Yesterday would have been my Grandpa Anthony Marrone's 105th birthday. I never knew this grandpa since he died a few weeks after I was born. One can only imagine how emotional that time was for my mother. She had a newborn, her father had died, and on top of everything else, her washer stopped working. I used to tease my Grandma Ruth Marrone that I missed grandpa on both sides. I wasn't in heaven when he died, and I was too little to know him during the short time we shared on earth.
Although he was born in the USA he was full-blooded Italian. His father was an Italian immigrant from the small comune of Lucito. His mother was the daughter of two Italian immigrants. One of them was also from Lucito, and the other was from the same Italian Province but a different comune.
They were all contadini, poor sharecroppers. They were part of the large immigration of Italians between 1876-1930. During this time more than 4.5 million Italians immigrated to the United States.1 A large portion of them came from southern Italy like my ancestors.
My Grandma Marrone died in 2018. She lived thirty-eight years past her husband, Anthony. That is a long time to live without your spouse. Even though she lived to almost ninety-seven, she managed to stay in her own home until about the last six months. After she died, their home was sold to a young couple that liked projects and flipped the house. When they redid the kitchen they found this:
The remains of a heart and "A+R" about the faucet. What a sweet reminder of my grandparents' love and the memories they made in their house. So, happy birthday grandpa. I am glad you and grandma are spending your birthdays together after such a long time apart.
People often wonder how they can contribute to their family history. They often feel like research is not their niche so there is nothing for them to do. I often hear things like, "My Aunt Sue has found everyone on our tree." or "I don't even know where to start looking."
There are many areas to family history. Yes, research is definitely one of those areas, but there are so many other ways to participate.
Record memories like the one I shared above.
Digitize and label family pictures.
Document the artifacts that have been passed on from family member to family member throughout the years.
Interview family, especially the older generations. Record their memories before they are gone.
Maybe you have an older family member that has boxes and boxes of family history. Start to go through them to see what has already been digitized on personal devices or on websites like Ancestry and FamilySearch.
Take pictures of places that are significant to your family and then record why it is important. You can record it through writing, audio, or video.
Read the family stories that have already been recorded and then teach them to your family.
Write your own history. No one will be able to write it the way you can. Contrary to what you might think, someone will want to read about you someday!
So even if you do not have the desire or knowledge to research your family history, there are still ways that you can contribute and help. Recording memories is a large part of family history. There are so many of my ancestors that I wish I could read about their personal experiences. I cannot make those magically appear, but I can help record the memories that still exist.
Lynn Nelson, A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Italian Ancestors: How to find and record your unique heritage, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Betterway Books, 1997), 22.
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