Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations...

Question

Rest in Poetry, Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1919-2021.

Answer 1

My father had the good fortune of meeting Ferlinghetti briefly some decades ago when he was at City Lights to meet Nancy Peters for a book he was helping to work on. Very sorry to hear of his death- I may take a look at & build somewhat on his tree.

Comments

Thanks so much Thomas!

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Amazingly, his wife Selden Kirby-Smith was already on wikitree and her grandfather was a Confederate general.  So Lawrence will show as connected by tomorrow.

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Yeah, that's fantastic!

Having taken a look at both sides of Ferlinghetti's family, I'm afraid there's not much to go on with his father's side. I've found a couple of articles from Italian sites about his father's family having been traced back quite a ways in Gussago, Brescia, but sadly I can't seem to find any records to that extent that have been digitized. I managed to trace his mother's paternal line quite a ways, as the family as a whole was rather notable (the wife of the man who founded the Monsanto corporation was an heiress of the branch of the same family that settled in Louisiana), though it doesn't look like any other branch of the family has been put here on WikiTree yet. If I get the chance, I may record some more of the Monsanto family here for future researchers & the like.

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Thanks for all your hard work, Thomas! I don't know how to access Italian records.  I was wondering if you could take a look at Bernardo Bertolucci. I don't have any Italian sources for him and his family. He is one of the connection anchors this week.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bertolucci-8

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Yes, I can take a look! I already found an Italian article with his paternal grandparents' names, so I'll see if I can trace them any further. I'm no expert at Italian genealogy, but I'm somewhat familiar with the various primary digital repositories, so we'll see how far I can get with that.

Generally, once the online records run out, the local State Archives & Catholic Parishes become the primary source of information; perhaps I'll make a note on any profiles in question as to where one can find that contact info.

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I've had some trouble finding proper records, BUT- Attilio Bertolucci wrote a book of poetry, entitled La Camera da Letto ("The Bedroom,") in which he talks about many members of his family. I've acquired a PDF of it, & will see what I can extrapolate from it combined with records