This is so fascinating!!! Great work and great finds!!!!

Researching my great-grandpa Salvatore (aka Sam)’s early jobs as a musician has been fascinating. Though his dad and brother worked for the railroad company, he pursued his dreams of being a musician right out of school. By 18, he was the conductor of his own band, Conti’s Royal Italian Band, performing with a traveling carnival, Rutherford Greatest Shows. I remember hearing that he travelled the Midwest, playing all over. But no one ever mentioned that it was with a carnival?! To me, that seems an important detail 🎡 It appears that the carnival had a rough year in 1916, with an article reporting they had consistently been losing money at each stop they were making. I’m not sure if this was when my great-grandpa put an end to his carnie days, but I do know that by 1917, he was working as a musician at the Arlington Cafe in Chicago when he signed up for the World War I Draft Registration (three months before he married my great-grandma). From what I’ve gleaned of Arlington Cafe so far, it was the epitome of the seedy cabarets flouting liquor laws at the time yet “somehow” managed to remain open. Arlington Cafe was splashed all over the Chicago newspapers for being an unruly hot bed of criminals protected by crooked law enforcement and government officials, where the music “never stopped”. These types of cabarets were often described as dangerous vice ridden joints infested with both crime and a rowdy & randy crowd without inhibition. Quite an eventful beginning to a musical career don’t you think 👀

In honor of Father’s Day tomorrow, I put together a little same-age comparison between the senior year high school photos of my grandpa, my dad & me when each of us was around 18 ✨ I never got to meet my dad’s dad, but my dad told so many stories about him growing up that I still felt connected to him, as though I knew him in a way. Now that my dad is gone, I hope we can pass that same sentiment and connection to his grandchildren as he & my grandpa continue to live on in our memories & in our hearts ❤️ I’ve done these comparisons for a few generations on my maternal line, so it felt time to do a paternal one as well 🫶

Repaired it but sadly blurred that poor lady's face - but obviously it can't add what wasn't there/clear enough, etc. I'm still amazed at all that my heritage can do. Can't wait for the future. Maybe they'll be able to make life sized 360 holograms of our loved ones/ancestors etc and we can wear a thing that lets us feel them 'hug' us or whatever. A kiss on the cheek. It's such beautiful idea and I hope it happens before I leave this world for the next adventure, where ever it may be.

This is great, I hadn’t looked at genealogy like this!! Thank you!!

Gen Zero 🔛🔝

Each generation experiences the world differently, gaining unique perspectives as a result, and each generation is the next link that connects us all throughout time, threading us together, past, present and future. Without one, cannot come the other. There are many influences that shape the people we are and become, and one to consider is the time period during which a person lives. This is important to remember for our ancestors as well. The social, political and environmental conditions during which they lived would have impacted them over the course of their lives just as they do for us today. Viewing our ancestors through this generational lens offers insight and a better understanding of their life’s decisions and experiences. These generational categories began in the late 19th century in the United States and have since grown in popularity over the last century, though the dates are rough as it’s really based on general consensus. Which generation do you belong to?

Gen Z ✨

Millennials ✨

Gen X ✨

Baby Boomers ✨

The Silent Generation ✨

This is amazing!!! Great work Nicole!!

Ahhh, Nico!!! I love this!! So many beautiful woman right there!!❤

I wouldn’t be where I am without them 😍 Left to right: my Great-Grandma, Grams, Mamma, and me ✨ I’m so grateful for the strong, dedicated mothers in my life today and every day 💕 honoring and wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all of those who mother, past and present 🙌

Elizabeth Hulse, my 3x great-grandma who I haven’t found a photo for yet, currently holds the family record of having at least 17 children 🤯 It’s also possible, given the gaps between a few of her recorded births, that she may have been pregnant or given birth to children that did not survive infancy and were not recorded as their siblings were. In fact, that’s the case with many other female ancestors. The further back in time you research, the more frequently you encounter higher infant mortality and fewer available records. Records, documentation and family lore offer a peek into what these women experienced as mothers, and how their acts of motherhood each contributed to the chain of events that would lead to the births of us and this generation. All of us connected by the bond created when a mother carries and births a child, continuing the family’s legacy. So many different backgrounds, upbringings and experiences amongst these mothers I call family and just some of the women I’ve been thinking of and celebrating this week as we approach Mother’s Day ❤️

But they stayed pregnant for one child after the other.

