Hi, Robynne! How are you?
Hi, Pip! To pronounce my last name all you have to do is say it like this "Fehr-ree-oh-low". This YouTube video can help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzXFq_m9hQ0
Everything is on YouTube these days. Everything. Even...stuff you don't want to see.
For this next bit, you're going to need a scorecard. You ready? There'll be a quiz later. I'm not filling in one column at a time. I have a crazy amount of DNA matches in the 3rd to 4th cousin bracket. And some in first and first cousin once removed and second. Almost everyone is on Ancestry. Check this out.
My grandmother Olynpia's line goes back as far as it does thanks to my third cousin, Raymalene Perry. Her line descends from my grandma Olympia's uncle Rocco. Rocco had eleven kids! He and his brothers Giuseppe and Pasquale came to America with their sister, Rosina. She also had a bit of help from another cousin of ours on Ancestry called GesualdoGenie. She is a distant cousin of ours. Like 7th, I wanna say.
The Forgiones also came to America. My great-grandmother Clementina had a brother named Pasquale and two people that I know of descend from him.
My great-aunt, Nicolina also did a DNA test and that matched me with a Coppola descendant on Ancestry. That would be her great-aunt "Zia"'s descendants. Her great aunt was Concetta Coppola-Papatola and she had a large family.
I'm also connected to the Tedesco family from Woburn, Mass. I still need to work on how that goes.
Not to be outdone, my mom's side is well established thanks to sites like Nosorigines, this site and several others. Records from Mass are easy to come by so it was a snap tracing things back. On my dad's side I just have to talk to Italy or consult with stuff Raymalene dug up.
I have a ton of matches on my mom's side as well from the same generation. Everyone has been helpful and we solved quite a few mysteries.
What's funny is that a lot of the matches I have are people who descend from people who were at or were invited to my parents' wedding. My grandfathers wanted to make sure everyone was there on the Italian side and on the French Canadian side.
So, it was easy to contact everyone. I still have other matches I have to place. I know where most go. I don't know where others go. I built the tree up and DNA confirmed from several matches. Some people were obviously distant relatives but it still worked.
I have 29 people in a Google doc spreadsheet and that helped me DNA confirm everyone. I do have matches that overlap because like I said Rocco had a lot of kids:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carrabis-3
And Antoine Legault had 12:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Legault-603
My mom remembers a few of the Legault kids including her grandmother, Henrietta.
Everyone just had big, BIG families and eventually people took DNA tests. Some people haven't popped up in DNA matches, though. Ah well.
I have been busy, yes. And hey talking to Eddie isn't that bad. I have fun. =D
The DNA confirmation is probably gonna stay like this for a good while, though. Almost everyone is on AncestryDNA like I said. Just gonna be a trickle from here on out.
At least I used all of this to help a 4th cousin who is related via Lucie Cadran's sister, Josephine find her link to me. That was pretty awesome.