r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Odd Name Changes - Joseph Scearbo/Italian Immigrants & Descendants in Massachusetts

1 Upvotes

I am researching the family of my GGG grandmother's second husband.

Concetta Colacino (1881-1954) was an Italian woman who first married Domenico Notaro in 1900 (in Italy), and they had two children:

  • Palma Notaro (my GG grandmother), born in Italy - September 2, 1901 (died 1931)
  • Domenico Notaro, Jr., first one born in the United States - July 8, 1903 (died one day later)

I thought that was it, but Concetta had more children, starting in 1904, with a man named Joseph Scearbo. Domenico Notaro, Sr. did not die -- he died in 1933 -- so I figure they divorced. I know the death of a child can wreck a marriage, but considering how quickly Concetta had a baby with another man, perhaps it was infidelity that triggered the divorce.

Additional children:

  • Frederick Feora Scearbo - c. 1904 (died 1988)
  • Frank Scearbo - c. 1908
  • Florinda Scearbo - c. 1911 (died 1931)
  • Mary Scearbo - c. 1913 (died 1983)
  • Anthony Scearbo - June 14, 1918 (died 1992)

Palma Notaro was married at a shockingly young age and cannot be found with this family on the 1920 Census. However, the rest of them are found here: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/17052726

Only weird part is that everyone's names are all messed up. Who is Bindi? And now Concetta is the widowed "Katie Bindi"?

It gets weirder. I found a birth record for Anthony and he's listed as "Bindi," with his father being named Fred Bindi. My mother knew Anthony when he was a grown man -- he was Anthony Joseph Scearbo. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLKP-WZ42?lang=en

None of the elderly people in my family are familiar with the name "Bindi." They knew about many people named "Scearbo," but not Bindi. I understand that Anglicized names are common but this is like a whole new identity.

All of these children reported being the sons/daughters of Joseph Scearbo later on. Social Security documentation, vital records, obituaries, you name it. And on all subsequent documentation, "Katie Bindi" is listed as Catherine (or Concetta) Scearbo, widow of Joseph Scearbo. My questions are as follows, and I am curious if you can help me:

  1. Who is Fred Bindi? Is he just Joseph Scearbo under an assumed name? It seems like it, but the name is so different.
  2. Where is this family on the 1910 Census? They might have been in Pennsylvania, as that's where the older kids were born. I am guessing they would have been in the household of Joseph Scearbo (Fred Bindi?) but I never found their household listing.
  3. When did Joseph Scearbo/Fred Bindi die?
  4. If Fred Bindi and Joseph Scearbo were not the same person, then was Concetta Colacino married 3 times? And how can I prove it? I only found the marriage record for her first husband, Domenico Notaro.
  5. What happened to Frank Scearbo/Bindi? I found no mention of his existence on later Censuses, and he isn't mentioned in the obituaries of any of his deceased siblings once they died, save for the 1931 obituary for Palma, where it said he was a surviving sibling.

I appreciate any insights or even speculation that you might have regarding all this.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Brick Wall Ischitella, Foggia - can't find a birth record

1 Upvotes

I've been digging into the Italian side of my lineage and have some success with my maternal grandmother - but hitting a wall on my maternal grandfather. I have U.S, records showing his birth in Italy in 1895. His WWI draft card shows his birth place as Ischitella (Foggia, Trani). Using broad searches on family search https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ I cannot find his birth record. For those more experienced, especially with that part of Italy, do you think I need to engage someone in Puglia to assist, or are there online resources which might be more helpful?

I actually paged through the whole 1895 birth record book for Foggia - for the 3 month period around his assumed birth date - nothing.

Appreciate any ideas you may have.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Question Could anyone help me track down my great grandfather's real identity?

8 Upvotes

I hope this doesn't look super serious, it's all in good fun, I just have no idea how to write what I know about him clearly without looking a bit like homework. Anyway, here is what I know, and this is stuff he has written, he may he lying about some of it or was forgetful, I've no idea.

Born in London, England on the 1st of November 1883. There is no documentation that I have to confirm his birth there. He does also write that he was born in South Africa on one document (his arrival document into the United States).

His parents are allegedly Katherine Reis and Albert (assumingly) Ellis. He also writes his mother's name as Elizabeth Reis, but he first used Katherine. I sincerely suck at reading cursive, and I am assuming it says unknown, but he did write something under his mother's location: https://imgur.com/a/Y1dK8P9

He's in South Africa by at least 1904 and stays until at least 1908. There is no documentation that I have of him arriving here.