This is fantastic!! Love it and all our family of generations of intelligent, strong and beautiful women!! You included!!!!

It’s incredible to look at the faces of each one of these women and know that I wouldn’t be here without each of them 🙌 So many different backgrounds, upbringings and experiences amongst these mothers I call family and just some of the women I’ll be thinking of and celebrating this week especially as we approach Mother’s Day ❤️

Hoping the algorithm brings this back to me. After my own family searches, I do realize this is going to be good

Until now, their faces remained a mystery to me, the only photo we have of my great-grandparents together ✨ From what I’ve pieced together so far, they were neighbors on the same block and attended the same Catholic church in a rather infamous part of Chicago, a place that was then referred to as Little Sicily or Little Hell. They must have fallen in love against the wishes of family, because they eloped when Doris was just 15 years old and Sam was 20. For years, I couldn’t find their marriage record. Turns out when they married in 1917, Chicago law required the consent of the parents for males under the age of 21 and females under the age of 18. With parental consent, males could marry as young as 17 and females 14. This strongly suggests that they were going against their parents’ wishes by getting married. And so, they took matters into their own hands and crossed the Illinois border into Wisconsin one fall day in October. They were married in Milwaukee on a Wednesday, October 17, 1917. Their first son would be born just over 9 months later in Chicago. Finding their marriage certificate was tricky not simply because they married in another state, but they both used names they weren’t regularly using in records. My great-grandma was born Dorothy Klatt, and though every other record I’ve found for her names her as such, on her wedding day she chose to go by her nickname, Doris Klatt. As for my great-grandpa, he used the name Salvator Salvepro, a name that I’ve only seen him use a few other times over the course of a decade during his lifetime, and then he never used it again. This is another story in itself that I’m still unraveling (I have a theory!) so stay tuned if it interests you 👀

Love all this genealogy!! Great information!!! Thank you!!

And up until the last 30 yrs, when Mexicans began illegal entry, Immigrants had to learn English, be quarantined, be vetted against past crimes, and swear an Oath to the US. The Immigrants in this video are nothing like the current batches.

Though they arrived by boat at Ellis Island and not by plane, it’s estimated that close to 12 million immigrants were processed there between 1892 and its closure in 1954. As for my ancestors that were part of that 12 million, a family of four including my great-grandpa, his mother, brother and sister arrived at Ellis Island on July 30, 1907. The passenger manifest noted that they were joining my great-great-grandpa in Chicago, who had arrived via Ellis Island by himself four years earlier on December 3, 1903. They had all made the 15 day journey by boat from Palermo to New York. My great-grandpa was only 12 years old when he made that trip, the youngest of his siblings. I wonder what he thought as they sailed towards the bustling city of New York on that summer day in 1907, the likes of something he had probably never seen before. My great-grandpa was often described as a fervent American patriot, and I have a strong feeling that this is one of those moments that really stuck with him and shaped the person he would become ❤️ Did any of your ancestors immigrate through Ellis Island?

Virginia especially beautiful

Love this!!! I’d have to say Great Grandma Virginia in these pics!!!❤

That was so interesting and extremely helpful. Tags were a closed book to me so seeing how and what you included was perfect. Thank you so much and if I may add a clear explanation too which isn't the case with all channels.

