Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz

Ancestors

Daughter of Salvatore John Selvaggio and [private mother (1940s - unknown)]

Profile manager: Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz [send private message]

Biography

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is a Military Veteran.
Served in the United States Army 1981-1988 attaining Sergeant/E5
Trained Soldiers for Desert Storm

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz has Italian Roots.

Descendant of Salvatore Selvaggio.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is a member of the Selvaggio Name Study Project.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is a member of the Ream Name Study Project.

I am officially 60 years old and it's time to revamp my profile and make it useful. Not that I am not still useful in and of myself, but you know what I mean. I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. I think that is very cool, but I was a military brat and my parents divorced when I was still an infant. My mother took me and her pregnant self and moved back to New York, where she was from, and we lived with her parents on Long Island. I joined the US Army in 1981 during an economic recession. I found out I loved the discipline of the military (don't tell anyone) and planned to be a lifer. Alas, that did not work out as I divorced and had four children to care for. Things happened, and then my sister invited me to accompany her on a genealogy road trip. Well, that escalated fast.

Research Interests

I have started a Ream surname project, please join me! The Ream family is one of our most enduring brick walls.

Edward and Clara (Ream) Williams.

This is Clara Ream with her ENGLISH husband, Edward Williams. I stress the English because Clara was Pennsylvania Dutch all the way! They are not known for marrying outside their community, even today! I wondered how they met, but since she was a domestic, working for a family that may have had a home in Philadelphia part of the year, and he was a shoemaker, perhaps he made their shoes. Clara's father was Andrew J. Ream and if you known anything about the Ream family, you would know that everyone was named Andrew J. Ream. My Andrew was a day laborer and lived in Reading, Pennsylvania. There were other Reams living in Reading when he was, but most of them had skills, like tinsmithery, or were professionals, and I can't find a connection, yet.

I have started a Selvaggio surname project, please join me! This is my very own surname. When I divorced I didn't change my name, but when I remarried I wanted it back. I grew up hating my last name because no one could pronouce it. I was embarrassed. Now I even like my first name. The Selvaggios were from Palermo, Sicily as far back as I have been able to trace. Salvatore Selvaggio, my great-grandfather, was probably the first to emigrate to the US. He lived in Brooklyn, New York and worked on the docks all his life. Other researchers had always recorded is date of birth as about 1868. This date matched census records, however, I found his birth registration on FamilySearch among the Italian records that have not been indexed. Interestingly, his was a late registration. His birth was registered in 1868, but he was actually born in 1865. So there you have it! I have found one new fact about an ancestor! I thought I was so smart and made a free space of Italian vs. English words commonly found on these records only to find that someone else already posted it to WikiTree, but now I can't find it.

I have recently adopted a Betts surname project. The Betts family was one of the first I researched. It was already pretty well documented and was a good way learn a little about family research. Now, it seems no one is researching this name and it needs some work. I have yet to get is up and running. I am a direct descendant of Thomas Betts of Guilford and Norwalk (or is that Norwalk and Guilford)? Anyway, my great-grandmother was Emily Ada Betts. She married into the Williams family that was part Ream (see above). She was the second wife of Joseph Williams whose first wife died leaving an infant son. There was also another Betts Family that settled in Long Island, New York. One of the brothers, also named Thomas, lived in Norwalk at the same time as Thomas Betts of Guilford and Norwalk. They were about the same age too.

Projects

There are too many projects and challenges that interest me, but I'll get it together one day!

• 1870 US Census Project (sub-project of the African American Project)
• 55th Massachusetts Volunteers (entering and connecting profiles of Civil War soldiers)
• African American Project (a sub-project of the US History Project)
• Buffalo Soldiers (beginning with those awarded the Medal of Honor)
• Burlington 37 (sub-project of the African American Project)
• Connectors Challenge (monthly challenge in conjunction with the Connectors Project)
• Cowee Tunnel 19 (sub-project of the African American Project)
• Degraw Street Project (personal project based on a neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY)
• Titanic Project (sub-project to the Disasters Project)
• PGM Beyond New England (sub-project of PGM)

Locality Guides

• Arkansas
• Massachusetts
• New York
• Pennsylvania

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is 36% Italian.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is 25% German.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is 14% French.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is 12% English.

Lucy (Selvaggio) Selvaggio-Diaz is 11% Irish.

DNA Confirmations

• Maternal and Paternal relationships are confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Lucy Selvaggio, Ancestry Member: luseaann, and her sister Donna Selvaggio, Ancestry Member: DLS. Their most-recent common ancestors are their parents, Sal Selvaggio and Marilyn Tenny. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA : Full Sibling, based on sharing 2,623 cM across 40 segments.
• Maternal relationship is confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Marilyn Tenny, Ancestry Member: MT and her daughter Lucy Selvaggio, Ancestry Member: luseaann. Their most recent common ancestor is Marilyn Tenny. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA : Parent/Child, based on sharing 3,488 cM across 24 segments.

I'm trying to do some work on the Taranto surname. I think they are from Palermo, like all my other Italian ancestors. I have a new DNA cousin who thinks they are from somewhere else. We are trying to find our connection. She is 92 years old and her grandfather, Carmelo Taranto, was the immigrant. He never talked about his family. He was one of the people who started the Italian Vault in Galveston, Texas. All her other relatives are non-Italian, so it stands to reason that is our connection. I think her grandfather was the cousin of my 2x great-grandmother.

Paternal Surnames

Maternal Surnames

Regions

Dropcaps are neat
They give that traditional book look.

Sources

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