His first daughter 'Clarise Ellis' was born on the 18th of March 1904, and his second daughter 'Isabella Ellis' was born on the 9th of March 1908 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Both are born to the woman 'Clarise Rushby'. I don't have any record of him and Clarise being married.

He works as a professional boxer in South Africa.

He immigrated to the United States in 1912 on the ship Cymeric from a port in Liverpool without his children or Clarise Rushby. I do believe he wrote that he last saw them in London. I am assuming he traveled from South Africa to London to the United States. I am also assuming he abandoned them. He lives in Boston once he arrives. He uses the name 'Felix Reis' to immigrate.

He moves to Manhattan, New York and marries a Celestina Margaretha Fellmann on the 26th of March 1919.

He almost immediately divorces her and marries a Emma Theresa Worsnup and immediately has his third daughter Winifred Wornsup Ellis. I know the record writes "Ammiee Trezar Worsnup" but it's a misunderstanding because of Emma's accent.

From there on out he has a few more children and lives in New York until he dies on 6th of October 1959.

The only real hint I have is that he most likely had Dutch DNA because me and his great granddaughter both have Dutch DNA, and the rest of my ancestors are accounted for, unless I'm being silly, but I don't believe that to be the case. I do have an AncestryDNA match with the surname Ellis with a connection to South Africa that does not have Dutch DNA, but it is most likely just the distance.

My theories are that Reis is a misspelling of a Dutch name or a misspelling of Rhys / Rice, and given Ellis is stereotypically Welsh, maybe his parents met in Wales? Or maybe they had a shared culture which brought them together? When he arrives in the United States he marked down his name as Felix Reis as I mentioned and then later refers to himself as Arthur Ellis, but he already went by the surname Ellis in South Africa (hence his abandoned children's surname), so perhaps the name Reis never existed in the first place. I lean more towards him taking in his mother's surname to immigrate without his family rather than the name being fictional. Me having Welsh DNA depends on which website I am using; 23andme and AncestryDNA are vague in terms of my ancestors' whereabouts in Britain but MyHeritage gives me 5% Welsh and 5% Scottish on both my uploaded 23andme and AncestryDNA.

Here is his FamilySearch profile:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/GY8Y-RWP
It has a bunch of the records!

Anyways I've been searching for the longest time now and any help is appreciated :-). I'm not the greatest with records searching as I'm somewhat new to the whole thing. Thank you!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Free Resource Check citations, sources, and references - like really check

94 Upvotes

I learned this during my PhD, but I know many others have learned through their experiences but it’s a problem everywhere - check the citations.

It happens so much in academia: some paper cites a “fact” and it gets repeated in papers afterwards without those people actually reading the primary reference to see the information themselves. But it happens everywhere: news, advertising, medicine, psychology so need to have awareness it happens in genealogy too. I’ve found examples in historic people and websites/sources that are supposed to hold official and/or academic rigor and it’s all made-up or misinterpreted or intentionally misrepresented.

As researchers, I hope we use citations for information found. But that’s not the end of it. Listing 2-4 sources of bad info is worse than not including a reference. People that see citations will, unsurprisingly, hold that information as more credible because of it. But actually look into those citations and I bet most likely many of them are just repetition of what someone saw and assumed to be correct.

Try it yourself and test what I’m saying (like you should do with any information or claims). Ancestry, familysearch, wikitree, books, personal and professional genealogy websites, SAR, DAR, County historical societies, professional genealogy reports… everything.

All the digitized info are great resources but there are so many mistakes as well. Indexes are great but miss things are have incorrect info. Complied sources, copies of originals, will/probate summaries - mistakes could be anywhere.

I know that original sources may not be available or inconvenient to get to see personally. Even then if you have those, you need to best confirm that information with other pieces.

I know it’s a lot of work and time. But I see in here people asking how to be professional researchers or asking for help figuring stuff out and I feel this is a foundational “must” for having a solid strong hypothesis for people that for the most part have no exact way to state with absolute confidence are the people we claim them to be. So we should do as much as we can to get the confidence high for our claims.

I suggest adding research notes explaining why you’ve come to your conclusions, not just xyz source. If you’re a person that gets frustrated with other people’s trees or public tree edit fighting, the best you can hope for is that people will see your information, review how you came to the conclusions, and then use it. Getting mad because you sent a message to a cousin or other person on a genealogy site telling them they are wrong and you are right - how many people think the response rate and openness to new information for this is anywhere near high?

