All posts by Angela Napolitano

About Angela Napolitano

Angela Napolitano is a researcher on our Research and Library Services Team. She has a BS in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University in New York. She is a certificate holder from the Boston University Genealogical Research Certificate program.  For the past few years, she has been volunteering at NEHGS/American Ancestors and assisting with the Catholic Records Project. She has frequently traveled to Italy to research ancestors in the Campania and L’Aquila regions. Her interests include America, Ireland, Italy, and DNA. She currently lives in Boston and contributes to genealogy study groups across the country.

Looking More Closely at DNA Shared Matches

Technology,

DNA strands on a blue backgroundWe can use DNA as another source in our genealogical research toolbox to help discover family connections and break down brick walls. DNA evidence and traditional documentation, like vitals and census records, should be used to help prove relationships between two people. Many DNA tools exist on different platforms that can help us find significant matches which can reveal common ancestors between two people.

When I began to utilize DNA in my family research, I was mystified by the idea of “triangulating” DNA matches. I discovered that it was simply another strategy for visualizing a few matches that all share a common ancestor. Continue reading Looking More Closely at DNA Shared Matches →

Finding Clues in Unexpected Places

Research Methods, ,
Handwritten letter attached to Patrick Joseph Morrissey’s death record, 1 March 1922. (1)

Death certificates can add depth to a family tree, but when the parent names for the deceased are documented incorrectly, it can lead research down the wrong path—especially when contending with a common Irish surname.

The only source with direct evidence naming my great-grandmother Margaret’s parents was a death record from Brooklyn, New York, in 1936, listing her father’s name as Patrick Morrissey and her mother’s name as Margaret Powers. The informant for this death record was Margaret’s daughter Marion (Mary Ann) Lilley. Marion would have been an unreliable source to supply the names of Margaret’s parents, since they had died long before Marion was born.2 No birth record for Margaret A. Morrissey, born around 1870 in Pennsylvania, was found to exist. Official Pennsylvania vital records (birth, death, and marriage) registrations were not enacted in Pennsylvania until 1906, and 1896 at the county level.3 Continue reading Finding Clues in Unexpected Places →

A case of mistaken identity

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, , , , ,
German Evangelical Home in 1925. Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks, v1974.001, courtesy of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

My grandmother, Emma Mueller, never really knew her father. Her mother, Marica Michelic Muhvic, a widow – born in Stari-Tsg, Slovenia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1873 – had emigrated alone to New York in 1903 to seek a better life.[1] Marica changed her name to Mary and found a job working as a housekeeper in the German Evangelical Home for the Aged in Brooklyn, New York, where she was living in 1905.[2] Here she could interact with people that made her feel like she was in her home country, since they shared a common language and culture. Continue reading A case of mistaken identity →