You Never Know Where Clues Will Take You!
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
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Church and Smith and Rogers--oh my!
Kathy, you and I have a lot to share. You have connected me up with the Silas Church family, but I also have Eliza Conner who, I strongly suspect, was related to Daniel Conner who m. Lydia Church, a sister of my long-lost Fannie Church. Eliza succeeded Fannie as Nathaniel Hooker's second wife.
Then there are the Smiths. When I located Samuel, my first Smith in this line, he was a settler in Huntington, Huntington IN. He was married to my ancestor, Amanda Sterling, who was half his age. He had then taken her to the ends of the earth (Indiana), where she bore him many children in rapid succession, then promptly died. All I have of Amanda (the name of our eldest daughter, though we didn't know about this earlier Amanda when we named her) is her little Bible with her inscription on the inside front cover. Very precious and very sad.
I now know that Amanda's family hailed from Bucks County PA, and Samuel Smith was likely from the same region. I have not found his exact family, but I have found some candidates in nearby counties in PA. It would not surprise me at all to find that Samuel's Smith family was connected with the Smiths you are looking for.
The Sterlings are a more interesting family than I had anticipated, as they were personally connected in PA with at least one Founding Father, plus other early notables. Levi Sterling, Amanda's grandfather, was a Rev War vet who has now been recognized by the DAR. Once that happened, the Sterling Family Association finally(!) figured out who he was and connected him up with other Sterlings. You can see him in their database online.
Some of the best discoveries in my quick tour of Fannie's birth family shown in your database relate to geographical clues that I couldn't figure out (my bad). For example, I went crazy trying to locate the "right" Bennington, as my family had it located in New York State. Well, yes, there still a Bennington near the eastern edge of Lake Erie, and since the Fannie and Nathaniel stopped off in Bennington on their journey to settle at the western edge of Erie, I made the logical but erroneous guess that that was the Bennington I was looking for. And so it went, with many more "logical" but wrong conclusions regarding Fannie's birth place and family history.
Oh . . . and there are the Rogers. I knew they had to be connected to Fannie and Nathaniel Hooker because they sent one son to Hartford to apprentice to a Rogers who was a silversmith there. It all fit--no apple on the CT Hooker family tree ever fell far--but there were gaps that I couldn't fill. Now I think I will be able to do so!
Thank you so much for this great Christmas gift!
Your likely cousin,
Maureen
Church and Smith and Rogers--oh my!
Kathy, you and I have a lot to share. You have connected me up with the Silas Church family, but I also have Eliza Conner who, I strongly suspect, was related to Daniel Conner who m. Lydia Church, a sister of my long-lost Fannie Church. Eliza succeeded Fannie as Nathaniel Hooker's second wife.
Then there are the Smiths. When I located Samuel, my first Smith in this line, he was a settler in Huntington, Huntington IN. He was married to my ancestor, Amanda Sterling, who was half his age. He had then taken her to the ends of the earth (Indiana), where she bore him many children in rapid succession, then promptly died. All I have of Amanda (the name of our eldest daughter, though we didn't know about this earlier Amanda when we named her) is her little Bible with her inscription on the inside front cover. Very precious and very sad.
I now know that Amanda's family hailed from Bucks County PA, and Samuel Smith was likely from the same region. I have not found his exact family, but I have found some candidates in nearby counties in PA. It would not surprise me at all to find that Samuel's Smith family was connected with the Smiths you are looking for.
The Sterlings are a more interesting family than I had anticipated, as they were personally connected in PA with at least one Founding Father, plus other early notables. Levi Sterling, Amanda's grandfather, was a Rev War vet who has now been recognized by the DAR. Once that happened, the Sterling Family Association finally(!) figured out who he was and connected him up with other Sterlings. You can see him in their database online.
Some of the best discoveries in my quick tour of Fannie's birth family shown in your database relate to geographical clues that I couldn't figure out (my bad). For example, I went crazy trying to locate the "right" Bennington, as my family had it located in New York State. Well, yes, there still a Bennington near the eastern edge of Lake Erie, and since the Fannie and Nathaniel stopped off in Bennington on their journey to settle at the western edge of Erie, I made the logical but erroneous guess that that was the Bennington I was looking for. And so it went, with many more "logical" but wrong conclusions regarding Fannie's birth place and family history.
Oh . . . and there are the Rogers. I knew they had to be connected to Fannie and Nathaniel Hooker because they sent one son to Hartford to apprentice to a Rogers who was a silversmith there. It all fit--no apple on the CT Hooker family tree ever fell far--but there were gaps that I couldn't fill. Now I think I will be able to do so!
Thank you so much for this great Christmas gift!
Your likely cousin,
Maureen
Dierdama
Hi Kathy,
I've been thinking. You mentioned that Delos was a name mentioned by someone. I wonder if that was an adopted name? Although not given, used just the same. And with the other greek sounding names in the Rogers lineage, it stands to resaon that he might have been known by Delos. So I am not giving up on our cousinship. Also, I e-mailed Elizabeth Bailey Torres and got no reply. Maybe she just didn't know who I am. Great site!
Doug
Gave me a clue
Thank you for giving me a clue about Dierdama Church Smith's parents! I am a descendant of Phebe Smith and Isaac Dodge Bailey. I found your post through a short Google search.
Thank you again,
Elizabeth Bailey Torres
Seattle, WA
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