Virginia

Geez 97 and 89 they must have lived 2 hecks of lives

Sadly, I don’t have the photos of my other two great-grandmas for a complete comparison ❤️ but can you imagine what it would have been like to live during all they did? I had the incredible opportunity to personally know and love both of these wonderful women I call great-grandma 🥰 growing up, most people remark whether a child looks more like a parent or grandparent, and are less often compared to a great-grandparent. It’s fun to compare the features that myself and my siblings and cousins share with them, especially at the same ages! What do you think, do I look more like my great-grandma Phyllis on the left or more like my great-grandma Virginia on the right?

Oh my goodness!! Yes!!! I never put that together!!

This is so beautiful and so true!! Love!!❤

THANK YOU 🙏 GOD, AMEN 🙏

Thank you ❤😊

I knew something would come along and give me my daily cry

Beautiful ❤

Love it, Are the scan results sharp to the point where you can see the dust? Because my HP Scanjet G3100 scanner when scanning film at 4800dpi has blur which eliminates the film details. I've done everything to find the problem, it seems like the scanner isn't as sharp as I expected? If so, do you have any recommendations for film scanners under 100 dollars? Or cheap ones that can produce sharp scans without additional sharpening

Great info and you made it easy to go back and replicate the steps. However, the music is too loud and often drowns out the narrative. It's very distracting, but the info you provided is very helpful..

Love this analogy!! Explaining this DNA as you did helps make sense of it all!! Fantastic!! Thank you!!!

what an amazing underaded video

If you’re curious how it is that full siblings can have slightly different DNA & “ethnicity estimates”, think of a jar of M&M’s as the DNA of the parents and each time you grab a handful of M&Ms from the jar, you’ll get a slightly different variation in colors more often than not, just as children will have slight variations in their DNA more often than not (identical twins being the exception). This has been one of my favorite analogies to use when explaining why full siblings don’t have the exact same DNA (and why all siblings are encouraged to test in a genetic genealogy case). Now I’ve got some M&Ms to eat 😋

the one on the right

Do you copy the exact metadata for the backside that you did on the front?

The mother was a beautiful woman. Would have love to see a picture her in her younger years.

Within 6 years of taking this photo, a series of tragic deaths befell the Hennessee family beginning with 22 year old Nannie, the eldest daughter, in 1911, followed by John, the eldest son, in 1920 of tuburculosis. The next year, the second eldest boy, Joe Berry, died. Three years after Joe’s passing, their mother Martha joined them in 1924, followed by younger sister Nineva in 1926 at the age of 28. The 1920s was a difficult decade for the Hennessee family, as it was for many in the United States and many other parts of the world, coping with the aftermath of WWI and the Spanish Flu before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. My great-great-grandma is one of the three siblings in this photo that survived and lived into their 70s and 80s. Though their other siblings died young, they had a total of almost 50 children combined 🙌

Jessie Mae Erwin was born 110 years ago today on March 16, 1914. She passed away on her 61st birthday, and though I never got to meet her, the stories that have been shared about her have allowed me to get to know her in ways I never would have if it weren’t for family members who took the time to do so ❤️ share your stories, they matter!

You need to find out, PLEASE!!!❤

My Papa talked often about how he’d been shipped off to the Navy before he turned 18, and now I see that he was forced to leave more than just friends and family behind when he graduated in June of 1955, and shipped off to the West coast the next month. That’s when Norma Jean created this scrapbook for him as a keepsake “on this day of July 6, 1955”, which he in turn kept all these years later. Time is interesting like that, isn’t it? I doubt Norma ever imagined that his future granddaughter would be left puzzling over the scrapbook she so carefully and lovingly crafted for him. What’s more, if they’d stayed together, I wouldn’t be here as I am today, because he wouldn’t have married my Grams. Stories like this add to the richness and reality of life: things don’t always work out the way we think, plan or hope they will. They didn’t end up together, but Norma Jean is part of my Papa’s story, just as he is part of hers. I may never get any more answers about Norma, but this precious memento has been scanned, digitized and shared now thanks to her ❤️

Who’s Norma gene Patrick?

This 😎 awesome... they always dressed well back then.