After collecting so many records of my family and even trying to find out where they were born, I recently acquired some birth records from Chicago.

Guess what! The 4th child of my great Aunt had the place of birth of my Great Aunt. Lercara Friddi! This was also given on the 6th and 7th child as well.

Who knew I would have to collect, what I thought was not really necessary but nice to know, that I would finally have this information. It would have certainly have been easier had I sent for these in the first place.

Just thought I would share this tidbit.

lilbees

Congrats on your find. Those are the best kind...when you werent really expecting much, but ended up with a treasure.

Eleven, thank you. You have been such a help and an inspiration in doing my research. The tips you have offered over time has been really useful.

You must be really blessed to be able to decipher all those records.

I certainly admire you and your wonderful work and do appreciate what you do.

lilbees

Thank you so much. I enjoy working with the records, especially the italian records..or, italians in american records.

The best advice I can give, after working with so many records is..there is a very high chance of your person being in the records, only you arent finding them because of spelling errors of both the person who took the information and the person keying the information. If I wanted to find my person, I would use different spellings...substituting every vowel with another, and paying special attention to the first letter of the name. An L can look like an S, etc. Because of one letter, especially a first letter of the surname..you might never find your person..unless you keep substituting letters.

I can honestly say..that at least 25% of these records have the surnames spelled incorrectly.

As far as deciphering the writing. Anybody can do this. The more you do..the better at it you become. But, there will always be those names..that you have to guess at. However, someone who is bound and determined to find their ancestor..will....if they dont give up.

You know, I always tell people who are starting out, do your American (or wherever you live) research first. This is exactly why. You never know what clues you might find. And yet, sometimes I can honestly say, I am the most guilty of not taking my own advice. Especially when I get so caught up in something overseas and I forget to follow all the "rules" to basic genealogy 101... lol.

You ladies have both done well. Lilbees, I am so pleased at your progress!

Eleven. I also admire all your work and appreciate so much all the advice you share here with us.

Thanks Nuccia, I guess I will look farther into the "extended branches" to learn more. I was only worrying about direct lines during this time. You were sure right. Look into the U.S. records first!

As if I am not already addicted to all this, I now have a ton of family to look into.

Geez! and I only thought there were only a few of us in our family. Boy was I wrong.

lilbees

Ya know, I dont know why, I didnt go for the censuses first. I did for my husbands family, but I was so anxious to get my mothers parents..that they were first on my list to find coming here. I believe it was probably because, I knew the town of origin for our fathers, and needed to know that info for the mothers. Once I got that info..I didnt even start with mothers, in italy..I did my husbands father...then mine. Both of our fathers were born in italy, our mothers were born here. Also, at that time, they didnt have the records at the fhl for our mothers. They do now, but one set is useless to me because of when they start. I need info prior to that date.