 1833. I would never have been witness to this if I did not have access to the original images. 

That's why I cannot fathom why the federal government has decided not to digitize the current census documents, but instead, to simply do a statistical summary and have the documents destroyed.  This was proposed in 2000 but defeated by tremendous public outcry.

Congress can persuade these agencies to reconsider. Send letters supporting the imaging of the 2010 census forms to:

Rep. Ed Towns
Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Rep. Darrell Issa
Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
B-350 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C, 20515

Senator Tom Carper
Chairman, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security
432 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Senator John McCain
Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government information, Federal Services, and International Security
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

You can also address your concerns to:

Adrienne Thomas
Acting Archivist
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20741-6001

Thomas Messenbourg
Acting Director
U. S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road
Washington, D.C. 20233

Genealogy is such an adventure! And you never know where it will take you.  My paternal grandfather, Vincenzo DiMascio, came to the United States in 1904 from Pescina, a small village in L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy.  The story is that Vincenzo's father became widowed, remarried, and Vincenzo and his brother (who remains nameless to this day) left home - Vincenzo coming to the United States and his brother going to South America. There is virtually no information on his family. From time to time I would ask my father if any of his father's other family members ever came to the U.S. and he'd say no.

Then I found my grandfather and family in the 1930 census on Ancestry.com. A closer look showed a Joe and Anna DiMascio and family just down the road. People I'd never heard of. Too close to be a coincidence, I thought, so I said to my father on the phone next chance I got: "So, Dad, when you were living on the farm in Clarendon, Orleans County, New York, who were those DiMascio's who lived down the street? You know, Joe and Anna and ...?

"Oh", he says, "that was my father's cousin, Joe."  Hmmm ... if I could find out about them, perhaps they might have a bit more information. But, how do you approach people you've never met, and how do you find them?  Thank goodness for Google and the Internet. I searched for each child listed and came up discouraged — until I found Frank and Barbara, son and daughter-in-law of Joe and Anna, in California.

I sent a letter (explaining that I'm not a nut case, providing information about my family) and got an excited phone call in return. One thing led to another and I have family — Linda, daughter of Frank and Barbara — and we are sharing photos and information. (See her christening photo at left).

Then I saw a family tree on Ancestry.com — DeMascio — and met Dave, who is an even closer relative to Linda (and somewhere along the line the spelling of the last name changed!), and now Linda and I have another cousin! But wait, there's more! Dave's grandmother, Helen, is holding Linda in the photo!

My maternal fourth great grandmother is Delight Church (1783-1864), daughter of Samuel Church and Hannah "Polly" Rogers, and wife of John Rossiter Smith. Delight's next older sister was Dierdama Church, who married Daniel Smith (I suspect that Daniel and John Rossiter Smith are related, if not brothers — but that's another adventure). Daniel and Dierdama had a daughter, Phoebe, who married Isaac Dodge Bailey — and one of their descendents, Doug Bailey, answered a surname post I posted quite a while ago. He sent me wonderful photos of Dierdama and Phoebe — and now I have an idea of what Delight might have looked like. And I have a new cousin! It's just so darned exciting!

— Kathy Tuell