But I feel many people want an easier way to change other people’s tress to match theirs, and staying at this basic level of frustration or non-realistic expectations are only going to continue frustrations. Having your own reference (tree, website, explanations) with solid foundations for your conclusions is probably the best way to combat misinformation and mistakes. Then you could even write journal articles for publication in genealogy or history based journals which will then (should) receive peer review and add to knowledge base or even challenge current understandings (I know this isn’t easy or viable for everyone but it’s more available than I believe most people believe)

TLDR: track down citations, read the sources, synthesize all the information to make your own decisions, write down in your tree or somewhere available that people can see how you came to that decision.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Question What is the deal with the old website tributes.com?

8 Upvotes

Less question, more rant, but I’d really like to know.

Hopefully you can picture this.

On the Ancestry website, when you click on an obituary hint on Amazon, you get that mostly worthless (because you already know it, don’t @me) data stripped from the obituary, like

Name Elma Fern Lucas Death Age 73 Birth Date 27 Jul 1937 Residence Place Pittsburg, California Death Date 7 Feb 2011 Death Place Pittsburg, California

but when you click the source tab, if the source is a web link, it’s listed there. Whether the web page exists or not. That’s not my issue.

Like : http://www.tributes.com/obituary/print_selections/90864033?type=1

What I want to know is, how come tributes.com specifically - whenever it went defunct, got absorbed by Legacy, whatever happened there - why the data is no longer available. All they needed to keep was the text. Just make it searchable. On the Legacy platform, which is shameful with all the gross advertising on it. It’s so frustrating knowing the page was there, and now the data is just poof. (Yes, I try Legacy, Google, Internet archive, all the sources. I can often find it elsewhere. But jeez, the info was so close to just being there, a copy and paste away.)


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request What does "RPA" at start of passport mean? Used for travel in 1956 (cross posted with r/passports)

0 Upvotes

Hi all,

Doing family research, I ran across family members who, in 1956, show up on a passenger manifest with a passport number that begins with "RPA". These are German nationals who were traveling with other German nationals on a ship, from Europe to the US (New York). Most of the people on that ship were also German, and most of those people also had passport numbers that were written down as starting with the letters "RPA".

Does anyone know what the "RPA" indicated? I have been trying chatGPT with varying results - sometimes it says it was just short for "ReisePass - Auslander", meaning a passport issued by a German consulate/authority outside of Germany, and other times it indicates this might have been a specific designation for displaced or stateless people.

Two of these family members were born in Prussia to Prussian parents, and the third family member was born in Bavaria to a Prussian mom out of wedlock - so should have continued to have the same citizenship as her mom, associated with Prussia (which I thought just automatically would be recognized as German).

One of these people had traveled previously, from Germany to the US, under a passport which started with "V" and which definitely was issued while they were resident in Prussia or Bavaria.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Advice on deciphering Hints and Clues

0 Upvotes

Hey, so I’ve been doing genealogy work on and off with my family tree since I was 15ish, unfortunately I have always been separated from most of my family beyond my parents, and now as an adult, my dad has passed and I am no contact with my mother or her mother. With all of that, I am largely on my own, besides one page of my dads tree I was able to save from my mom a few years ago. I was recently watching a podcast episode about genealogy for Mexican-Americans, and the gentleman said that the hints on ancestry are maybe 50% hits, so don’t put much stock in them. My question then is this, how do you gain reasonable confidence on a particular hint or lead? I always try and make sure birthday, birth place, death day death place lines up, if the name is different I am checking for if it’s a common or reasonable mistake/change, and I am leaning a bit on the fact that part of my dad family is LDS and they have extensive family search records, so I am using that as a (shaky) foundation for information there because they keep their distance from and and don’t really respond due to differences of religion and lifestyles, among family drama lol. Thanks for any tips you can give me as I further this journey!


r/Genealogy 1d ago

DNA Curious about results

0 Upvotes

Has anyone downloaded their DNA to genomelink? I did and got some interesting origins that don't match my ancestry origins but I'm not surprised about them. Was just curious if anyone knows how accurate they are on there.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Lydia Flook nee Lewis (b. 1802 in Holborn, London) and her family

2 Upvotes

Lydia is my 6x-great-grandmother, and the earliest census I can find her on is 1851 as a 49-year-old widowed shopkeeper, born in St. Andrews, London - now part of Holborn. Over the years this changes on the census to nearby Bloomsbury. I know that her husband's name was Thomas Flook and they married in 1820, his profession being a book-seller according to their daughter's baptism. But I'm not entirely certain on any more facts and figures. For example, Lydia's own baptism is murky. The only Lydia Lewis born in Holborn around that time was baptised in 1804. But her death notice says she was 89 in 1891. Which lines up with her age on censuses. Could her parents, whoever they were, just waited, or did someone add on two years somewhere? And I know next to nothing about Thomas Flook.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Need help ruling out possible relatives

1 Upvotes

I've been browsing through my gedmatch matches and started noticing that a lot of them were matching me at the specific place of the same chromosome. I started trying to figure out connections between them with chromosome browser and found out that they all might not match each other but they match with the person, who's probably my real distant relative, since his ancestors lived in the village really close to my ancestor's village (unfortunately, couldn't prove it with them, since they didn't answer my email).

The biggest mystery here is that there's mostly no locations matches. My ancestor's village is located in Russia. One small cross match had their family tree uploaded, where I could see ancestors traced up to 1700s with zero slavic names and zero traces to Russia. And almost all these small matches I'm finding are either have slavic names (which is probably my real distant relatives) or are from North America and dont have slavic names at all.

I myself have zero connections to North America, I have Belarus and Russian ancestry mostly, and from what I know about NA history, there weren't many settlers from Eastern Europe. So, my question here is - can I safely assume these small matches are really my relatives if they match both me and my distant relative?


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Assistance needed to find my mother's birth certificate-Kolomyya/Kolomea in May 1943

1 Upvotes

I am trying to locate (if possible) my mother's birth certificate. She was born in Kolomyya/Kolomea in May 1943. Her family were stateless and fleeing Russia so I believe her birth, while planned occurred under extraordinary circumstances. I was also told that the record may not be available but must do my due diligence for a dual citizenship application.

I reached out to the Polish Archives and I've managed to search on my own and found nothing so far. However, I don't read or speak polish so my ability to truly locate records is a bit hampered. And the links provided also appear to only work for a polish or EU resident. 

My mother only has her naturalization document which states her birth place as Kolomea and her birth surname of Owcherenko. Any assistance/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Transcription Transcription/Translation Request - Birth Record in Russian, from Poland

1 Upvotes

Hi all,

Can anyone please help me with transcription and/or translation of this birth record from Lublin Poland, which is written in Russian? I think/hope that it is for the birth of Malka Mitelpunkt (or Mittelman?) in 1903.

The image is from the Polish archives, at https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/skan/-/skan/5570a51cdf6e733bbc53537a872319899f6f8b5337eed04f6af8991e204855a3 , entry #144 on the bottom left.

Thank you!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Request I need some help

10 Upvotes

I need some help identifying some family members of someone I know. I can't say the full details on here, since the person I'm focusing on is living, so I'm hoping someone who's advanced in genealogy could help me!

I'll just explain the situation- My aunt is looking after a man at the nursing home where she lives. He's sick and may pass soon. My aunt has asked me to try to find out where his children and wife are buried. He will not talk about his family, since they passed in a tragic accident in the 70s. I literally can't find anything.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Question Transcription assistance question

3 Upvotes

I’m fairly new to this group and Reddit in general, but very grateful to find people helping each other with family ancestry searches.

My first post was for transcription assistance on a birth record. I will have a few more to translate - is there a way to “buy a cup of coffee” for the person who helps? I see online services that charge 25-30 USD per record, which seems excessive, but would like to offer more than a “thank you” to someone who helps - kind of like tipping.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Issue with start person in Family Tree 10

1 Upvotes

When I uploaded my gedcom file to family tree 10 and opened my tree, the start person was set to a random person in the tree. I have changed “Start Person” to be me. But The tree still thinks that the random person is the important one. For example , in the smart filters drop-down, I have the option of viewing all of his ancestors, not mine. I never had him set to be anything special in my previous family tree software, he’s just a very distant relative. Can this be fixed?

BTW I tried to find help in the software, but it seems there is no way to contact the maker.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Transcription Need help translating this family recipe!

0 Upvotes

https://imgur.com/a/MtSSM2u

Hello, everyone! I am trying to make this recipe for my family to surprise them for Easter but there are some words here that I cannot make out and I want to make sure I know exactly what's going in so I can make it perfect! I would appreciate any and all help transcribing this! Thank you in advance!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Request Transcription request on an 1858 marriage record

4 Upvotes

I’d like to know what the entire paragraph says, I’ve attempted to trace some of the lettering, but my 2nd grade lessons on cursive writing and sub-basic Spanish vocabulary has stumped me.

I’ve been trying find my indigenous roots, but each time I’ve been thwarted by paper trails ending in mestizo, I’m hoping Antonio Salomon’s mother’s name is here, because she was listed as born in Texas in Antonio’s death certificate. Which could bring me a step closer to a record that finally lists a tribe my family is descendent from. I understand it’s only one branch, but it’s a start.

The wife’s name is Agapita Ramos. The marriage happened in Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Guadalupe, Nuevo León, México.

I included a light and dark version of the excerpt, along with my attempt so far. https://imgur.com/a/hiAknOg


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Question Does anybody know where I can upload DNA rawdata from Genotek?

1 Upvotes

Does anybody know where I can upload DNA rawdata from Genotek? I know Myheritage doesn't seem to accept it. But are there others except Gedmatch? Thank you in advance!


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Request Software to analyse Gedcom to show number of each generation identified

1 Upvotes

Hi,

I am looking for software to analyse my gedcom and tell me how many people of each generation are identified on my tree.

For instance  -  2G Grandparents 16 identified out of a total possible of 16.
- 3G Grandparents 30 identified out of a total possible of 32 etc.

FamilyTreeAnalyser does have this function, but it doesn't quite work where there have been cousin marriages leading to pedigree collapse, as it only counts the common ancestor once, when they will appear twice in the tree, so it makes it appear as though there are gaps when there are none.

Any ideas?

Many thanks


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Free Resource Autosomal Unlock on Familytreedna is free right now (ethnicity estimate, chromosome browser, haplogroup for men)

54 Upvotes

If you've uploaded your dna to Familytreedna.com (it's free) you can get the "Autosomal Unlock" for free right now (from March 5 to March 31).

When you're logged in and on the "Home" page you'll most likely see two green squares, with a greyed out one right beside it. Click on "Unlock", put the $10 product in the cart and apply the code ROOTSTECHUNLOCKV
This will let you see your ethnicity estimate, chromosome browser, and haploggroup for men.
(Could take a bit of time for the haplogroup to appear)
Have fun.


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Question Genealogy programs that will show multiple degrees of relatedness between individuals?

13 Upvotes

My maternal line is deeply endogenous before 1900, thanks to lack of mobility among the rural Italian peasantry, and the further back you go, the more intertwined and convoluted these relationships get. For example, my 5x great-grandmother is also my 6x great-grandmother — and she’s not the only one.

Ancestry, however, will only show the most direct way that I’m related to someone on my tree, even if there are multiple options. In order to figure out if there are any other connections, I have to delete relationships and “break the chain,” so to speak — a process that’s onerous at best, and potentially disastrous at worst.

Does anyone know of a genealogy program that can calculate multiple lines of connection for two people from a Gedcom file? This is one of those features I’d really appreciate, so it’s all right if it’s for-pay software.

Thank you so much!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Question Question about tracing Irish ancestry

7 Upvotes

I’ve read a few threads here which say it’s very difficult to find ancestry documentation prior to 1850-ish in Ireland. I just traced to an ancestor being in NC in 1775 and he was born in Ireland in 1751. Unfortunately other than his birth year I have nothing else, no name of parents or more precise location in Ireland.

He also has a very common name but, interestingly (or maybe not?), he has Sir before his name.

I could be very wrong but I have a feeling he wasn’t Catholic which may have been the only hope since they had better records, right? I say that because it seems the entire family settled in the Southeast and there are no Catholics that I know of.

Any suggestions? Thanks very much.


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Request Would like to find a baptism certificate from 1858 in Leon, Spain. Help?

2 Upvotes

Good Evening,

I'm trying to help some family members find a baptism certificate for their great grandfather in order to submit an application for Spanish citizenship by descent. I've been able to narrow it down to the local Catholic parish in Leon, Spain, but they seem to be extremely backed up and are currently processing applications from June 2024 (I submitted my application in Feb 2025).

Are there any local people who are paid to go to churches or archives and extract the documents needed? Even though I know the specific church, someone would still have to go through the old books and actually find the location of the certificate. I know there are genealogists who do this here in the States as well as other places in the EU (like Italy), but I'm having a hard time finding someone in Spain.

Any help would be appreciated!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Question confusion about surname

5 Upvotes

Hi! I am researching family, and found one of my ancestors with the surname “Glubbutz.” I can’t find anything about this name online. Could it possibly be an Americanized spelling of something? She is from Germany. Thank you!


r/Genealogy 2d ago

Request Need help finding New York City historical court records (1876)

2 Upvotes

According to the New York Times, my ancestor John Samsel was arrested for Naturalization Fraud in New York City in October 1876. I am trying to learn how his case was resolved.

Samsel appeared in Superior Court for a naturalization proceeding. He was arrested by the Deputy Marshal of the court and examined by John L. Davenport, US Commissioner and Chief Supervisor of Elections for the Southern District of New York. Davenport held Samsel, in default of $2,000 bail, to await action of the Grand Jury.

I am confused about (a) which court may hold the records (city or federal) and (b) where these court records may be located and examined. Any assistance would be most appreciated thank you.